Yesterday, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister was in Sulawesi, Indonesia while the Prime Minister was in Lesotho. The situation remains the same today. So, one question – who was in control yesterday? How about today? Is it the speaker of the Parliament, the secretary of state or simply nobody?
Haha, PAS missed a chance to form an Islamic Republic of Kelantan. Haha, Anwar Ibrahim missed a chance to stage a coup.
Ah, yes. Malaysian students should not get themselves into opposition activities but it’s alright to join the ruling party’s Kelab UMNO Minnesota or any other Kelab UMNO Luar Negara.
I received the following letters via Malaysian students’ association at my alma mater.
Bah. If you are “Malayly-challenged“, here’s a rough translation:
President,
Malaysian students’ association (MSA),Students’ involvement in activities that go against government policy
The government is seriously concerned with students’ involvement in activities sponsored by the Malaysian opposition parties, especially students that are subsidized by the government or any other government agency.
As such, student leaders must remind their respective association members not to attend such activities.
If there are students that are active in any opposition sponsored event, student leaders are requested to inform the Malaysian Student Department (MSD) at Chicago immediately.
Director,
MSD Chicago
[Stamp]
Practice caution – MSA presidents are the newly-instated moles of the ruling party. Now, you people will need to go underground. Heh.
This policy is not new. It’s just that the ruling party (aka the government) in the past few years have been rather flexible on it. This development is a signal that the ruling party is re-emphasizing the policy.
p/s – read [672] Of Anwar Ibrahim at Michigan for context.
The 666th post for an entry on PAS. It truly couldn’t be any more appropriate than this.
Earlier today, Pengkalan Pasir Assemblyman Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Jaafar passed away, leaving a state assembly seat in Kelantan up for grab. This death should remind PAS what they had found out in the last Malaysian general election – PAS is in trouble. How big a trouble:
Wan Abdul Aziz contested on a PAS ticket in the last general election and beat the Barisan Nasional’s candidate, Hanafi Mamat, by a slim 55-vote majority.
He polled 7,168 against Hanafi’s 7,113.
And the bigger picture:
“The present situation is really interesting. If prior to this PAS held 24 seats and Barisan Nasional (BN) 21, now PAS has only 23 seats…Can’t say much, but its an interesting development,” he said this when met by reporters after paying his last respects to Wan Abdul Aziz at the latter’s home in Kubang Bemban, Pasir Mas.
This is also a sneak peak at PAS u-turn in trying to look more moderate. In my opinion however, this u-turn might backfire.
PAS is not alone in this u-turn and certainly no the first. While PAS is slowly trying to relabel itself as moderate Islamist party, UMNO has been doing a more-Islamic-than-PAS ever since Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became UMNO President with his Islam Hadhari. I personally think Islam Hadhari is balderdash but what’s important is, UMNO’s u-turn has been tested and it works. That’s all the matters.
PAS u-turn however is a little bit risky. By becoming more moderate, PAS may stand a chance nationally but not on state level. PAS doesn’t need to move leftward in the political spectrum in Kelantan. Reason is, the population there is already stuck in the right. Too much shifting to the left will see PAS risking disfranchising its base. Already, when PAS invited Mawi to perform in Kelantan, crack was showing within PAS ranks.
But then, I have the impression that Mawi’s concert was a sellout. This so-called Mawi-factor might be an asset instead of a liability. You’ll never know but given what I know right now, I’ll put my money on UMNO this time.
As for me, I don’t really care who will win. Whether it will be PAS or UMNO, I don’t see how it changes the dynamic in Kelantan state assembly. PAS still won’t control two thirds of the state assembly and UMNO or BN, still won’t get half of total seat. This upcoming by-election, which needs to be held within the next 60 days, is more about psychology.
Nevertheless, the next 60 days will be important for battleground Kelantan. Pengkalan Pasir by-election will serve as a signal of things to come in 2008. Or 2009.
erratum – there was an error in post numbering. This post was numbered 666 before the error was discovered.
p/s – oh yeah, joining the bandwagon, Happy Halloween to those that celebrate it. Er, I mean, Deepavali.
Indonesia, while mocking justice, is fast becoming a nation that runs on farcical judiciary.
Australian Schapelle Corby is sentenced to 20 years behind bars for attempting to smuggle marijuana into the country while another Australian Michelle Leslie faces the possibility of maximum 15 years in jail for ecstasy. Abu Bakar Bashir, the cleric who has been found guilty of conspiring in the 2002 Bali attack which killed more than 200 people on the other hand received merely three years of jail time – that penalty has been reduced to mere 20 months.
Doing drugs is bad and I at least am willing to agree to that. It however is certainly no worse than murder. But no, no – the Indonesian authority has differing view.
Indonesian Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin is reported of saying that the psychopath fundamentalist and murderer Abu Bakar Bashir is eligible for further lessening in conjunction of the upcoming Eid. This is absolutely absurd and distastefully dishonors victims of the Bali bombing.
If the Indonesian authority decides to shorten the killer cleric’s sentence soon, they might as well release him and supply all the explosives he needs for future ops.
Or maybe, this is Indonesia’s idea of Halloween.
About fourty years ago, in the Malaysian Parliament, in Malay, by Lee Kuan Yew:
How does the Malay in the kampong find his way out into this modernised civil society? By becoming servants of the 0.3 per cent who would have the money to hire them to clean their shoe, open their motorcar doors? … Of course there are Chinese millionaires in big cars and big houses. Is it the answer to make a few Malay millionaires with big cars and big houses? How does telling a Malay bus driver that he should support the party of his Malay director (UMNO) and the Chinese bus conductor to join another party of his Chinese director (MCA) – how does that improve the standards of the Malay bus driver and the Chinese bus conductor who are both workers in the same company?
If we delude people into believing that they are poor because there are no Malay rights or because opposition members oppose Malay rights, where are we going to end up? You let people in the kampongs believe that they are poor because we don’t speak Malay, because the government does not write in Malay, so he expects a miracle to take place in 1967 (the year Malay would become the national and sole official language). The moment we all start speaking Malay, he is going to have an uplift in the standard of living, and if doesn’t happen, what happens then?
Meanwhile, whenever there is a failure of economic, social and educational policies, you come back and say, oh, these wicked Chinese, Indian and others opposing Malay rights. They don’t oppose Malay rights. They, the Malay, have the right as Malaysian citizens to go up to the level of training and education that the more competitive societies, the non-Malay society, has produced. That is what must be done, isn’t it? Not to feed them with this obscurantist doctrine that all they have got to do is to get Malay rights for the few special Malays and their problem has been resolved. …
I’m finally done with Lee Kuan Yew’s The Singapore Story and I enjoyed it, especially the last few chapters. The book however leaves me behind a few questions. What if we had stayed true to the Federation? What if Singapore were still a Malaysian state? I can’t help but wonder, could Malaysian Malaysia be a reality today if Singapore weren’t expelled from the Federation?
I think yes.
Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party (PAP), given time and if Singapore weren’t expelled from the Federation, would have outmaneuvered the Alliance. Perhaps, given the competition, United Malays National Organization (UMNO) would have turned into United Malaysians National Organization, as Onn Jaafar had envisioned earlier.
Yet, UMNO, seeing that possibility, acted quickly and put their interest first, Malaysia’s second. They expelled Singapore instead to secure their monopoly of power.
Yes, if Singapore were still part of Malaysia, I truly believe we would have a Malaysian Malaysia by now.