Malaysian By-Election Campaigns Go Into Their Final Lap

And so the accusations and slandering starts (time to show off your laundry):

Najib accuses Khalid of being greedy (how come he wasn't accused then?)

Anwar accuses Najib of having a hand in the Mongolian murder case

Mahathir: Anwar will be PM only in his dreams

Najib's tainted defense contracts deals

Err... can anyone remember who is the other candidate in this by-election?

BBC prefers to interview Anwar rather than Pak Lah

Oooohh.... how it hurts when we put in so much effort and they don't even bother to interview us. How could they chose a "bankrupt politician" (who doesn't even have a seat in our august Parliament) over our beloved PM to interview. Tsk, tsk... the unfairness of it all!

Lots of sour grapes around. I didn't think BBC would have so much clout or influence over the Malaysian public. Now, according to our Information Minister, they do!

Apparently this was reported in The Star and China Post

Ex-PM Mahathir urges Ijok's voters to think before voting

Excerpts from the Ex-PM's interview with Malaysiakini.tv

“If you don’t think (about) what you are doing, you don’t use your vote intelligently, then of course, you are to be blamed.”

“Don’t vote BN blindly, don’t vote PAS blindly, don’t vote DAP blindly. Think. Use your faculties to think.”

“Unless you send a signal to the government that, ‘Look, if you don’t behave yourself, you may not get my vote at the next election,’ then the government will say, ‘You see? The people are voting for us. We are doing well.’

“If you vote (BN) because you get a lot of money or because you get a lot of projects, you may get a rotten government which uses money in order to buy your vote.”

Using Hooligans To Scare Voters

One would have thought this would be the tactic of the Malaysian Opposition but it is now used by the present BN government to scare the Malaysian voters into voting for them. What would they think of next?



Read more from Jeff Ooi's Screenshots

More brickbats for Penang CM from Malay contractors

The Star - 24 April 2007:-

The Penang Malay Contractors Association is upset with the Penang Municipal Council for awarding projects to contractors from outside the state since early this year.

Chairman Mohamed Fadzill Hassan said it had sent a protest letter to Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon recently.

“If nothing comes out of this we will even consider raising the matter with the Finance Ministry or Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,” he said yesterday.

He was commenting on the council’s decision to award road sweeping, grass cutting and drain cleaning projects to several contractors from Selangor recently. The Star had reported that the council awarded the RM8mil project to 33 contractors. Of this, it is learnt that eight contractors were from Seberang Prai and four from Selangor.

Mohamed Fadzill said: “I don’t mind projects being given to those from Seberang Prai but why give them to contractors from Selangor? “Will the local authorities in Selangor award such projects to contractors from Penang or other states?” he asked. Mohamed Fadzill said it was not legally wrong for the council to award projects to outsiders. He said it was an “ethical” issue as many contractors from Penang were facing problems in securing projects.

Citing another example, he said the council had awarded an RM800,000 road resurfacing project to a contractor from Selangor early this year. “A Penang contractor submitted a lower bid but he was not chosen probably because the council feels that he could not complete the project.”

Is "Acting President" Dr Koh trying to lobby the more powerful KL-based contractors?

Blogger assaulted while having lunch with Opposition candidate

Blogger Jeff Ooi and his co-photographer was recently assaulted while having lunch with the Opposition candidate in Ijok, a small town in Selangor with an upcoming by-election.

Read his blog entry

Racial equality (inequality?) in Malaysia

They say a picture is worth a thousand words



Read about the prided effects of the so-called "power sharing" among the Malaysian politicians as portrayed by this Thai (or is he a Malaysian living in Thailand?) blogger:

Read the article at The Nation Web Blog


Read Anwar Ibrahim's view:

MCA and MIC leaders cannot fight for minority rights because they kowtow to UMNO

Sarawak CM Abdul Taib to be accused of corruption

KUCHING, April 13 (Bernama)
Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud has threatened to take legal action over newsreports linking him to RM32 million in logging kickbacks in Japan.

His press secretary, Amin Sahmat, in a one-paragraph statement faxed to the media here today, said Taib had instructed his solicitors to initiate legal action to clear his name in reference to reports in the Japanese and local newspapers alleging that the chief minister was involved in corrupt practices.

Yesterday Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was quoted as saying that he was leaving it to the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to investigate a report of RM32 million in logging kickbacks implicating Taib.

He said he had not received any report on the matter so far and no proper report had been lodged by any party for an investigation to be carried out.

Abdullah was asked to comment on a newsreport in Japan Times which claimed that Japanese shipping companies paid RM32 million to a Hong Kong agent allegedly linked to Abdul Taib.

Meanwhile, 20 Sarawak Parti Keadilan Rakyat members led by its liaison chairman, Wan Zainal Abidin Wan Senusi, lodged reports with the ACA and the police today over the allegations.

He told Bernama that the action was in response to Abdullah's comment yesterday that no report had been lodged by any party for an investigation to be carried out.

Here are some foreign news reports:-

Japan Times

Bloggers and Mahathir

The Star,19 April 2007 - Dr M: Bloggers should always write the truth

The former prime minister said bloggers should not tell lies and untruths, and because there were no laws governing them, their freedom to write anything could negatively affect the development of the country.

"Although bloggers are not subject to the same laws governing the mainstream media, they should write the truth all the same", he said.

OK so, bloggers should tell the truth - what about you?

In the same article:-

Dr Mahathir also apologised to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for accusing him of owning a house in Perth, Australia.

He said he got carried away when he mentioned it at a talk in Kulai, Johor, on March 29 recently and added it was based on a rumour.

He was responding after web portal Malaysia Today's Raja Petra Kamaruddin pointed out to him at yesterday's press conference that through an independent search, it was discovered that the house belonged to the wife of a prominent Malaysian businessman.

So, should we believe RPK since he is a blogger? Who is telling the truth and who is lying?

Watch the video:

Part 1:



Part 2:




Read The Sydney Morning Herald on a more balanced(?) account of this report.

Anwar Ibrahim campaining in Machap

Anwar in Machap (Part 2)





Anwar in Machap (Part 1)

Singapore has the Best Paid Ministers In The World!

Forbes.com

Singapore, which prides itself on having one of the world’s most competent bureaucracies, this week gave its top civil servants pay rises of as much as 60%, a hike that would make the world’s most generous private-sector employers blush.

Coming at a time when the income gap between rich and poor in the city-state is widening and ahead of a hike in taxes, the move provoked normally placid Singaporeans into a rare show of public outrage.

Almost 2,000 have signed an online petition against the pay hike and newspapers have been flooded with angry letters. Mild perhaps by international standards, it has nonetheless been an unusually strong public outcry in a place where rallies are banned without a permit and there is no political opposition.

Under the pay hike plan, the annual salary of the chief executive of Singapore Inc., Prime Minister Lee, will rise to 3.1 million Singapore dollars ($2 million), up from S$2.5 million now ($1.65 million), roughly five times the pay of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Lee will rank as the 102 nd-biggest earner in the city-state of about 4.5 million people under the new salary scheme, up from 164th before, but still lower than his No. 63 ranking in 2000.

But the biggest pay increase will go to entry-level ministerial officials, who will receive an annual salary of S$1.9 million ($1.25 million) by next year, up from S$1.2 million ($790,000) now.

In 1994, Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, created a system that pegged the salaries of top civil servants to what they might earn in the private sector.

Lee, who is the father of the current prime minister, decided that ministers would earn two-thirds of the median of the top 48 earners in six professions: lawyers, accountants, bankers, engineers and the top employees in multinational corporations and local manufacturers.

Latest news has it the their PM will give his increment portion to charity, I wonder which one - NKF?

A blogger's take on this issue

Leaving no indelible mark

The Star - 9 April 2007: Keng Yaik ends 26-year tenure as Gerakan chief

Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik has ended his 26-year tenure as Gerakan president.



Yesterday, he officially passed over the baton to Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, who will become acting party president.

Famous for his witty remarks, Dr Lim “caused a stir” after secretary-general Datuk Seri Chia Kwang Chye tabled three resolutions: for Dr Lim to retire as president, his appointment as national adviser and for Dr Koh to take over.

As he took the podium to deliver his farewell address at the extraordinary national delegates conference, Dr Lim told Chia: “Even before I step down (as president), you are saying this and that in the resolution. What if I don’t want to retire?”


Wouldn't you have cried too if:-
(1) Everyone was so eager for you to leave
(2) Your smiling successor says he "can't wait forever"
(3) No one mentioned anything about your achievements for the past 26 years (were there any?)

To be fair to Dr Lim, this blogger welcomes anyone who can give positive comments for Dr Lim. I for one think he was the only non-Malay Barisan MP with balls.