1Malaysia - now vomiting

Friday, March 13, 2015

by Azly Rahman

Like many Malaysians, I am vomiting through the dungeons of my soul reading the reports daily on the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), if it is true that the  leaders of this country are bankrupting it.

This is especially so when 1MDB may one day suck the blood, sweat, and tears dry out of the long and difficult years of investment of the Malaysian public, especially the kampung folk, the rubber tappers, the small businessmen and labourers of any race, not to mention the filthy work of secrecy we are seeing operating in the government, at a time when the nauseating hypocrisy of slogans such as "high-income nation," "world-class education" and "syariah index" are trumpeted and shoved down the throat of the people who are kept in fear and silence for criticising the run-amuck of the nation's "global-smart-partnership of Ali-Baba and John and Hollywood-hedonistic bloodsucker-filthy corporate-crony-useless-sons and daughters of sicko-capitalists".

Excuse me for the long running sentence. And excuse my little explosion too. The spirit of the New York beat poet Allen Ginsburg is running amuck in me today.


And excuse me while I kiss the sky and vomit through my bruised soul, as a Jimi Hendrix song would go screaming. What then must we do, in the midst of those in power pounding on the helpless crying for help in demanding justice and decency of making ends meet - especially to be reading stories of bloodsuckers and big-time conmen partying in yachts while the rakyat drowns in broken sampans and broken spirits?

And these premature talks about a replacement prime minister and who that might be too bores me to death.

Same old mould, I believe. These are mere dynastic wars over wealth and power that have become a disease of the nobility of politics as what it should be about: public service.

Same breed of emperors in new clothes

What do all these mean if what we are getting will perhaps be even worse vendetta and a continuation of the installation of the same breed of emperors in new clothes preying upon the poor and the helpless, using the state apparatuses to maintain a jet-setting lifestyle and lying to the people to beg for a mandate to rule?

Fools we have become and made to be, haven’t we?

My immediate worry is this:

With a bailout plan for 1MDB, even to pay just the interest of the loans and the new, horrifying numbers on the newly defined loan/bonds, what are we looking at? Will the rakyat's pension plan/life savings/national unit trusts and the like be used to help these crooks out?

Have we not learned from the experience of other countries how public funds were used to bail out such "Cayman Island" investments?  Do the people know enough about the kind of dictators, global CEOs and glorified money-launderers who stash their money in secret vaults in Switzerland, Singapore and those Islands?

What makes you think that your KWSP/EPF money is still going to be safe - when no one seems to want to tell the truth and what we are reading is about a barely 30-year-old kid and an investment punk partying till he pukes and investing our money till we all puke?

Why have we come to this point in history? You nationalists out there, tell me.

Now, parliamentarians we put to work - in your comfortable sittings, you better ask the government how the rakyat's savings are going to be wiped off dry!

This is totally insane a country! Yes - my beloved country I still love to see things go well for the next generation.

But in the next two generations our children may have to eat grass, wood and stones.

Progress towards a failed state...

Like Jonathan Swift’s suggestion to fatten up babies in The Modest Proposal to solve the Irish potato famine, I’d propose something less radical: just give each family a plot of land for them to plant food, raise chickens, and live in communes and live a life of dignity without falling prey to glorified gamblers. This country is gone and going to the dogs - with this progress towards a failed state.

Why do we still have these people running our country and running it down? And when the people speak up, you in power throw them in jail so that you folks in power can run free, looting and looting while speaking Greek and geek and those GST and your gobbledygook of your syariah index lying through your behind.  Excuse my little explosion again. Now the blood of the poets Rimbaud and Rendra combined, is boiling in me.

How filthy and corrupt can man get! Can't we teach one another to live within our means and be grateful and to think of others?

All these while I thought our economists, political scientists, and investment strategists in this and that national and high-strung high impact steering committees are well-versed in the Keynes-Hayek debate and the intricacies of the nation’s economy as it rides the wave of national reform and globalisation.

We seem to pride ourselves in this nationalistic obsession with our own version of command economy and be wary of letting the market solely dictate, and angry at any attempt by global empires to tell us what to do and how to behave – in the name of sovereignty. We seem to be in control of our “culturally-constructed commanding heights” but what is happening now?

Those entrusted to control the economy are gambling with it, big time, and letting the big-time gamblers sell the country off. Worse, do we not know what is happening to our national financial assets as many are guessing that they are being used to recover the money we lost through our secret wheeling and dealing in the world of casino capitalism, where “wolves of Wall Street” race with the velocity of money?

We can never know the truth – just like the truth of what happened to the missing Flight MH370, that I wrote about in April last year.

This is what we have become - a secret society of leaders making secret deals and using some acts to punish those who wish to know the truth – especially when the life savings of those who slog for this world of indentured servitude is at stake.

This is a case that might be worse than America’s Enron and Subprime Fiasco combined; a world too big to fail but crumbled like Humpty Dumpty and all.

What then must we do?

Source: http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2015/03/1malaysia-now-vomiting.html

Survey: 42% wants to give Pakatan a chance

6:12PM May 3, 2013

A poll by Merdeka Centre found that 42 percent of respondents believe that Pakatan Rakyat should be given a chance to govern the country.

In contrast, 41 percent said that only BN can govern the country. Thirteen percent of respondents were unsure and four percent refused to reveal their stand.

The survey involved telephone interviews with 1,600 respondents from the peninsular selected through random stratified sampling.

Rural and female respondents were more likely to believe that only BN can govern Malaysia, whereas males and urban voters are more inclined towards Pakatan.

Older respondents were found to be more likely to support BN. However, the level of support would drop in tandem with the age groups. For Pakatan, the reverse is true.

These reverse trends were also clear in terms of age household income. It is noted that low income earners are more inclined towards BN, while higher income earners side with Pakatan.

BN can also count on support from government servants and those who are not formally employed, although Pakatan enjoys support from those working in the private sector and those who are self-employed.

In addition, those with no Internet access were also more likely to support BN. The reverse is true for those with Internet access. 

Meanwhile, those who have voted before are equally split, but first-time voters are more inclined towards the Pakatan coalition.

Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/228983

Najib's ratings slide, BR1M not working

5:27PM May 3, 2013

As the country heads for its 13th general election on Sunday, pollster Merdeka Centre’s latest poll has found BN chief Najib Abdul Razak’s approval rating sliding down a further three percent from its last poll.

The survey carried out among voters in peninsular Malaysia between April 28 to May 2 also placed Pakatan Rakyat ahead of BN in terms of the favoured party to form the government.

Najib's popularity has taken a slight dip from 64 percent when the last poll was conducted in March, to 61 percent now just days before the country heads to polls.

Merdeka Centre said that the figure reflects the slide in the "feel good" factor that was previously generated by the large-scale distribution of Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) and also other forms of cash handouts.

Concerns over the economy topped the list of issues that voters wanted to hear being discussed, at 25 percent.

Marginal seats will decide winner

Based on the survey results, Merdeka Center said that the emerging victor in the election will be determined by which side manages to snag a larger pie from the 46 marginal parliamentary seats across the country - all of which fall within a 3 percent vote-shift margin.

Thirty-four of the marginal seats are located in peninsular Malaysia while six each are in Sabah and Sarawak.

Apart from the marginal seats, the centre predicts that BN will win an estimated 81 parliamentary seats while Pakatan will win an estimated 89.

The survey was carried out among 1,600 registered voters via telephone interviews, with 59 percent of respondents being Malay, 32 percent Chinese and 9 percent Indians.

Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/228976

Bersih says ‘vindicated’ by voter survey, proves EC lost mandate

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal

May 27, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 — The latest Merdeka Centre survey result is proof that voters have lost confidence in the current electoral process as well as the role of the Election Commission (EC), polls watchdog Bersih said today.

The findings, said Bersih co-chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, have justified the electoral reforms group's struggle and underscores the crucial need for true political reforms before the next general election.

The survey, conducted just days before tens of thousands joined the April 28 Bersih rally found that that more than nine in 10 voters in peninsular Malaysia want the electoral roll cleaned up before the 13th general election.

Merdeka Centre found that nearly half of the 1,019 registered voters surveyed believed the registry contained dubitable entries that included foreigners.

"Public confidence is a major issue, people are concerned the EC is not doing their job, their duty is to build confidence not come out arrogantly.

"The EC is (only) in employment in so long as they enjoy public confidence," Ambiga(picture) told The Malaysian Insider over the telephone.

When asked whether the survey result meant the EC had lost its mandate as an independent body overseeing the country's electoral process, Ambiga said : "Yes, I believe so."

"This is shown not only by the survey, but by the 250,000 that showed up last month at Bersih's rally.

"But the burden lies not only on the EC, but the authorities as well to ensure electoral reforms are carried out," she said.

"The survey results vindicates Bersih," Ambiga added.

She said the survey result also indicated that many Malaysian voters demanded accountability from the EC, and that the commission cannot afford to ignore this.

"People are not buying a piecemeal solution...The EC can no longer think people are stupid, that they don’t know what they are talking about."

The Merdeka Centre survey found that 92 per cent of voters want the electoral roll to be cleaned up before elections are held and that only 44 per cent of the respondents expressed confidence that the election process in Malaysia was free from irregularity and abuse.

48 per cent of the respondents agreed that the electoral list was inaccurate and "embedded with doubtful voters such as foreigners, people who were transferred without their knowledge or people with multiple identities."

Bersih's April 28 rally was the third in five years calling for electoral improvements.

After last July’s demonstration, Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced a raft of reforms including a parliamentary select committee to look into enhancing the electoral system over a period of six months.

However, early last month, Bersih called for another protest, saying the recently-concluded polls panel had fallen short of its demands, which include a cleaning of the electoral roll, postal voting reform, free access to media for all parties, and the use of indelible ink.

But Merdeka Centre said in a press statement that its survey conducted between April 14 to 26 found only 39 per cent of respondents understood the electoral reform movement’s key demands.

Fewer still, 34 per cent, believe the bipartisan committee on electoral reforms was a sincere attempt at electoral improvements.

Although tens of thousands descended onto the capital last month, the event was marred by clashes between police and protestors.

This led the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) to accuse the opposition of attempting a violent coup by hijacking the rally.

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/bersih-says-vindicated-by-voter-survey-proves-ec-lost-mandate/

Pua: Voter survey shows failure of PM’s reforms

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal

May 26, 2012

Pua said Najib still has the opportunity to make meaningful reforms to the electoral process before the next general election. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, May 26 — The latest Merdeka Center survey result is clear indication of Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s failure in executing his political reforms pledge, DAP MP Tony Pua has said.

The research house found that more than nine in 10 voters in peninsular Malaysia want the electoral roll cleaned up before the general election that must be called within the year, according to its survey conducted just days before tens of thousands joined the April 28 Bersih rally for free and fair polls.

DAP national publicity secretary Pua said the survey results were loud and clear, as only 44 per cent of the 1,019 registered voters surveyed were  “confident” that the electoral process was free from irregularity and only five per cent of respondents felt the voter roll did not need cleaning up before the next general election.

“Merdeka Center’s latest survey results [give] damning evidence that the people [have] lost faith in the country’s electoral system, despite the ‘best effort’ by the prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, to set a transformation agenda.

 “The results clearly showed that Malaysians have very little confidence in the half-hearted steps taken by the prime minister, which [were] intended to give a better perception of our electoral process,” he said in a statement today.

The survey also found that nearly half of the 1,019 registered voters surveyed believed the registry contained dubitable entries that included foreigners.

Pua took a swipe at the government’s Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on electoral reforms, saying the survey’s results demonstrated public distrust towards the panel.

Only 34 per cent thought the PSC was “a sincere effort” from the Barisan Nasional government “to reform” while 43 per cent thought it was an “attempt to cover up or divert public attention.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP said the survey also “fully justified” Bersih’s reasons for having its third rally last month in the city capital.

“The prime minister will have the opportunity to pass new laws seeking a full transformation of the electoral process when the Parliament commences its sitting on June 11 before dissolving it for the next general election.

“Without true and thorough reforms from Datuk Seri Najib, he will fail to win legitimacy even if he were to win the vote count in the 13th GE as he will be seen as having won the elections through cheating and fraud, instead of via the support of the people,” Pua said.

 After last July’s Bersih demonstration, Najib announced a raft of reforms including a parliamentary panel to look into enhancing the electoral system over a period of six months.

However, early last month, Bersih called for another protest, saying the recently-concluded polls panel had fallen short of its demands, which include a cleaning of the electoral roll, postal voting reform, free access to media for all parties, and the use of indelible ink.

Although tens of thousands descended onto the capital last month, the event was marred by clashes between police and protestors.

This led the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) to accuse the opposition of attempting a violent coup by hijacking the rally.

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/dap-voter-survey-shows-failure-of-pms-reforms/