New Book By Kim Quek

Author: Kim Quek
Publisher: Oriengroup Sdn Bhd
Year: 2010
Number of page: 361

ISBN: 9789839048732
Price: RM35

Avalable at all POPULAR book stores and other major book shops.

Extracts from the article “Making the Right Political Decision”:

In fact, we are living on borrowed time, as we would have bankrupted ourselves long time ago if not being propped up by the god-given gift of petroleum. Due to unrestrained splurging and lackadaisical productive efforts, our addiction to petroleum as crutch has so grown that more than 40% of the government’s operational expenses are now paid for by incomes derived from petroleum. These incomes are in the form of royalty, export duty, petroleum income tax and dividends from Petronas (excluding corporate income tax from companies in the petroleum industry). Surely, the prolongation of the status quo is tantamount to leaning heavier and heavier on a crutch that is getting shorter and shorter. How long can this untenable situation last?


Extracts from the Preface:

It is not an exaggeration to say that Malaysia has come to the edge of a precipice, and moving forward in the same direction may mean a fast descent. Obviously, this calls for a change of direction to avoid impending calamities.

Barisan Nasional has vowed to make changes, but is it capable of veering the nation off that abyss, with Umno absolutely dominating the coalition with its racist ideology intact?

On the other hand, Pakatan Rakyat has promised to institute thorough reforms to remove racism and restore democracy and good governance, thereby rejuvenating the economy. Can it be trusted to move the nation onto the right path of national integration and growth?

Or should we also ponder the next equally important question: Do we still have the choice of not changing the incumbent ruling power?

The Author

Kim Quek is a Malaysian political commentator who has been keeping a very close watch on the fast moving political development in Malaysia. His frequent writings on the local scene appear regularly in many local websites including the popular Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today.

His articles are typically factual and analytical and no-holds-barred when it comes to commenting on the incessant scandals of corruption and abuse of power involving the high hierarchy of the ruling Barisan Nasional that have increasingly dominated Malaysian politics. As such, his writings are a useful counter-balance to the notoriously one-sided narration of the Malaysian mainstream media which are hopelessly manipulated by the incumbent federal power. He hopes to offer readers, through his writings, a view of the other side of the coin, so to speak.

In a sense, this book is a sequel to Kim Quek’s previous best seller “Where to, Malaysia?” which recorded the disastrous Mahathirist rule and the early auto-pilot reign of Abdullah Badawi.

Zaid's gallant attempt to salvage the electoral system

30.04.2010

At long last, we have a righteous leader who is boldly initiating legal action to rein in the notorious Malaysian electoral system which has virtually gone berserk.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leader Zaid Ibrahim, who has lost narrowly to a Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate in the dirtiest and most corrupt electoral contest in memory, is making a three-prong thrust to rectify the unprecedented electoral degradation as exhibited in the freshly concluded Hulu Selangor by-election. In addition to seeking nullification of the election, he is also taking the unprecedented step of suing the Election Commission (EC) for breach of the Constitution – its dereliction of duty and political partisanship. Further, he will sue the Umno-controlled newspaper Utusan Malaysia for waging a vilification campaign against him.

The election was marred by intimidation, tampering of electoral roll, character assassination and rampant corruption with the EC and police obviously siding BN. In fact the bribery was so bad – openly soliciting votes with millions of public funds over countless projects – that Zaid issued a written statement describing the conduct of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who spearheaded the campaign, as “shameless and unprecedented”.

EC’s lame excuses

Against these flagrant violations of election laws and rules, EC remained mute. Faced with mounting post-election criticism, EC chairman Aziz Yusof was quoted in the Sin Chew Press dated April 29 as having said:

“Nabbing corruption is not our specialization. Our job is to provide a level-playing field for electoral contests. However, we still welcome complaints from those who possess the details.

“If the project concerned was pre-planned and was coincidentally implemented in the election period, it is not bribery. The important criterion is that at the time of granting the allocation, whether the electorate were asked for their votes as trade off. Another problem is: since voting is secret, how do we know whether the recipient of election goodies did actually cast his vote in favour of the giver?

“Pakatan Rakyat has won 7 times out of the past 10 by-elections held since the last general election, but still complained of EC favouring BN. I hope participants should realize that winning an election is because of the people’s support, and not due to the ‘help’ given by EC”.

The above statement seems to be a mouthful of nonsense.

One can rule out the possibility of ‘pre-planning’ and ‘coincidence’ in timing, due to the great number and size of grants and projects and the short span of time during which these were announced. The solicitations for electoral support during the announcement of these goodies were open and witnessed by thousands. Whether the recipient of goodies cast his vote in favour of the giver is irrelevant to the issue of corruption. And finally, the fact that Pakatan has won more times than BN is no indication that EC does not favour BN.

It is shocking that the EC chairman should have given such illogical and phony excuses to cover up the utter and sinister failure of the EC.

Najib’s glaring bribery

The most publicized bribery committed by Najib was his encounter with the Rasa electorate on the eve of polling which was held on April 25. He told the folks that if BN wins, he would personally grant RM3 million to the Rasa Chinese Primary School the next day and the money would be transferred to the school board’s bank account. He added: “If we lose, don’t have to come.” This news was reported in the press and the Internet, and Najib has never denied it.

What more evidence does EC want before it is willing to spring into action?

This single incident alone was sufficient to have Najib convicted for bribery under Section 10 of the Election Offences Act 1954, the punishment for which under Section 11 is maximum jail term of 2 years and fine of RM5,000, in addition to being barred from elections for 5 years.

EC often laments that it has no investigative power and that it is no expert on corruption, but may I remind it of its powers and duties under Section 5 of Elections Act 1958.

For its duties, the Act states that EC “shall exercise control and supervision over the conduct of elections ……, and shall enforce on the part of all election officers fairness, impartiality and compliance with Part VIII of the Constitution and this Act and regulations made hereunder”.

For its powers, the Act state that EC “shall have powers to issue to election officers such direction as may be deemed necessary by the Commission to ensure effective execution of Part VIII of the Constitution and this Act ….” It also has power to administer any regulations and perform any duties as conferred and imposed upon it by the Act.

Granted that EC may not have the same expertise and resources that the MACC has when it comes to catching the corrupt, but that does not mean that EC should take a hands-off policy over rampant bribery thus abdicating its role as arbiter of free and fair elections. Worse, EC was found to have played partisan politics by unjustifiably changing polling stations for one quarter of the electorate without proper notice and depriving a chunk of electorate of their voting rights by unconstitutionally moving them to another constituency.

Duty to support Zaid

The ruling BN has played dirty politics in every election for the past five decades, and our electoral system has now descended to the point that it is now making a complete mockery of the fundamental premise of our Constitution – that the government shall be decided by the free will of the citizens. Allowing the culprits who caused the fiasco of the Hulu Selangor by-election to walk away unscathed would be to condone these criminal acts and surrender the most important rights of the people.

It is hence the duty of every citizen to stand up and claim for his right now by giving full support to Zaid Ibrahim in his noble attempt to restore some decency to our fallen electoral process.


Kim Quek

Hulu Selangor by-election debacle: Is it worth it, Najib?

26.04.26

Prime Minister Najib Razak might have won the electoral battle at Hulu Selangor, but he sure has taken a giant step of retreat in the defence of Putrajaya against the relentless advance of Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

The orgy of election bribery indulged over those few days leading up to polling day on April 25 would have put any other pseudo democracy to shame when comparing election excesses.

To induce votes, Najib and his colleagues made innumerable on-the-spot grant of cash and promises of goodies (many were conditional upon a Barisan Nasional win) that run easily to hundreds of million of ringgit during that compact campaign period. These include the construction of a university and several schools, an expressway interchange and many other infrastructures, several low cost housing projects, upgrading of mosques and temples, grants to community guilds and associations, cash payments to individuals etc. These election goodies were so many and so large that I doubt Najib and his deputy Muhyiddeen Yassin could keep track of the number or total cost.

The single event that impacted most on the electoral outcome was perhaps the occasion of Najib himself handing over RM5 million cash to 100 Felda settlers in a highly trumpeted ceremony 2 days before polling. These settlers were among victims of a failed project committed to a private developer 15 years ago.

The greatest irony was that amidst this election bribery spree, Najib made an impassioned last-minute plea to the electorate through an open letter bearing his signature, asking the electorate to give him another chance to institute ‘change’ in his administration so as to redeem Barisan Nasional’s past mistakes. But was Najib not aware that this endless stream of impromptu election goodies constitute serious offences under our Election Offences Act 1954 (Section 10)? By committing these acts of corruption to such an unprecedented scale while simultaneously articulating his ‘change’ agenda, he was in effect telling the world : “This is what I mean by ‘change’ – I will not hesitate to escalate corrupted activities and damn the laws, if my political interests so demand.”

Reflecting on Najib’s rule since taking effective control of the country in early 2009, this philosophy of ‘the end justifies the means’ as exemplified by his conduct in the Hulu Selangor by-election seems to aptly explain the series of scandals that illustrated the ruling power’s contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. These include the unconstitutional power grab in Perak, the continuing persecution of Anwar Ibrahim via the universally condemned phony sodomy trial II, the awkward attempt to hide the real culprits in the show trial of Altantuya Shaariibuu’s grisly murder, and the tragic death of Teoh Beng Hock under custody of MACC and the subsequent dubious inquest.

In the aftermath of this sordid by-election, Najib and his cohorts have expectedly hailed this disgraceful victory as the nation’s endorsement of Najib’s new policy and the shifting of support to Barisan Nasional (BN). However, removing the thin veneer of this pyrrhic victory, we find that the contrary is true. In fact, a cursory review of this by-election (many prefer to call it ‘buy-election’) has revealed trends and phenomena that should cause BN to get worried, very worried.

First, winning by a majority of 1,700 votes does not necessarily indicate an increase of support. On the contrary, it could mean a substantial drop of support, if we consider the fact that in the last general election in March 2008, BN’s combined majority of the three state constituencies that made up the parliamentary constituency of Hulu Selangor was 6,300 votes.

If UMNO can secure only a marginal victory (24,997 vs 23,272) after such heavy abuses of public funds and politically manipulated institutions, there is not the slightest chance that the same can be repeated in a general election, during which, Hulu Selangor will surely fall back to PR, just as Ijok did previously.

Second, judging from the response of the electorate during the election campaign, Najib’s ‘lMalaysia’ advocacy has failed to take root among BN’s supporters. This was prominently reflected in the respective finale of the two protagonists’ election campaign on the eve of polling. While the BN rally, estimated at 3,000, was attended almost exclusively by Malays, with a sprinkling of Indians; the 15,000 strong PR rally was a colourful display of multi-racialism with a healthy proportion of the three races of Malays, Chinese and Indians. It left one with the unmistakable impression that the coalition that has really succeeded in realizing ‘1Malaysia’ is PR, not BN.

Third, the Chinese support to BN has dwindled to an even smaller minority (less than one third) despite the many carrots dangled in their faces – particularly Najib’s personal promise to grant a RM3 million grant to a Chinese school the very next day of polling, conditioned upon a BN win. This indicates that the Chinese electorate has politically matured to the point that they are relatively immune to BN’s election bribery. For them, nothing short of real reforms would do.

As UMNO is not capable of instituting real reforms, this naturally spells the end of the political life span of the Chinese racial party MCA, and by corollary, that of Gerakan. With the Indian racial party MIC also having lost the support of Indians, the isolation of UMNO in Peninsular Malaysia is complete, since these 3 parties are UMNO’s only major partners in the Peninsula. Considering that they had been the bulwark of support to UMNO in past elections, their present eclipses mean that UMNO’s political wings in Peninsula are clipped.

Hence, UMNO’s final grasp at power is now hinged to its relationship with the BN component parties in Sabah and Sarawak, which unfortunately are not in the best of terms with the UMNO-dominated Federal government.

Known for their strong regionalism and thrust to their king-maker position by the political tsunami of the 2008 general elections, Sabah and Sarawak are now a hive of discontent and resentment against the exploitation and short-changing of their autonomous rights under the authocratic UMNO dominated BN leadership.

With a maimed UMNO in the Peninsula, and a surging Pakatan Rakyat offering a just deal and restoration of autonomy to these two states, the people there for the first time have the real option of clinching the best political deal since the formation of Malaysia almost 5 decades ago.

Since the people in Sabah and Sarawak are less race-conscious than their Peninsular counterparts and in fact rather irritated by the heavy racism practiced by UMNO, for how long can UMNO’s race politics withstand the challenge for influence by the multi-racial Pakatan Rakyat in these two territories, and by extension the political power over the entire country?

The Hulu Selangor by-election has given us a pointer, and it ain’t looking good for UMNO.


Kim Quek