Rule of law in jeopardy- Malaysiakini

Perak Speaker Sivakumar being dragged,abused and manhandled by security unknown individual out of Perak State Assembly .


Param Cumaraswamy May 8, 09 1:33pm

On March 4, I appealed to the Sultan of Perak to dissolve the state legislative assembly to avoid the crisis there leading to anarchy.Indeed what happened in the state legislative assembly yesterday was anarchy.

I have never seen or heard of such chaos in any legislature in the world. That such commotion could occur in a state where the ruler was once the Lord President of the Supreme Court is beyond belief.As I said previously he could have averted all these if he had dissolved the legislative assembly on Feb 5, and left it to the rakyat to elect a new government in accordance with the fundamentals of democracy.Rulers must not only be above politics but must be seen to be so.Lawyers will continue debating the validity of appointments and removals of the Menteri Besar and the speaker and the crude manner in which V Sivakumar was removed.They will continue to debate on the validity of motions adopted yesterday and at the previous meeting under the tree.Each will have an interpretation of the applicable provisions of the constitution and bye laws.As I said on March 4, this is not the time to look into the technicalities and strict interpretation of the law, constitution and bye laws.

That one disputed speaker could call in the police to assist the sergeant-at-arms to remove the other speaker who was indeed removed forcibly did not speak well of the calibre of these state representatives.Procedural fairness was thrown overboard in the assembly yesterday. The Perak Regent Raja Nazrin Shah's presence there and his delivery of the royal address may not be seen as the ruler not being above politics.What about the court ruling?What is most disconcerting is all these happened when there was pending before the High Court an application to determine who is the rightful Menteri Besar!Why the unholy haste to summon the legislative assembly? The state constitution does not expressly provide that if the assembly is not convened within six months since the last session the assembly is automatically dissolved.What happens if on Monday the High Court declares that the rightful Menteri Besar is Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin?

On the other hand if the court finds that Zambry Abd Kadir's appointment was valid, the public perception would be that the events of yesterday pre-empted the decision of the court.The independence and impartiality of the court would be called into question. .The ugly events of yesterday clearly showed that there can never be an orderly and stable government in Perak unless the legislative assembly is dissolved and fresh elections held.I therefore urge Sultan Azlan Shah to exercise his discretionary power under Article 36(2) of the state constitution and dissolve the legislative assembly.More than anybody else he should know better the finer principles of democracy and its values for a state under a just rule of law.

PARAM CUMARASWAMY is a former Malaysian Bar president (1986 - 1988). He also served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers by the UN Commission on Human Rights from 1994 to 2003.

Mahathir's Return - Asia Sentinel

The former prime minister is expected to complicate life for newly minted Premier Najib

With Malaysia expected to shed as much as 2.5 percent off its gross domestic product in 2009 and the country's politics riven with factionalism, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak looks unlikely to get a 100-day honeymoon, or even less of one. For one thing, he has former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad looking over his shoulder at every move.
The late-March conclave of the United Malays National Organisation that ratified Najib in power in particular demonstrates Mahathir's resurgence, and with him probably UMNO's old guard. With a US$16.26 billion stimulus package announced in March to increase employment, improve infrastructure and help the private sector, the test of whether there is a new UMNO or an old UMNO will be where the stimulus will be directed. Watch for the firms most closely connected to party stalwarts.

The problem is that while Najib may placate the Mahathir faction inside UMNO, the greater public at large continues to be disenchanted with the party's leadership of the country. After the March 2008 election which cost the ruling national coalition its two-thirds lock on parliament, Najib has lost four of five other by-elections to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, winning only one in an isolated village in Sarawak in East Malaysia. He faces a revolt in the northeastern, conservative state of Terengganu, where 10 local assembly members refused to be seated last week in objection to the chief minister appointed to head the party there. In two by-elections on April 8, one in Perak and the other in Mahathir's own home state of Kedah, his personal return to the campaign trail appeared to have done little good, with both elections going to the opposition in greater numbers than in the 2008 general election.

Although Mahathir's hegemony over his old party is not 100 percent, and he says he is retired and intends to remain only an adviser, his return to UMNO leaves little doubt about his sway. After he left the party in a huff a year ago when it was announced that he faced a probe over judicial corruption, he devoted considerable space on his blog, Chedet, to blasting Najib when he wasn't ripping into Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, whom he anointed as his successor only to turn on him with a vengeance. Party insiders say Najib, having got Mahathir back on his side, lives in fear that the former prime minister will go after him again if he doesn't get what he wants. Mahathir, party insiders say, regards Najib as weak and won't hesitate to blast the prime minister if he doesn't get his way.

In particular, party insiders say, one condition for getting Mahathir back into the party was the isolation of Khairy Jamalludin, former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son-in-law, even though Khairy was elected head of the important Youth wing of the party. Despite the position's importance, Khairy was denied a cabinet seat and his close associates within his faction of the party are being investigated for vote-buying although vote-buying was widespread on all sides during the UMNO conclave.
Mahathir's son Mukhriz, who lost out to Khairy in the contest for the youth wing job, was named minister of international trade and industry. That ministry in particular is the senior Mahathir's brainchild, the agency from which many of the grandiose projects of Mahathir's 22-year reign as prime minister sprang.

Daim Zainuddin, who was appointed finance minister by Mahathir in 1984, holds no official position. Daim became enormously rich -- and controversial -- under Mahathir. Although he apparently will have no official position, he is expected to play a major role in advising the government on Malaysia's economic outlook, perhaps joining the new council of economic advisers that Najib is establishing. It was Daim as much as Mahathir who advocated the creation of a class of Malay entrepreneurs through the award of vast contracts for government-linked projects to counterbalance the Chinese. That policy as much as anything is responsible for the quandary Malaysia finds itself in today, with a class of rent-seeking cronies who have become enormously rich while draining government coffers, particularly in the construction industry.
Although it is by no means certain, it also appears that some of Mahathir's cherished grandiose projects, which were cancelled by Badawi to Mahathir's eternal enmity, may be back. In particular, the so-called “crooked bridge” across the causeway whether Singapore wanted it or not, has made a reappearance, with a trial balloon floated last week in The Star, one of Malaysia's two English-language newspapers, which is owned by the Malaysian Chinese Association, the second-biggest component party in the Barisan Nasional, or ruling national coalition which is led by UMNO.

If the bridge does make an appearance, one UMNO stalwart told Asia Sentinel, it will demonstrate beyond doubt the sway Mahathir holds over Najib. It is certain to cause serious complications in Malaysia's relations with Singapore, which buys water from Malaysia, and sand, which Singapore needs in ever-increasing amounts in its bid to fill the Strait of Sumatra to make itself a bigger country. Singapore also wants airspace – liebensraum for its air force, which is bigger than Malaysia's and Indonesia's combined, and which can't get its wheels up before it leaves Singapore's borders.

Another project which will probably reappear soon, according to party insiders, is the dual-track railway that will run 329 km up Malaysia's spine from Ipoh to the Thai border. In 2007, the government approved a no-bid contract with Gamuda-MMC for RM12.5 billion (US$3.73 billion) but then shelved it again. The MMC part of the consortium is a construction company backed by Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, a longtime backer and fundraiser for UMNO. The contract, critics say, was far in excess of the amount necessary to actually build the project. It remains to be seen what company will get the contract this time.
On the other hand, time may be running out for the troubled Iskandar Malaysia project, a massive 2,200 square kilometer development in Johor, across from Singapore, which Badawi commissioned in 2006 and which has been flagging, particularly as the global economy has turned down. The development is to include port facilities and a huge panoply of petrochemicals projects and orther projects as well as condominiums. Besides being commissioned by Badawi, Mahathir has called it an extension of Singapore itself.

Local media quoted Mahatir as saying “after the land is sold, the Malays will be driven to live at the edge of the forest and even in the forest itself. In the end, the area in Iskandar Malaysia will be filled with Singaporeans and populated with only 15 per cent Malays.”
Whether the opposition can capitalize on the disarray within the coalition is another matter. The Penang deputy chief has quit the Parti Keadilan Rakyat opposition party amid corruption allegations over illegal quarrying activities, is threatening to expose further scandals in the Penang government. The opposition coalition has been under pressure across the country from Najib's attempts to pry away party members , with critics charging he had been offering large sums of money to get them to jump ship.

The stimulus package, the largest in Malaysia's history, represents 9 percent of GDP, but still is expected only to bring the export-oriented economy back to about neutral. With malaise growing, and critics at his back, Najib faces an unappetizing future.

The best is yet to come- Hannah Yeoh

Hannah Yeoh- State Assemblyman N.31 Subang Jaya, Selangor and State Treasurer for DAP Selangor

So many people have been telling me just how frustrated they are with the current political situation in our country. Some have told me that they regretted voting for change because of the political instability now and would prefer returning to their old style of voting - vote for stability and forget about having a stronger opposition and greater check and balance.

I shudder at the thought of this! One needs to remember the reason why we are seeing such great resistance for change is simply because there is much to lose for those who have been in power for so long. For decades there have been so much abuses of power, unchecked misuse of public funds and plain dirty corruption. With a stronger opposition now, they stand to lose their illegal sources of income and some may even be charged and sent to prison if they are found guilty. With this in mind, they will fight at all costs to reclaim back power and to ensure they can continue to steal public funds from the people for their own enrichment.

We are not just dealing with differences in politics; we are combating evil forces who will not rest till they secure back their powers and illegal sources of income.Sometimes I feel equally frustrated and disillusioned about the political situation too. Sometimes I lay awake thinking of how to effect change in this land. Some days I cry while driving in between meetings thinking of what's left for the future generation in this land if we give up now. I have endured much verbal attack from political enemies, accusation after accusation of me not doing anything for my constituents and etc. No one truly understands the resistance we face daily in discharging our duties except for my fellow PR assemblymen.

Robert Kennedy once said ‘Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator and change has its enemies.’ Our enemies are resisting change but we must stand firm and continue to push for a competent, accountable and transparent government. At the end of each day, as I lay myself to sleep, I ask God for strength, wisdom and protection to face the next. I look forward to the end of the term when I can tell the people of Subang Jaya that I have remained clean and have not stolen any of the taxpayers' funds.

As reminded by Raja Petra in his blog "Please continue your struggle to make Malaysia a better place for our future generation. This country belongs to them and it is for them that we struggle." All hope is not lost. Come the next election, vote out the corrupt once and for all. Hang in there supporters and friends, the best is yet to come!

Nizar elected, BN rejected; Perak elections needed- Malaysiakini

By: P Ramakrishnan Apr 9, 09 4:51pm

The Barisan Nasional has suffered four deadly blows in a row. Umno has been soundly defeated on three occasions since March 8, 2009. The outcome of these by-elections have confirmed that there is no stopping Pakatan Rakyat no matter what crafty means the BN adopts.

For Umno, the results have been devastating. It has not recovered lost ground neither has it revived its fortunes. It has been downhill all the way in spite of changing its president and acclaiming him as the sixth prime minister of Malaysia.
Najib Abdul Razak is going down to the ground without any fanfare dressed in ordinary clothes; meeting ordinary people and eating vadai in crowded Brickfields; addressing the nation propounding the concept of one Malaysia; bringing in Dr Mahathir Mohamad to turn the tide on the last day of campaigning – all this did not make any difference.

Fixing a weekday for polling, imposing so many restrictions to handicap the opposition also did not provide any advantage to the BN. If anything, it only made the people angry and motivated the electorate to punish BN.
The peninsula victories of Pakatan over the BN has driven home the fact rather convincingly that the March 8 election was no fluke. They reaffirmed that the ground has indeed shifted in favour of the opposition.

The results must be viewed as a damning referendum on Najib, Umno, BN and the government. The electorate has rejected the BN overwhelmingly and have sent a clear signal that they are not going to tolerate any more nonsense from Umno and the BN.
When they elected a political novice and rejected a seasoned politician in Bukit Selambau, it was meant to spite the BN and MIC.

When they elected Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin in Bukit Gantang with a majority almost twice that of the previous one exactly a year later, it was meant to punish the BN and send a strong signal to Najib that they were thoroughly disgusted with him for engineering the fall of their duly-elected Perak state government.

The significance of Bukit Gantang must be seriously taken into account. It is abundantly clear that Perakians want Nizar’s government to continue to serve them. It is their preferred. chosen government and they have given the thumbs down to Zambry Abdul Kadir.
Aliran hopes that this message will not go unnoticed. This is why Aliran would like to appeal - yet again to His Royal Highness, the Sultan of Perak, to reconsider his decision.

The Perak government cannot be in a limbo, especially in these difficult times of economic uncertainties. We earnestly appeal to His Royal Highness to allow his subjects to decide on the government of their choice in a fresh election.
Aliran would also like to appeal to Zambry to do the only honourable thing for which he will be remembered. Please resign and pave the way for fresh elections.

The writer is President, Aliran.

Najib It Is - Asia Sentinel

Malaysia's leading ethnic party names a scandal-ridden party hack as its head and the country's leader

On Friday, Malaysia is scheduled to end months of waiting to announce its new prime minister, Najib Tun Razak, after the United Malays National Organisation, the country's biggest ethnic party named him their leader during their annual convention.

Najib told the UMNO parley, held in Kuala Lumpur last week, that it is crucial that his party reform itself or it will lose its hold on the electorate. But Najib's history, and that of the party itself, portends instead a return to the politics and practices that got the national ruling coalition into trouble in the first place, losing its historic two-thirds majority in the national parliament in national elections last year. Najib's ascent to power more likely represents a clear preference by UMNO stalwarts to return to cronyism, money politics and corruption after an eight-year interregnum from the authoritarian reign of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

The new prime minister's history may make it problematical whether the leaders of major countries are going to want to be seen with him. Concerns include hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable contracts steered to UMNO cronies and friends, not to mention continuing allegations of his involvement in the murder of the Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu following the controversial purchase of French submarines and, more recently, his role in sabotaging the opposition in the state of Perak and his shuttering newspapers and thwarting opposition candidates during his own party's elections last week.

The convention itself was a good example. Opponents of the Najib team were denied places on the ballot by a panel supposedly charged with cleaning up money politics, although they let Najib's allies slide by after having committed the same offenses. The result was that the deputy president, Muhyiddin Yassin, and all three vice presidents are from the Najib faction although the Najib forces were unable to prevent Khairy Jamaluddin, the son-in-law of ousted Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmand Badawi, from becoming head of the important UMNO Youth wing. They also were unable to stop Shahrizat Abdul Jalil from defeating longtime party hack Rafidah Aziz to take over the Wanita, the women's wing of the party, also a Badawi ally.

The final election night erupted into name-calling, with allies of Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of the former prime minister, charging that Khairy had bought the votes to make him head of UMNO Youth. Mahathir Mohamad himself railed against the two candidates against his son, calling them corrupt. Rais Yatim, the foreign minister, who lost out in one of the vice president races, demanded that UMNO's disciplinary board investigate the entire new supreme council over allegations that they had delivered gifts and money to delegates in the effort to win their seats. Mahathir Mohamad has repeatedly launched furious attacks on UMNO leaders, calling them corrupt although he showed up at the last night of the convention to be seen with Najib and others.

The UMNO-owned New Straits Times described the top party positions as having "given much-needed breathing space to Najib as he sets out to unite UMNO and push the party to undertake the reforms he has promised. He will have less of a task to deal with the factionalism that so often arises after a bitterly fought contest in the party." But in fact, UMNO appears to be as much riven by factional politics as it was going into the convention.

As early as April 8, the party faces the first of three important by-elections – one for a seat in the Dewan Rakyat, or national assembly, and two more for state legislative seats. The first test is for a Perak seat in which support for the Barisan appears to be waning.
"The problem is not the opposition, but within our own ranks," a local leader told the Kuala Lumpur-based website Malaysia Insider, referring to the perennial problem of factionalism within Umno.

Najib has sought to nullify the opposition with force. Last Monday, a rally led by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim was broken up by police who fired tear gas at the audience. Other rallies have been cancelled as well. Two opposition newspapers were cancelled until after April 8, the date of the Perak national by-election, presumably because the two papers have hammered away at allegations of Najib's connections with the two men on trial for killing Altantuya in October of 2006 and her role in the €1 billion purchase of French submarines that netted one of his closest friends €114 million in "commissions."

To say Najib brings considerable baggage with him is an understatement. While attention has focused on allegations of corruption in the submarine purchases, the fact is that as defense minister from 1999 to 2008, Najib presided over a cornucopia of defense deals that poured a river of money into the coffers of his close friends and UMNO cronies. A September 24, 2007 story in Asia Sentinel quoted Foreign Policy in Focus, a think tank supported by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, as saying that "many foreign arms manufacturers generally used well-connected Malaysians as their lobbyists for contracts."

Three contracts approved under Najib have been widely cited by the opposition and fit well into Foreign in Policy in Focus's patronage scale. They have been forced back into public attention by his ascension to the premiership and by the exoneration under questionable circumstances of Abdul Razak Baginda, one of his closest friends, for Altantuya's murder.

Spending for defense accelerated across the board after Najib, called "the driving force" behind Malaysia's military modernization program by Foreign Policy in Focus. The shopping list, the think tank reported, "includes battle tanks from Poland, Russian and British surface-to-air missiles and mobile military bridges, Austrian Steyr assault rifles and Pakistani anti-tank missiles. Kuala Lumpur was also negotiating to buy several F/A 18s, the three French submarines and Russian Suhkoi Su-30 fighter aircraft.

Global Recession Could Last Till End-2010 Or Longer- AFP

NEW DELHI: The US professor nicknamed "Dr. Doom" for forecasting the financial crisis has said the global recession will last all of this year and probably next, India's Mail Today reported Saturday.New York University professor Nouriel Roubini said that in the best-case scenario, the recession will continue through 2010 in advanced economies while job losses will persist for an additional year, the paper reported.

He said world governments are falling behind the curve in tackling the crisis with "policymakers moving in the right direction--but (doing) too little too late."Speaking at a New Delhi conference, Roubini warned that the United States, Europe and Japan must "get their act together" to avoid the global economy sinking further.

"People were hoping it would be a V-shaped recession--a sharp fall, followed by an equally quick recovery," he said."But we are in the middle of an ugly U-shaped recession," he said Friday.
Roubini said the bottom of the "U"--the length of time the world economy will continue to contract--would last a minimum of three years starting from December 2007.But he said there was a "one-in-three chance" that recession would turn into an "L"--a prolonged period of stagnation or shrinking output, coupled with falling prices as demand dries up.

As early as 2005, Roubini said US home prices were riding a speculative wave that would soon sink the economy, but was dismissed as a doomsayer.In Delhi, he said the problems of the financial system and financial institutions were getting worse, but that the outlook could be improved by governments taking charge of insolvent banks, cleaning them up and then selling them to private investors.

"People say when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold. In this case, the US is just not sneezing, it has a severe case of chronic pneumonia.""We all sink or swim together," he said, adding there is no way policy action in emerging economic giants India and China can pull the global economy out of the slump. (AFP)

Under a tree, assembly votes for fresh polls- Malaysian Insider

Above photos courtesy from Nizar's facebook

Photo courtesy from Malaysiakini

Speaker Sivakumar in ceremonial attire addressing the assembly members.

IPOH, March 3 — In the shade of a rain tree with the State Secretariat just 200 metres away, Perak Speaker V Sivakumar convened an emergency sitting of the state assembly today which effectively voted to end the de facto Barisan Nasional (BN) government of Datuk Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir.

Across town at the same time in the Ipoh High Court, BN lawyers were arguing to stay the proceedings of the state assembly, pending a law suit against Sivakumar for suspending from the assembly Zambry and his six executive council members.

On an eventful day, Perak’s administration has been thrown into chaos with both BN and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) questioning the legitimacy of each other’s actions.

The State Secretary’s directive to close off the building which houses the state assembly had added to the confusion over the administration of the state.

The directive resulted in riot police barring state assemblymen from entering the building.

All the lawmakers that had turned up this morning were from PR parties. BN legislators, not surprisingly, did not show up as they contend the assembly was invalid.

Sivakumar was the only person given permission to access the building, but he chose instead to walk nearby to convene the assembly with the presence of the PR assemblymen.

Dressed in his ceremonial black robes and songkok, the Speaker presided over a sitting, which on the face of it appeared legal as long as he was present.

The sitting proceeded to pass three votes – expressing their confidence in Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin as mentri besar; calling on Nizar to seek a dissolution of the state assembly; and endorsing Sivakumar’s suspension of Zambry and the de facto BN executive council.

Nizar told reporters later that he would seek an audience with the Sultan to ask for consent to dissolve the assembly.

At the Ipoh High Court, Judicial Commissioner Ridwan Ibrahim ruled that five lawyers, including constitutional expert Tommy Thomas, had no locus standi to represent the Perak Speaker in court.

He said the Speaker must be represented by the state legal advisor because he is part of the state government.

Thomas told reporters the team had no choice but to withdraw from the case.

Earlier this morning, a minor scuffle broke out when a group of unidentified men tried to stop Nizar and other PR assemblymen from entering the state assembly compound.

Subsequently, Nizar and the assemblymen were prevented from entering the state assembly by riot police, backed by two trucks with water cannons.

Yesterday, Zambry declared any attempt to hold an emergency sitting of the state assembly a “threat to national security.”

Nizar told reporters later that he would seek an audience with the Sultan to ask for consent to dissolve the assembly.

At the Ipoh High Court, Judicial Commissioner Ridwan Ibrahim ruled that five lawyers, including constitutional expert Tommy Thomas, had no locus standi to represent the Perak Speaker in court.

He said the Speaker must be represented by the state legal advisor because he is part of the state government.

Thomas told reporters the team had no choice but to withdraw from the case.

Earlier this morning, a minor scuffle broke out when a group of unidentified men tried to stop Nizar and other PR assemblymen from entering the state assembly compound.

Subsequently, Nizar and the assemblymen were prevented from entering the state assembly by riot police, backed by two trucks with water cannons.

Yesterday, Zambry declared any attempt to hold an emergency sitting of the state assembly a “threat to national seNizar told reporters later that he would seek an audience with the Sultan to ask for consent to dissolve the assembly.

At the Ipoh High Court, Judicial Commissioner Ridwan Ibrahim ruled that five lawyers, including constitutional expert Tommy Thomas, had no locus standi to represent the Perak Speaker in court.

He said the Speaker must be represented by the state legal advisor because he is part of the state government.

Thomas told reporters the team had no choice but to withdraw from the case.

Earlier this morning, a minor scuffle broke out when a group of unidentified men tried to stop Nizar and other PR assemblymen from entering the state assembly compound.

Subsequently, Nizar and the assemblymen were prevented from entering the state assembly by riot police, backed by two trucks with water cannons.

Yesterday, Zambry declared any attempt to hold an emergency sitting of the state assembly a “threat to national security.”