Year of the Dragon ala Dayak Politics

2012 CNY brings plenty to ponder upon, but what tickles me the most is the presence of 3 Senior Dayak leaders sitting together. But before that, I’d like to say congratulation to Doris Brodie for her latest appointment as Senate Deputy President.

Recently, Sarawak Senior Minister James Masing is “testing the waters with his own call for a United Dayak Front (UDF).” [Read: It’s time for a United Dayak Front

Hornbill Unleashed | January 7, 2012 by Joseph Tawie]

Speaking to FMT recently he said: “I am very serious about forming a united Dayak front, but we have people who may feel uneasy of such a Dayak front. Why? I can’t understand it.

Achieving this is a tall order, knowing that its formation entails the three of them to sit together and have a serious talk [Segulai, Sejalai]. Thus, it is a surprise albeit ticklish to see them together [pic below] during CNY visits in Sibu [by Jane Moh, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on January 26, 2012, Thursday]

FOR THE ALBUM: (Seated from left) Mawan, Masing, Jabu, Wong, Taib, Ragad, Wong’s wife Datin Sri Leong Poh Ling, Jabu’s wife Puan Sri Empiang, Fatimah and Dr Jerip at Soon Koh’s residence.

Back to the United Dayak Front agenda, I just wonder whether Masing (since he is the one who mooted that idea) gets to talk to Mawan, notwithstanding the present animosity between them regarding Rentap or the SPDP 5.

Just to recap, Mawan was not in the best of mood recently [Masing’s merger idea irks Mawan - Joseph Tawie | January 10, 2012]

“KUCHING: Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president James Masing’s call for a merger of all Dayak based parties including currently ‘party-less’ elected representatives has rattled its Barisan Nasional coalition partner Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).”

Mawan even said further “Their (political frogs’) presence is worrying because they are thriving within the BN fold. It is difficult for me to contain it.”

Mawan did not name the new breed of ‘political frogs’ but it is obvious he was referring to some leaders and supporters of Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) which is led by senior state minister, James Masing.

There is no love lost between Mawan and Masing. Both are fighting to win over the confidence of the Dayak community.

So it’s not a surprise that Masing’s call last Thursday for Dayaks to unite to form a United Dayak Front has upset SPDP president William Mawan and his supporters.

As for Masing and Jabu, plenty had been said about their (not so close) relationship….. from Jathropa issue to ‘Jabu’s men’ issue.

Powerful’ Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president James Masing is flexing his political muscles. And it’s obvious that Masing is bent on putting deputy chief minister Alfred Jabu in his place.

This “no-love-lost” triad is singing a different tune. A very interesting, perhaps intriguing development worth looking out for in the near future.

On hindsight, this idea of UDF is not bad and worth a thought.

Happy CNY to all Chinese friends.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/why-east-asia-including-china-is-about-to-turn-democratic/251824/?single_page=true

Why East Asia—Including China—Will Turn Democratic Within a Generation
By Larry Diamond
Jan 24 2012, 7:15 AM ET

Why a wave of democratization will likely turn most or all of the region within a generation

If there is going to be a big new lift to global democratic prospects in this decade, the region from which it will emanate is most likely to be East Asia.

With the eruption of mass movements for democratic change throughout the Arab world in 2011, hopeful analysts of global democratic prospects have focused attention on the Middle East. Three Arab autocracies (Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya) have fallen in the past year. At least two more (Yemen and Syria) also seem destined for demise soon, and pressures for real democratic change figure to mount in Morocco, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and perhaps Kuwait, and to persist in Bahrain. Yet among these and other countries in the Middle East (including Iraq and Iran), only Tunisia has a good chance of becoming a democracy in the relatively near future. Aspirations for more democratic and account- able government run deep throughout the Middle East, and for years to come the region will be a lively and contested terrain of possibilities for regime evolution. But if a new regional wave of transitions to democracy unfolds in the next five to ten years, it is more likely to come from East Asia–a region that has been strangely neglected in recent thinking about the near-term prospects for expansion of democracy. And East Asia is also better positioned to increase the number of liberal and sustainable democracies.

Unlike the Arab world, East Asia already has a critical mass of democracies. Forty percent of East Asian states (seven of the seventeen) are democracies, a proportion slightly higher than in South Asia or sub-Saharan Africa, though dramatically lower than in Latin America or Central and Eastern Europe, where most states are democracies. As a result of the third wave of global democratization, East Asia has gone from being the cradle and locus of “developmental authoritarianism,” with Japan as its lone democracy–and a longstanding one-party-dominant system at that–to at least a mixed and progressing set of systems. Today, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are all consolidated liberal democracies. East Timor, Indonesia, Mongolia, and the Philippines are at least electoral democracies with some resilience.
Moreover, as I will explain, there are now significant prospects for democratic change in a number of the region’s remaining authoritarian regimes. Thailand is progressing back toward democracy; Malaysia and Singapore show signs of entering a period of democratic transition; Burma, to the surprise of many, is liberalizing politically for the first time in twenty years; and China faces a looming crisis of authoritarianism that will generate a new opportunity for democratic transition in the next two decades and possibly much sooner. Moreover, all this has been happening during a five-year period when democracy has been in recession globally.

There are three democracies in East Asia today that rank among the stable liberal democracies of the industrialized world: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. They are not without stiff economic and political challenges and large numbers of disenchanted citizens who in surveys express only tepid support for democracy. Yet in each of these countries, overwhelming majorities of citizens reject authoritarian regime options while voicing reasonably robust support for broadly liberal values such as the rule of law, freedom of expression, and judicial independence. Comparative data on rights, civil liberties, and the quality of governance confirm that these are liberal democracies. They could become better, more liberal ones, however, by deepening the rule of law and civil liberties and improving mechanisms of accountability and transparency to control corruption and political favoritism.

East Asia’s merely electoral democracies have further to go toward deepening and consolidating democracy, of course. Mongolia scores relatively well in Freedom House ratings of political rights and civil liberties, but in this phenomenally mineral-rich country the judiciary remains underdeveloped, the rule of law is weak, and corruption remains a grave problem widely recognized by the public. Indonesia’s democratic performance over the past decade has been much better than what many experts on that country might have expected. The Philip- pines has returned to democracy with the 2010 election, in which Benigno Aquino III won the presidency. Yet semi-feudal elites retain a strong hold on the politics of many Philippine provinces and constituencies, and their presence in the country’s Congress has so far largely blocked basic reform. In the World Bank’s annual governance ratings, Indonesia and the Philippines rank in the bottom quartile of all countries in corruption control and not much better (the bottom third) in rule of law. In 2010, among big (mainly G-20) emerging-market democracies such as Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey, only Bangladesh did worse on these two governance indicators.

In each of these three electoral democracies–Mongolia, Indonesia, and the Philippines–at least three-quarters of citizens agree that “Democracy may have its problems, but it is still the best form of government.” In each, likewise, only about half the public is satisfied with the way democracy is working, but majorities believe that democracy remains capable of solving the country’s problems. One possible reason for this faith in democracy is suggested by the wide majorities in each country (up to 76 percent in Mongolia and 80 percent in the Philippines) who say that they believe the people retain the power to change the government through elections. (Data is from Round III of the Asian Barometer.)

Prospects for Further Democratization
It is by now widely appreciated that Singapore is by any standard a massive anomaly. As we see in the Table on page 8, Singapore is far richer today than any major third-wave countries were when they made their transitions to democracy (this includes Spain and Greece, which do not appear in the Table). Singapore is the most economically developed non-democracy in the history of the world. But Singapore is changing, and this change will probably accelerate when the founding generation of leaders, particularly Lee Kuan Yew (who turned 88 last September), passes from the scene. In the May 2011 parliamentary elections, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) recorded its weakest electoral performance since independence in 1965, winning “only”
60 percent of the vote. Although the PAP still won (yet again) well over 90 percent of parliamentary seats thanks to a highly rigged electoral system, the opposition Workers’ Party broke through for the first time to win a five-seat group constituency, and a total of six seats overall–a record for the Singaporean opposition. While a post-election survey failed to reveal a general increase in support for greater political pluralism since the last elections (in 2006), the expressed preference for a more competitive political system did increase dramatically in the youngest age cohort (those from 21 to 29), shooting up from 30 to 44 percent.

If Singapore remains in the grip of a half-century-long single-party hegemony, that hegemony now seems to be entering a more vulnerable phase, as opposition parties find new energy and backing, as young people flock to social media to express themselves more openly, as independent media crop up online to provide a fuller range of news and opinions, and as the ruling party feels compelled to ease censorship and other controls. Singapore, in other words, has already joined the ranks of the world’s “competitive authoritarian” regimes–the class of autocracies among which democratic transitions are most likely to happen.

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Singapore’s exceptionalism is widely known. Less well known is that Malaysia now also has a higher per capita income than most third-wave countries did when they made their transitions to democracy. In fact, among the prominent cases in the Table, only Taiwan had a higher per capita income than Malaysia when it completed its democratic transition. Moreover, Malaysia’s score on the UNDP’s Human Development Index–which, in measuring not only per capita income but also levels of health and education, is arguably a truer measure of development–is now significantly higher than the levels in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and even Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine when they made their respective transitions to democracy. From the standpoint of modernization theory, then, Malaysia is also ripe for a democratic transition.

For more than a decade, Malaysia’s competitive authoritarian regime has faced a much more serious challenge than anything Singapore has so far seen. As the opposition has gained in unity, credibility, and mobilizing power, the long-ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) feels under increasing threat. Much of what is driving change in Malaysia is not only exhaustion with half a century of rule by one party (formally through a ruling coalition), but also a much better educated and more pluralistic society, with the attendant growth in independent organizations and the intense and innovative use of social media (including one of the most influential online newspapers in the world, Malaysiakini).

Alarmed by the upheavals that began sweeping the Arab world at the end of 2010, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak pledged to appoint a broad committee to review the country’s electoral system and recommend Internal Security Act. Many opposition and civil society leaders, however, saw these promises as empty, citing Razak’s push to enact stiff new security laws in place of the old ones. After winning control of five of the thirteen states in 2008, opposition forces are poised to do better in the next elections, which could come in 2012. The new opposition alliance, Pakatan Rakyat, is gaining momentum, and the regime’s renewed effort to destroy former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim with trumped-up charges of homosexual misconduct seems even less credible than when the ploy was first tried some years ago. To be sure, Malaysia’s authoritarian establishment still has a lot of resources, but Razak’s proposed reforms now seem “too little too late,” as “cynicism still pervades the country.”

Thailand is less developed than Malaysia, but also has far more democratic experience and now, once again, more freedom and pluralism. Al- though Thais remain deeply polarized between a camp that backs ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra and one that clusters around the institution of the monarchy, national elections are highly competitive and seem to meet the “free and fair” standard of electoral democracy. With the decisive opposition victory of the new Pheu Thai Party (led by Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra) in the May 2011 parliamentary elections, the political force that the military deposed in the 2006 coup has returned, and Thailand has apparently become once again an electoral democracy. Yet it faces a rocky road ahead, as the stabilizing presence of long-reigning King Bhumibol (b. 1927) draws toward a close. If the end result is a weaker monarchy (and military), this might ultimately help to ease the country’s intense polarization and create a more mature and securely institutionalized politics. At least the military seems to have learned from the political turbulence and polarization of the last decade that its own direct intervention will not solve the country’s political problems. Though it clearly preferred the incumbent Democrat Party, the military made a point of declaring its neutrality in the recent election. If the 2006 military coup does prove to be the last in Thailand’s history, democracy will put down firmer roots over the coming decade as modernization further raises incomes and education. Already, Thailand has a per capita income and human-development score roughly equivalent to those of Poland when it made its transition to democracy around 1990 (see Table).

It is not only Southeast Asia’s wealthier countries that are experiencing the winds of democratic change. As Burma’s iconic democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi has recently acknowledged, that country’s political opening, launched in 2008 amid widespread skepticism with many voters abstaining from a constitutional referendum, suddenly seems quite serious. Labor unions have been legalized, Internet censorship has been eased, and a number of political prisoners have been freed. Now, Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (which won the aborted 1990 elections) is preparing to register for and run in parliamentary by-elections to be held probably later in 2012. As has happened with other authoritarian regimes that opted to liberalize politically, Burma’s authoritarian rulers seem to have been influenced by democratic developments elsewhere in the world, as well as by the prospective economic benefits–chiefly flowing from closer integration with the global economy–that political liberalization might bring. As an advisor to Burma’s President Thein Sein noted in December 2011, “The president was convinced about the global situation; he saw where the global stream was heading.”

The Coming Change in China

Annual per capita income in China is still little more than half what it is in Malaysia, but it has been rising rapidly and now approaches the level that South Korea could boast at the time of its democratic transition in 1987-88. In fact, by IMF projections, China could surpass that level (about US$9,000 in 2009 Purchasing Power Parity [PPP] dollars) by next year. In 1996, Henry Rowen predicted on the basis of data and projections regarding economic development that China would become what Freedom House would call a Partly Free country by 2015, and a Free one (with political-rights and civil-liberties scores as good as those of India or Indonesia today) by 2025. More recently, Rowen affirmed that analysis, estimating that even if China’s growth in GDP per capita slowed to 5 percent annually starting in 2015, it would have by 2025 a per capita income roughly equivalent to that of Argentina’s in 2007 (about $15,000 in current PPP dollars–which is roughly where Malaysia is today). And if China’s growth in per capita income were to slow immediately to 6 percent annually, it would still reach $13,000 in current PPP dollars before 2020–the level of Hungary in 1990 and Mexico in 2000 when they transitioned to democracy.

It is not only modernization–the spread of democratic values and capacities in tandem with rising incomes and information–that is feed- ing the escalating pressure for democratic change in China. As Yun-han Chu notes in his contribution to this set of essays, the growing density of ties between mainland China and Taiwan–including direct access (through travel and satellite television) to political news from the highly competitive and even raucous democracy that is Taiwan–is serving as an additional stimulant to the growth of democratic norms and aspirations in China. The irony of Communist China’s relentless push for closer integration with Taiwan is that it may well begin to generate political convergence–but not in the way that the Communist leaders imagined.

Rowen’s projections were a bit mechanical in assuming that economic growth would necessarily drive gradual political change toward democracy in China. Instead, it seems increasingly likely that political change in China will be sudden and disruptive. The Communist Party leadership still shows no sign of embarking on a path of serious political liberalization that might gradually lead to electoral democracy, as their counterparts in Taiwan’s then-dominant Nationalist Party did several decades ago. Instead, the rulers in Beijing are gripped by a fear of ending up like the USSR’s Mikhail Gorbachev, who launched a process of political opening in hopes of improving and refurbishing Soviet Communist rule only to see it crumble and the Soviet Union itself fall onto the ash heap of history. Torn by intense divisions within their own ranks and weakened by the draining away of power and energy from the center to the provinces and a congeries of increasingly divergent lower-level authorities, China’s political leaders seem as frozen and feckless on the grand question of long-term political reform as they are brisk and decisive in making daily decisions on spending and investments.

As Francis Fukuyama notes in an essay in the Journal of Democracy, the one flaw in the otherwise impressive institutionalization of Chinese Communist rule is its lack of adaptability. For a regime whose specialty is producing rapid economic change, such rigidity is a potentially fatal defect. With every month or year that ticks by while corruption, routine abuses of power, and stifling constraints on expression go unchecked, citizens’ frustration mounts. Already, protests erupt with ominous frequency across tens of thousands of Chinese localities every year, while subversive and democratic ideas, images, and allusions proliferate online, despite the best efforts of fifty-thousand Internet police to keep Chinese cyberspace free of “harmful content.” As Minxin Pei has been arguing for some time and as he asserts again in his essay here, the strength of the authoritarian regime in China is increasingly an illusion, and its resilience may not last much longer. As frustration with corruption, collusion, criminality, and constraints on free expression rise, so do the possibilities for a sudden crisis to turn into a political catastrophe for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Beyond the ongoing frustrations with censorship, insider dealing, abuse of power, environmental degradation, and other outrages that can only be protested by antisystem activity of one sort or another, there are, as Fukuyama notes, the big looming social and economic challenges that China faces as the consequences of its one-child policy make themselves felt in a rapidly aging (and disproportionately male) population. Jack Goldstone reports that China’s labor force stopped growing in 2010 and has begun shrinking half a percent a year, which “will, by itself, knock 2.2 percentage points off China’s annual economic growth potential.” Urbanization, a key driver of productivity increases, is also slowing dramatically, and the growth of education “has clearly reached a limit,” as the number of college graduates has expanded faster than the ability of the economy–even as it faces labor shortages in blue-collar industries–to generate good white-collar jobs.

The Chinese economy will have to pay for rapidly rising wages and cope with industrial labor shortages even as it comes under pressure to finance pension, welfare, and healthcare benefits for the massive slice of the populace that is now moving toward retirement. Moreover, as it manages all this, China will need to address growing frustration among college graduates who cannot find jobs to match their expectations. If the suspected bubbles in the real-estate and financial markets burst as these twin generational challenges are gathering force, political stability in the world’s most populous country may well become no more than a memory.

Increasingly, the CCP faces the classic contradiction that troubles all modernizing authoritarian regimes. The Party cannot rule without continuing to deliver rapid economic development and rising living standards–to fail at this would invite not gradual loss of power but a sudden and probably lethal crisis. To the extent that the CCP succeeds, however, it generates the very forces–an educated, demanding middle class and a stubbornly independent civil society–that will one day decisively mobilize to raise up a democracy and end CCP rule for good. The CCP, in other words, is damned if it does not, and damned if it does. The only basis for its political legitimacy and popular acceptance is its ability to generate steadily improving standards of living, but these will be its undoing.

For some time, I suspected that Henry Rowen’s projections were a bit optimistic and that China’s democratic moment, while foreseeable, was still 25 to 30 years away. Now, as the need for a more open, accountable, and law-based regime becomes as obvious as the current leaders’ inability to bring one about, I suspect that the end of CCP rule will come much sooner, quite possibly within the next ten years. Unfortunately, a sudden collapse of the communist system could give rise, at least for a while, to a much more dangerous form of authoritarian rule, perhaps led by a nationalistic military looking for trouble abroad in order to unify the nation at home. But this would likely represent only a temporary solution, for the military is incapable of governing a rapidly modernizing, deeply networked, middle-class country facing complex economic and social challenges.

Whatever the specific scenario of change, this much is clear: China cannot keep moving forward to the per capita income, educational, and informational levels of a middle-income country without experiencing the pressures for democratic change that Korea and Taiwan did more than two decades ago. Those pressures are rising palpably now in Singapore and Malaysia. They will gather momentum in Vietnam as it follows in China’s path of transformational (even if not quite as rapid) economic development. In Thailand, continuing modernization over the next decade will change society in ways that will make democracy easier to sustain. In short, within a generation or so, I think it is reasonable to expect that most of East Asia will be democratic. And no regional transformation will have more profound consequences for democratic prospects globally.

This article originally appeared at the Journal of Democracy, an Atlantic partner site.

by Peter Sibon reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on January 20, 2012, Friday

RM20m approved to build Rumah Mesra houses for those affected by Bengoh Dam

KUCHING: The state government is prioritising the building of houses for those affected by the Bengoh Dam since the supply of raw water to Kuching area is becoming a pressing issue.

Saying this was Bengoh assemblyman and Assistant Minister of Public Health Dr Jerip Susil in an exclusive interview at his office here yesterday.

“Naim Engineering has been tasked to build 204 houses for the affected villagers from Taba Sait, Rejoi, Pain Bojong and Semban Teleg so that they can move in soon.

“Once the (relocation) exercise is completed then the dam can be impounded as soon as possible.”

He said some RM20 million had been approved to build the Rumah Mesra houses for the re-settlers in Radien near Semadang, about 42km from here.

He said work on the project could start any time now for it had been approved by the state cabinet during its recent meetings.

Dr Jerip said if everything went smoothly, the affected villages should be able to move into their new homes before end of the year.

“The Bengoh Dam supplies raw water to the Kuching area as the current source at Batu Kitang is getting insufficient for the increasing population.”

Meanwhile, it had been reported that Naim, through its subsidiary Naim Engineering Sdn Bhd (formerly NCSB Engineering Sdn Bhd) has been awarded the RM168.8million contract by the Public Works Department.

The contract involves the design and building of the resettlement scheme, which consists of 204 housing lots in rural growth centre and government reserve land, roads for internal area and gravel roads for agriculture area, and water and electricity supplies.

It is said Naim, determined to fulfil its corporate social responsibility and, would also build four community halls and churches for the four villages.

The people from the four villages are affected by the construction of the RM310 million Bengoh Dam.

The affected families will also be provided with sufficient land for farming as well as other business activities to help them generate better income.

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/01/20/houses-for-re-settlers-priority/#ixzz1k12fbBAQ

If Bersih 3.0 takes to streets, they’ll face the music

Hazlan Zakaria
Should the pro-electoral reform group Bersih take to the streets yet again, it will face the music, de facto law minister Nazri Aziz warns.

“You go to the streets, then you face the law,” Nazri said at a press conference in Putrajaya today.

He was responding to news reports that the outlawed NGO, dissatisfied with the parliamentary select committee (PSC) on electoral reforms for not picking up all the eight reforms it suggested, may hold a repeat performance of its previous Bersih and Bersih 2.0 mass rallies, held in 2008 and last July respectively.

Chiding the NGO for such tactics, Nazri added that if it wanted to see reforms carried out, it should use the proper channels.

“They do not have any business to go to the streets.

“We have a system of elected representatives that represent the rakyat. A system to go through if you want to improve things.

“If they want to influence change, they should use the system,” Nazri added.

NONEHe also questioned the locus standi of Bersih and its chief S Ambiga (left) to represent anyone in their clamour for electoral reforms.

“Who are they? They are nobody… Who are the NGOs supporting them? I don’t know them. They just represent, what, 50, 100, 200 people…?

“They said 50,000 came (to the Bersih 2.0 rally). What is that compared to the representatives like me, elected by the rakyat?

“We represent the people as an elected government,” argued the Padang Rengas MP.

‘Ambiga a nobody’

Nazri also accused Ambiga of being a “wannabe, nobody, start-up” who only wanted to win a candidacy in the next general election and was beneath his attention as a full federal minister.

“She is a nobody. She’s got no locus standi… she is not elected.

“I can’t even attack her as she is a nobody. If I do that it would not look good for me as a minister. It looks like I am bullying her,” Nazri sniped.

He added that there was no obligation for the PSC to take all of Bersih’s suggestions for the movement to feel slighted, just as there was no obligation on the Election Commission (EC) to implement all of PSC’s recommendations.

“The EC is independent, from the executive as well as the legislative or anyone else,” Nazri reasoned.

Asked about the acquittal of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim in his recent Sodomy II trial and whether the government would appeal, Nazri refused to comment, saying that it wa up to attorney-general (AG) Gani Patail and the government should not interfere.

“According to the constitution, the AG can appeal. And we must also ensure that Saiful Bukhari Azlan (Anwar’s accuser) has the opportunity to seek justice. These, I believe, should be the two considerations on the appeal,” he opined.

The EC has agreed to implement seven out of 10 proposals, while the remaining three are still being studied.

KUANTAN: The Election Commission (EC) has agreed to implement seven out of 10 proposals presented by the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) in the coming 13th general election, said EC chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof.

The remainder three which involved non-resident voters, absentee voters abroad and changing of registration areas were still being studied, he said.

“The seven proposals which would be implemented for the 13th general election are the use of indelible ink; early voting by police and armed forces and their spouses; extending the electoral roll display from seven to 14 days; abolishing the objection process and withdrawal period for candidates; cleaning up of the electoral roll; and strengthening the EC,” he added.

Aziz was speaking to reporters after a briefing to managers and assistant managers in preparation for the 13th general election, here today.

He said the committee, which was formed August last year has completed its nationwide public hearing sessions on Jan 13 in Johor Bahru.

“We understand that the committee’s final report would be presented in Parliament during the March sitting,” he added.

In relation to the cleaning up of the electoral roll, he said the EC has given a list of 12.4 million registered voters to MIMOS Berhad, for action early this month.

“We’ve given them a deadline but hope it can be completed before the PSC report is presented in Parliament in March,” he said.

Commenting on concerns that certain parties would still be dissatisfied with the implementation of the proposals, he said they could always put forward their suggestions to the EC through various mediums including letters.

On another note, he informed that the EC had terminated the services of 24 Assistant Registrars, while another 67 were issued warnings for various inefficiencies.

- Bernama

Candidates warned against handing out cash

ELECTION candidates must take care not to commit acts or make promises during campaigning that could be construed as vote-buying, said the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

MACC deputy chief commissioner (operations) Datuk Mohd Shukri Abdul said such acts included handing out small amounts of cash to potential voters during campaigning, even if the receivers were not expressly asked to vote for the candidate.

“Legally, candidates are allowed to do so since there is no proof that someone would vote for a party or candidate when given a small amount of cash.

“However, they should refrain from doing so as it is morally wrong,” he said.

He said candidates could be charged if they were found to have expressly asked those who received the cash to vote for them.

He also clarified that election promises to bring development to constituents, in the form of new schools, parks, highways and roads, employment opportunities, were not tantamount to vote-buying.

“Such campaign promises or election manifestos are allowed as they are intended to benefit the public, no matter who they voted for.

“It is only considered corruption if the benefit was extended to certain individuals in exchange for their vote.”

Meanwhile, on Malaysia’s fall to 60th place on the Corruption Perception Index published by global watchdog Transparency International, Shukri said corruption formed only a small part of the studies used to determine the findings.

He said as such, the index only measured perceptions of corruption rather than the actual level of corruption.

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 19 — There will be no more objection period for candidates in the next general election, the Election Commission (EC) said today.

“The onus is now on the EC (to check if a candidate is qualified),” its chairman Tan Sri Aziz Yusof told reporters here.

Political parties that object to candidates they deem unqualified to contest which the EC has approved must take the matter to court now, he explained.

“But that very morning (on nomination day), sorry lah,” he said.

Currently, personal details of confirmed candidates are displayed for one hour after the nomination period ends, during which objections to their eligibility can be raised.

Malaysia’s relatively short objection period — compared to three days in Bangladesh and two weeks in Thailand — has been criticised by some for not giving stakeholders adequate time to scrutinise candidates’ backgrounds.

Aziz (picture) said candidates will now also not be allowed to withdraw from the race once they have submitted their names to the returning officer to allow quick printing of the ballot paper.

“Even if you withdraw your name, your name will still be there,” he said.

He said the changes were made at the recommendation of the parliamentary select committee on electoral reform, and stressed that the EC was working hard to put into place other suggestions mooted by the polls panel.

These include stepping up efforts to clean the electoral roll in co-operation with the National Registration Department (NRD), police and the armed forces’ Records and Pensions Department.

“The electoral roll is cleaned every day. If political parties find one or two mistakes, they don’t have to publicise them to the media.

“Let us know, we can fix it… Sometimes we mistype, key in wrongly. This is the spirit,” Aziz said.

He added that the electoral roll will be displayed for 14 days instead of seven days starting from next quarter.

Posted on December 5, 2011, Monday

Josib Kawin

KUCHING: Several families from Kampung Rejoi, who are dissatisfied with the Bengoh Dam compensation package, have set up a new settlement away from the village.

Rejoi’s village security and development committee (JKKK) deputy secretary Josib Kawin said there was nothing much that could be done to stop them because it was their personal decision to move there.

“They are not happy with what they are getting, so they decided to stay put and build a new settlement,” he said in an interview yesterday.

According to him, some 16 families are believed to be staying at the new settlement located on a hill not too far away from the original village.

Because of this, he hoped that the government and the developers of the Bengoh Dam would consider giving more compensation money, especially when most of them did not get a good deal.

Hosni Mubarak’s game plan to steal elections have all the familiar ring to it in many similar countries-even Malaysia! Here are his tricks:

* maintain emergency laws which has outlived its original purpose; public’s civil liberty and human rights are curtailed-including detention without warrant and trial! Najib’s promise to repeal emergency laws has not been made with condition that the general elections will come only after the repeal of the laws!

* require publishing permit-so state or crony owned media are the only media in town!Malaysia has the printing press laws that do the similar tricks to muzzle the dissenters;

* restrict party registrations-so the Opposition parties had to run their candidates as independents; numerous parties had problems to get registration in Malaysia-is this purely coincidental?

* restrict nominations to candidates; Malaysia only allow 1 hour for nomination of candidates -even less than the weeks offered by Egypt!

* get non-National Democratic Party (Hosni’s party) candidates who won seats to hop over to NDP; In 2005 election the NDP only won 40% of the votes-but `frogging’ after the election helped it to finally gain 81% of the votes! Does it sound familiar after the frogging affairs in Perak that toppled the Opposition led state government?

* this is how a presiding officer/returning Officer in a 2010 election describe how NDP won an election in a polling station: voters are not allowed into the polling station by the police and/or thugs; before polling end some people in dark glasses enter the polling stations, mark all the ballot paper and stuff them into the ballot box! Due to such notoriety the voting rates of Egyptian elections had been very low-some put it as single digit, for many decades!

* some other tricks: get NDP members to jam up the voting queues ie they cast their votes and rejoin the queues to make it practically impossible for non-NDP voters to get to the front of the queues;

* they buy votes-some say the price per vote is about 300 Egyptian Pounds (US1.00=5Egyptian Pound);

* the Ministry of Interior/Police prepare most part of the election administration and only invite an ad hoc Election Commission to oversee the election months ahead of the poll; They ask the judges to supervise election at polling station level but sometimes exert violence on the judges and stole the ballot boxes! When non-independent election administrators are not enough to secure enough victories for NDP in 2005 they even sacked the judges from overseeing the 2010 elections! How much better is the Malaysian Election Commission helmed by pliant retiring civil servants?

* Hosni Mubarak ban international election observers -so do Malaysia!

* Hosni Mubarak require separate voter registration that disenfranchise big section of the citizens-so do Malaysia! It is not coincidental that after the revolution the country decided to allow automatic voter registration!

* Hosni Mubarak did not allow overseaas Egyptians to vote-so is Malaysia until recently!

So after the fraudulent election in 2010 where the Opposition Muslim Brotherhood failed to win even a single seat (they won 80 in 2005 elections) the run-off was boycotted. The simmering discontent of the public erupted on Jan 25th -and the rest is history! To be noted was: after the eruption of the Jan 25th Revolution the NDP supporters still did not see the things to come: they violently clashed with the protestors in Tahrir Square -but it only took 18 days for the protest to force Hosni Mubarak-the 1-man rule of 30 years (started in 1981), to resign! Not only that his corrupt party NDP was dissolved by a court order! The use of violence seems to be the sure final defense of a dictatorship-will it be avoided in Malaysia when change of power come to Malaysia one way or the other?

While the revolution in Tunisia played its role to inspire the Egyptian revolution the public anger was simmering after the huge election `win’ by Hosni Mubarak just less than 3 months before! A nearly similar example in South East Asia would be Suharto’s ouster after his election `landslide’!

Now you can see there are so many parallels between Egyptian electoral manipulations and the situation in Malaysia. Would it be surprising if there is a `Malaysian Spring’ coming up soon after another clean sweep by the 50 year old rule by a single party here? Bersih 2 march on July 9th may not be the last if the Malaysian election system is maintained in the current pre-Mubarak style!

Bengoh dam has become added burden on the back of villagers displaced!

The Bengoh film is finally available for on-line viewing and download:
1. You Tube
2. Engagemedia

Reviews here: