I have so much work (though matter how much frontloading…) that I haven’t slept well for the past few days. This while being down with the flu. I’m so tired, it’s not funny. Exhausted beyond all imagination. And my productivity is so low. But I can’t sleep in, because productivity would be zero in that case.
Naps don’t help.
Am I the only one seeing the disconnect here?
KUALA LUMPUR: In a move to crack down on serious crimes in the city, a massive operation targeting illegal immigrants will be launched soon.
Back in high school, a few friends had a theory regarding sneezing. You would sneeze once if someone’s thinking of you, twice when someone’s talking about you, etc. At this point of time, I’m concluding there is an ongoing dialogue session with people talking about me.
Perak’s regent what’s-his-name decided that the best man to rule the state would be from PAS, despite the fact DAP won the largest, by far, amount of seats in the state assembly and despite PKR being an ever-ready compromise party for the job if the regent finds the idea of a Chinese MB or menteri besar (first minister) too disgusting.
In Selangor, the sultan also faced a hard time stomaching a non-Malay as MB, but worse, decided to force Khalid to get an exco (cabinet) composed at least half by Malays apparently to represent the state’s ethnic composition (the same sultan didn’t force the outgoing Barisan Nasional state government with such conditions).
And it isn’t just in opposition states. In Perlis, the Raja decided to appointed another MB than the one UMNO forward. More humouressly, in Terengganu, the same scene is being played out, just with the Prime Minister and UMNO’s pick Idris fighting rather futilely. Yes, I do enjoy the Prime Minister and UMNO’s top leadership getting egged, but by an unelected ruler?
Makes you wonder the point of elections if the only way to protect the people’s interest is to have unelected rulers (whose names often aren’t even recognizable by the people they rule) trump parties elected. If the people of Terengganu really don’t like a Penangite picking its MB, they shouldn’t vote in a party with so much party concentrated at the top.
That swirlish sound as water flows rapidly down the sink? Exactly how I feel about this term. The last time I had this feeling was last term, just before the exams – it wasn’t too good on my grades. And the term before that? The sinking feeling came around exam time. It was a massacre.
I look forward in anticipated dread.
Joy.
DAP MP and apparent economist Charles Santiago says the election results is a damning injunction on free markets, privatisation and labour restructuring.
”Opposition parties must realise it was free market policies, privatisation and labour market restructuring that resulted in many people opposing the BN.”
Uhm, no. Voters may think the current economic malaise is caused by all that, but it is quite another thing to agree with them. Santiago could have been playing truant in several intro classes back in college:
”You had a situation where you had subsidies for the rich and a free market economy for the poor. While you subsidise the rich on one side, the debt of the country is being borne by the middle-classes and the poor.”
Uhm, how is it a “free market” when some are subsidized and others not?
Two weeks ago, operating on extreme sleep deprivation, I, as with many other Malaysians, was trying to make sense of the political tsunami, or as the Economist calls it, “the quiet revolution”, that occurred in Malaysia. In case you were under a rock, the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (National Front), suffered its worst defeat since independence – after winning its largest mandate just one election ago.
This surprised even the opposition, who had to scramble, trying to form a government in the states they netted (the opposition now controls five states, up from the previous one they held). One thing clear though, the votes that swung significantly in the opposition’s way was not because the opposition was particular great: in fact, it is a case of strange bedfellows, with Chinese-dominated social-democratic Democratic Action Party (DAP), Malay-dominated, populist-liberal People’s Justice Party (PKR) and Islamist Pan-Malaya Islamic Party (PAS) under the Barisan Rakyat (People’s Front).
This is why I’m not as optimistic about Malaysia’s political future as many other commentators. The opposition is under a significant burden to perform not even the best of them could do, especially where states have little autonomy in Malaysia, no less when it comes to economic and racial issues in which the government lost significant support. One of the opposition’s rallying cry in my constituency was local elections (local governments are presently appointed by state governments) – something that requires federal support.
And in many ways, they kind of lost the first test. The DAP, for one, has to tightrope two expectations – not to seem to be bedfellows with Islamist PAS (which non-Muslims, especially Chinese, distrust heavily) yet on the other hand maintain opposition unity. And in Perak, PAS probably dealt an effective blow to DAP’s hopes in the following elections.
In states with Malay sultans, like Perak, the Mentri Besar (first minister) has to be Muslim bar a special waiver by the Malay ruler. Perak’s regent refused such a waiver, despite DAP being handily the biggest winner in Perak (all of DAP’s assemblymen are non-Muslims). A compromise candidate would be from somewhat-secular PKR, where the mentri besar for Perak’s southern neighbour, Selangor, came from. Instead, the regent appointed a PAS candidate.
More than hurting DAP, PAS hurt their chances too, especially if the mentri besar is incapable of maintaining the coalition. PAS instead now seems politically opportunistic – putting its name forward despite having a tiny representation in the state’s legislative assembly. Hopefully, PAS’ true colours would be apparent through this. This election, they drop their raison d’être (an Islamic state) from their campaign, trying to win moderate Muslim and non-Muslim vote.
PAS campaign shift also marked another troubling aspect of the opposition’s win – its populist campaign. Far too often, the opposition has used rising cost of living and principally, petrol prices, to show how the government has dropped the ball. Yet inflation seems to be a global phenomenon, something no amount of price controls would change.
Anwar Ibrahim, on the campaign trail, touted his record as finance minister in the 1990s in keeping petrol prices stable (petrol price is subsidized and controlled by the federal government) – not a particularly fantastic achievement considering global oil prices then. If anything, it was Anwar’s failure to wean Malaysia from its fuel subsidies when global prices were low and economy growing rapidly.
But Anwar sees this record as good enough reason to be Prime Minister sooner rather than later. While BN may have won a handy 30-seat majority in the federal Parliament, much of is thanks from East Malaysia’s disproportionally overrepresented Sabah and Sarawak states. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi repaid this by giving the two states scant representation in his Cabinet.
East Malaysia is no stranger to crossing the floor. 14 years ago, then-opposition Sabah People’s Party (PRS) won Sabah’s elections. Their state government, however, lasted for a mere two weeks as most PRS representatives crossed the floor to Barisan Nasional (few years later, the much smaller PRS joined the ruling coalition). Anwar Ibrahim, who becomes eligible for public office in mid-April, seems – at least to the rest of us – to be banking on this to make him Malaysia’s 6th prime minister.
It would be tad premature to elevate the opposition to government now. With the exception of Kelantan (which has been ruled by Islamist PAS since 1990), the opposition is just learning the ropes of governance. While Anwar may have experience in that department (seemingly questionable by some account), few others in the opposition do.
More than that, the backdoor way of getting into government will cast a pall over Barisan Rakyat’s future electoral chances – unless a new Barisan Rakyat government exceeds voter expectations in a global economic downturn. Yes, elections in authoritarian Malaysia is significantly skewed towards the ruling Barisan Nasional but kicking Barisan Nasional out not through the ballot box but by enticing disgruntled MPs to cross the floor would not go so well with Malaysians.
After all, Malaysians in the four new opposition-ruled states have greeted their new overlords with guarded and wary optimism. Let shell-shocked Malaysians deal with this Teutonic shift in political realities.
Where am I? The library. Sipping diluted evaporated milk tinged with tea flavouring from the lovable Mr Tea. On the cup, it says, “Nobody does Tea like us.Nobody.” Well, thank god for that.
I was showing Andrea a funny wall-to-wall conversation from Facebook, and she reacted with surprise that I have close, nay, best friends prior to Singapore. Which is funny – how I separate friends from good friends is when my mother knows their name, and good friends from best friends is when my father knows their existence. Yes, a bit impractical a guide for some time now since most of my social network never cross paths with my parents.
I thought about it (yeah, that surprised me too… how female of me) – the individuals people tend to think to be my best mates tend to be different from my own take. I guess, for me, friends generally stay friends in the situation they became friends. The few that stick around after… well, those I treasure more.
What surprises me is that some of my best friends aren’t people I was exceedingly close to. A lot of them started out as friends-of-friends in fact (and a few, significant-others-of-friends). This generally makes the whole best-friends bit quite random. Not to say I don’t try to keep in touch with close friends, but it is kinda a two way process.
Oh, I’ll stop here.
I feel like I’m some bloke in a sampan along the coast facing the entire swell, to the height of medium-sized buildings, of a tsunami.
Joy. (I hate term papers, BTW).
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