KUALA LUMPUR: Umno will always emerge stronger after a fall, and the party will not allow Pakatan Rakyat de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to take over the government, said Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir (Jerlun-BN). “What happened in the previous general election actually has a silver lining and gave a big lesson to Umno. Umno has heard and understood the feelings of the people and will open a new chapter. “The history of Umno proved that every time it fell, it would stand up again, stronger and more powerful. Umno will not rest on its laurels, keep silent and waste time,” he said. Debating the motion of thanks on the royal address in parliament yesterday, Mukhriz said Umno was reviving and it would be the opposition’s turn to be hit by a political tsunami in the next general election. He also criticised Anwar, whom Mohamed Azmin Ali (Gombak-PKR) said would become a future prime minister of Malaysia. Highlighting an article on Anwar in Time magazine written by former US deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraqi war, he said: “Why must Anwar befriend this murderer of more than one million Iraq citizens?” He said an Israeli newspaper portrayed Anwar as “Malaysia’s Future Prime Minister”. “Is this proof that Israel also agrees to Anwar being prime minister of Malaysia? If so, why?” Mukhriz also pointed out that Anwar presided over a non-governmental organisation called Foundation of the Future. “This NGO received funds of US$35 million (RM112 million) from the US State Department, US$10 million from Bahrain and US$11 million from unknown sources,” he said, adding that Anwar also hired Wolfowitz’s girlfriend, Shaha Riza, to work in the NGO after she resigned following a controversy at the World Bank. Wolfowitz was president of the World Bank from 2005 until he quit in June 30, 2007 following a bitter promotion row involving Riza. “The question is, should we allow Anwar, who is directly involved in an organisation with a suspicious background and befriends a neo-conservative who kills Muslims in Iraq, to take over our country’s leadership?” “Of course, not. As long as we are alive, Umno will defend the country’s sovereignty,” he said.
Malaysia’s ruling coalition rattled after election debacle
By John Roberts (wsws.org)
13 May 2008
The new Malaysian parliament was sworn on April 28 after national elections on March 8, which delivered a major blow to the ruling Barisan National (BN) coalition. Unruly scenes during the country’s first ever televised parliamentary session highlight the sharp underlying political tensions that have surfaced as cracks have begun to appear in the regime that has ruled the country since independence in 1957.
De facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim upped the pressure on Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi when he predicted to journalists on April 14 that the government would not last the year. Such was the dissatisfaction in BN ranks, he said, that the opposition would be able to form a government with the support of defectors, particularly from the states of Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo.
Anwar was speaking at the conclusion of a 10,000-strong rally in Kuala Lumpur called to mark the end of a formal legal ban on his involvement in politics. Anwar was finance minister and deputy prime minister until 1998 when he was removed from his posts and expelled in the midst of the Asian financial crisis and sharp differences over economic policy. When he began to campaign against the government, Anwar was arrested and tried on trumped-up charges of corruption and sexual misconduct that resulted in the political ban.
Anwar’s wife is head of the Peoples Justice Party (Keadilan) and formally leader of the parliamentary opposition. However, it is widely believed that an opposition MP will step down to pave the way for Anwar to enter parliament via a by-election. In a clear signal of his intention to do so, Anwar attended the opening session as his wife’s guest.
The opposition parties, including Keadilan, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Islamist Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), now hold 82 seats in the enlarged 222-seat lower house—up from just 19 in the previous parliament. Abdullah’s own United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and other BN partners slumped from 198 to 140 seats and lost the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution.
The government has denied that it is vulnerable to defections, but there are a number of signs that UMNO’s autocratic grip on power is slipping. As well as winning a significant number of federal parliamentary seats, the opposition gained control of four state governments—Penang, Selangor, Perak and Kedah—and retained power in Kelantan. Penang, Selangor and Perak; all are the country’s most industrialised states and Kedah is the main rice producer. Together the five states account for about 56 percent of the country’s GDP.
In the past, the government has not hesitated to punish opposition-controlled states by withholding federal funds and contracts. To do so now, however, would seriously undermine the economy and the government’s own economic plans. The loss of these states threatens to undercut the system of patronage that has formed a crucial prop for UMNO rule. The opposition Pakatan Rakyat or Peoples Front (PF) has promised openness and transparency in the granting of commercial contracts in the states that it controls.
Even the slavishly pro-government media has begun to acknowledge that a political shift is taking place. In a comment in the New Straits Times on April 28, the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research director Mohamed Ariff declared: “Malaysian politics will never be the same again. It is indeed heartening that Malaysia has come of age, with its people looking beyond mundane issues transcending ethnic boundaries, focusing on such loftier issues as institutional integrity, social justice and civil rights.”
The Star on March 23 warned government members that “Barisan stalwarts will have to accept the political reality after the March 8 political tsunami”. It pointed in particular to the breakdown of the communal politics on which UMNO has relied for the past half century to divide voters along ethnic lines. “The political tsunami did not happen without the combination of Malay, Chinese and Indian voters who wanted change. There was cross-ethnicity voting, with Malays voting for DAP and the non-Malays readily backing PAS,” the newspaper stated.
The opposition was able to tap into widespread dissatisfaction, including among the majority Malays, with rising prices, deepening social inequality, the lack of elementary democratic rights and rampant favoritism for a relatively thin layer of well-to-do Malays and Malay businesses closely associated with UMNO. Among the first steps taken by opposition-controlled state governments was to renounce the New Economic Policy, which discriminates against Chinese and Indians in education, business and government jobs.
Prime Minister Abdullah is desperately seeking to shore up his own position within UMNO amid calls for his resignation. Starting on April 19, he announced a series of reforms to try to boost his popularity and fend off criticism from within the political establishment.
A commission is to be established to make the nomination, appointment and promotion of judges more transparent and end the government’s notorious manipulation of the judiciary. Abdullah indicated that former chief judge Lord President Salleh Abbas and five other judges sacked in a politically motivated purge by Mahathir Mohamad in 1988 would be paid compensation.
The number of officers employed by the state Anti-Corruption Agency is to be increased from 2,000 to 7,000. The agency is to receive commission status and report annually to parliament, as well as to the Prime Minister’s office.
Abdullah also announced a plan to ensure food security by spending $US1.3 billion to increase Malaysia’s rice production from around 65 percent of national consumption to 100 percent. High food and fuel prices were one of the main issues in the March election.
Abdullah told the press on April 21 that his reforms were not prompted by election losses but were pledges contained in BN’s 2004 election manifesto that had been delayed because of other priorities. No one believes this threadbare pretext, least of all those within UMNO seeking to replace the prime minister.
Former prime minister Mahathir Mohammed has been openly campaigning for Abdullah to be replaced by deputy prime minister Najib Razak. Mahathir has supported a call by former finance minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah for an extraordinary general meeting of UMNO to resolve the leadership question.
In late April the Batu Pahat UMNO division called for Abdullah to resign before the UMNO conference in December. In a separate comment, Mukhriz Mahathir, son of the former prime minister, warned that if Abdullah did not step down there could be a further split in UMNO. Abdullah’s resignation, he said, would allow “the party to close ranks and go about reclaiming its political pride” battered in the March election.
There is broader unease in conservative ruling circles. Already two state sultans, including Terengganu Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin who is currently serving as king, have defied Abdullah by refusing to uphold the prime minister’s nomination for the post of state chief minister. The king also refused last year to approve two judicial appointments reportedly because he believed they were corrupt.
Behind this political turmoil are sharp divisions over economic policy. After expelling Anwar in 1998, Mahathir imposed a series of capital and currency controls that, for a period, appeared to stabilise the Malaysian economy. After replacing Mahathir in 2003, Abdullah eased these measures, shelved several high-profile infrastructure investments and tried to boost foreign investment, prompting increasingly vitriolic opposition from his predecessor. At the same time, opposition parties have been critical of the government for not going far enough in removing economic restrictions and ending corruption and nepotism.
These tensions have been further fuelled by signs of an economic slowdown in the US and internationally which is expected to cut manufactured exports by 1.6 percent this year. While the decline will be offset by higher commodity prices for exports of palm oil and rubber, Malaysia’s economic growth is expected to slow from 6.3 percent in 2007 to 5.5 percent in 2008.
In comments to Associated Press on April 22, Anwar made clear that the main aim of the opposition was not to address popular concerns. “It is not very difficult to be a better government, to control corruption, to be more just, to improve the quality of education, public health, to stop the squandering of billions of dollars on your family members and cronies. That is quite easy,” he declared. The main challenge, Anwar explained, was to “change the course of the country” and to promote economic competitiveness and a market economy.
The implementation of market reforms will, however, only deepen social inequality and prompt popular opposition. As DAP parliamentarian Charles Santiago warned in an Asia Times article in March, the vote for the opposition parties was not an endorsement of free-market policies. “The average Malay was feeling the increase in prices, their jobs were no longer protected and inflation was eating their income ... You had a situation where you had subsidies for the rich and a free market economy for the poor.”
Whether or not Abdullah and UMNO hang onto power, the present political turmoil is likely to be the prelude to an even greater crisis.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim demanded Monday that high-profile judicial and government figures be prosecuted for allegedly manipulating the appointments of judges.
Anwar called for tough measures to restore public confidence in the judiciary after a government inquiry panel reportedly found that a top lawyer had conspired with senior judges and other political and business allies to broker judicial appointments.
The scandal erupted in September when Anwar leaked a video that allegedly showed prominent lawyer V.K. Lingam speaking by telephone in 2001 to a former top judge, Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, about the promotions of judges.
Earlier this year the government appointed a panel to check the video's authenticity. The investigators completed their report last week, but government leaders said they were still considering whether to publicize the results.
The Star and New Straits Times newspapers, citing unidentified officials, reported during the weekend that the inquiry panel believed that Lingam was talking to Ahmad Fairuz and that the substance of their conversation was what Anwar had claimed.
Anwar, a former deputy prime minister, said the government "should take this report to its logical culmination, which is the investigation and prosecution of those whom the report deems to have deviated the course of justice."
"A halfhearted attempt at restoration (of judicial integrity) would be as unsatisfactory as no restoration at all," he told reporters. "This is a major issue affecting Malaysia at large."
Anwar did not specify who he thought should be prosecuted or with what charges.
The video shows a man widely believed to be Lingam talking about planning to work with a senior politician and a business tycoon to help Ahmad Fairuz become Malaysia's top-ranking judge.
Lingam has refused to confirm or deny that he was in the video. Ahmad Fairuz, who has denied speaking to Lingam, became chief justice in 2003 and retired last year.
Malaysia's judiciary has long been plagued by allegations of favoritism, corruption and influence-peddling. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced last month that an independent panel would be established to help select new judges as part of legal reforms.
1 comment:
Surely it is not for UMNO to decide whether or not Anwar will become PM. Sigh... they still don't get.
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