The show begins. Malaysiakini

Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial is to be heard from 2pm today, after the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

What happens if Anwar goes back to jail? Malaysiakini

The biggest Malaysian news hogger for this year would have started this week but got postponed till next week. What do you think of Anwar's trial? A sham, a conspiracy or justice?

If this mole was sent by UMNO into Anwars camp to dig in to his personal life and claim sodomy later. The clever thing to do for whoever who sent him in there was to make sure he had enough evidence to bury Anwar before exposing Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

So, do you think they will be successful? We will know soon. But the worrying question here is not just Anwar's fate for coming years but this Nations fate? We all know that Pakatan Rakyat is hold together by Anwar's sticky glue. DAP and PAS is a partner that is definitely not what you call "Opposite attracts". From Ideology to representation they are completely opposite to each other. So PKR has gone all out to recruit as much politically influence people as they can grab. To be the alternative voice in the Pakatan Rakyat formula. Being the youngest and less experienced party in this Pakatan Rakyat Establishment. They needed more qualified and experience people to field for the next general election.


Will Pakatan Rakyat survive if Anwar goes back to prison? I don't think so. If Anwar goes back to Prison. He looses his MP seat. They will need a new opposition leader. His wife will need to stand again at Permatan Pauh. There will definitely be a few massive rallies but that's not going to change anything. We will definitely see Barisan Nasional loose more seat in the next GE. Their days are numbered. But the opposition wont be united. So an opposition state government will probably be still 3 or 4 but never a new federal government.


But there is a possibility that in his absences there might be aspiring new revolutionary leaders rising to unite the opposition or maybe create a single strong opposition. It's not practical for now but a possibility of a Pakatan Rakyat government wasn't realistic not too long ago also. Fingers crossed that the voice of the opposition never dies if this turn bad for Anwar. Who knows maybe Najib might just do what his father did to salvage their power by suppressing the opposition and suspending the Parliament. We can throw bricks made of words at him but a man in his position in Malaysia can't be touched. We could end up as a dictator ruling. Then we all can forget about a place called home.

Our Nations future, our children's future and our country's future is now in the hands of Najib. We will never know what lies ahead of us until the Parliament really runs this country.

Time for a moratorium on the NEP perhaps? Malaysiakini

Time for a moratorium on the NEP perhaps?
post info
By Anwar Ibrahim
Categories: Analisis, Anwar, Isu Semasa and Sidenotes From The Malaysian Insider

By Dr Hsu Dar Ren

DEC 1 - Some time back, I wrote an article “From greenback to our economy” where I predicted that the US dollar would appreciate against the Malaysian ringgit. In a little more than two months, It has climbed from around 3.20 to 3.60 now.

Our foreign reserves have gone done a few billions, and now stands at about RM109 billion, still very healthy and able to sustain nine months of imports. But the fact that we need to sell a few billion dollars to prop up our ringgit is really a cause for concern.

Budget 2009 tabled in August this year has a total budget allocation of RM208 billion. The operating expenditure is RM154 billion, leaving only about RM54 billion for development.

The Budget runs a deficit of 4.8%. That was in August when oil and commodity prices were high. Now that the oil price as well as prices of commodities have come down so much, our revenue would decrease substantially, and there would really be little money to spend for development, when we need to spend to stimulate the economy.

Although I have suggested, in one of my earlier blog articles, that operating expenses be cut by RM20 billion in order to have funds for spending as a stimulus package and cushion the loss of revenue from a possible tax cuts, it may not be feasible in the short term, when everyone in the government is so used to their way of doing things.

The priority now should be three-fold: create more jobs, stimulate the economy so as to put money in people’s pockets as well as to provide a safety net for poor people and retrenched workers.

How can we hope to do this when our revenue is coming down due to falling commodity and oil prices, when cutting operating expenses may not be feasible, when borrowing more money may not be workable as we are already running a fairly high deficit, when wastage and corruption are still so rampant and cannot be corrected overnight?

There has been a lot of debate of late whether this crisis is about governments triumphing over the markets or the markets triumphing over governments?

I believe that in Malaysia, if the government is unable to provide a stimulus package without going into deeper debt, then the logical thing is to give incentives to the private sector and hope that it can provide the engine to stimulate the economy.

There are still many cash-rich Malaysian companies and individuals. If these people can invest and be the engine of growth, we can create more jobs as well as stimulate growth to counter the global economic recession.

For the private sector to invest, there must be a few pre-requisites:

1) Cheaper access to funds. Bank interests and interest spread must be lowered.

2) There must be less regulatory interference in order for the companies to invest and grow. In this respect, we may have to do away with the NEP. If that is not immediately acceptable, then perhaps we should have a moratorium to suspend the NEP for a few years to see how our economy can benefit.

If this trial can prove that NEP is in fact a hindrance to the growth of the people, including our Malay brothers, then we can, at the end of the moratorium period, do away with the NEP completely and replace it with a needs-based economy.

3) Tax cut and incentives for investments in certain priority sectors, such as education, healthcare as well as transportation, biotechnology, nanotechnology and so on.

I ask our Malay brothers to accept my suggestion for a moratorium rationally. It is better for everyone to have an expanding cake than to have a cake that is rapidly shrinking. In the latter case, having a fixed proportion of the cake may be meaningless if the cake shrinks to half its former size.

On the part of the non-Malays, they should try to have a real economic partnership with the Malays, genuinely imparting skills and business know-how, and not just form an Ali Baba relationship to beat the loopholes in the NEP.

We need to think out of the box and adopt fast action to counter this economic tsunami. Already we have felt the first wave; subsequent waves will be more devastating and if nothing is done now, we are going to face a really bleak future.

Kerajaan Pakatan Rakyat needs to be elected. Malaysiakini

It looks like we wont be seeing a Pakatan Rakyat Federal Government any time soon. Disappointing as it sounds it might be the best for now. We don't really need PR to be in power to destroy BN. Umno is killing itself. Mahathir, Najib and Badawi with Khairy and Mukhriz and Taib lost in the middle. It's all totally messed up.
Najib cant get rid of the money politics in UMNO. How can he when then is so many complaints about himself? None of the members of UMNO are going to buy his story. If Najib doesn't listen to Mahathir then his head is going to roll next. There is no real successor for UMNO. If UMNO and BN are alive today it's only going to be short lived till the next general election. I'm not Anwar but i think he is letting the fire burn deeper. MCA and MIC has lost it's direction totally. This is 50 years of typical mentality. You cant change it overnight.

With Anwar constantly talking about take over of the government has actually had a very bad impact on our economy. For instance with my company. A very big British company that has a stake in everything in Hong Kong have pulled out of a nearly done major joint venture deal with a Malaysian company based in sepang because of our countries uncertain future direction. As well as all the black holes they found in the companies accounts audit. Typical Malaysians unfortunately. This are one of the reasons the BN government has to go. After all it's all a Chain Reaction.

Teagarajan who is vying for the post of deputy president in MIC said that a weak management was to be blamed for the financial woes of Maika. He also proposed that the government pumped in RM150 million to bail out Maika??? Is he Crazy???Put more money into this corrupted organisations hands?
Maika Holdings chief executive officer S Vell Paari today said that Maika board had proposed resolutions to sell off all assets of Maika and distribute the surplus to the shareholders.
They sure do know how to choose the best time to sell their assets. When the economy is at it's lowest. They are so lucky not to be arrested for this MAIKA scandal. So many Indians in Malaysia trusted and invested their life savings in this and never saw a sen after that. I read sometime ago they got something like a RM1,000 after 15 or 20 years.
The Deputy and the President of MCA are having "cold war". PPP wants to leave BN and Sabah and Sarawak wants their share of the pie or they are threatening to walk out.
Anwar doesn't have to do anything. BN is destroying itself. They are in Cruise Control to destruction. Once things get out of hand the King would step in and announce a new General Election. By that time Pakatan Rakyat will already have enough candidate's to stand everywhere. Pakatan Rakyat is slowly growing and opening up branches everywhere.
But the guys who really started the domino effect are still in jail. The 5 Hindraf guys. They were the first guys to brace them self for the first crackdown that started the volcanic eruption that swallowed Malaysia during the 12th General Election.
Some criticised Hindraf for not accomplishing anything for the past one year. I say all this people are wrong. If it wasn't for Hindraf you wont be having Pakatan Rakyat at all. They say you need a tragedy to get the family together. And that is what the indians did. I proud that Hindraf still champions their cause even after so many barriers were put on their path and Their biggest achievement is not that they still put a brave face and challenge the government but to keep to their words and never resorted to violence. I honour your struggle HINDRAF.

I just hope our friends in Pakatan Rakyat hasn't forgotten their pledge to the Indians.

Pathmanck

The Bomb Anwar dropped on Malaysians.

By Shannon Teoh

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 26 – Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim appeared to stop short today of saying his Pakatan Rakyat (PR) alliance will have to wait until the next general election to make a serious bid for power.
He told reporters that he would not explain why the PR alliance has not yet taken power at this weekend’s PKR party congress.
“There is nothing to explain. It will happen,” Anwar said in Parliament. He did not set another deadline.
His self-imposed deadline of Sept 16 for PR to topple the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government passed without incident and his credibility has taken a knock, while the opposition’s momentum has stalled, since then.
Increasingly, Malaysians are focused on economic worries and many are turning away from an almost obsessive fixation with politics since the March 8 elections.
Anwar had been widely expected to address this point at this weekend’s PKR congress, but he looks to be trying to put Sept 16 behind him.
He said today that it did not matter when the PR alliance takes over the government.
The widely held view that Datuk Seri Najib Razak will take power as prime minister next March under an Umno transition plan hammered out with Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi was also premature, Anwar said.
“What makes you so sure?” he asked reporters.
According to Anwar, his message to party delegates this weekend will include a call for them to continue to be committed and to concentrate on ruling well the five states under PR control.
He said PKR had also recently started a nationwide campaign to hold ceramahs to communicate with the Malay ground across the country in an attempt to make headway into the hearts and minds of the community.
The opposition ranks continue to enjoy good support among non-Malays but rural Malays continue to harbour distrust of the PR coalition.
He said this move was necessary as the mainstream media, especially the Malay media, continues to sideline the coalition to propogate the Barisan Nasional agenda.

Hindraf Pic by malaysiakini and adilphoto

Anwars Government

Today he has announced that he has enough to form his government. By the information provided by another blogger, named Nur Aflah. Apparently Anwar will be giving a press conference tomorrow to state his actions of forming the government. He has 32 MP's defecting from the current ruling party. Malaysia might or might not be ready for this but the wave of change is here already. If this is true then by this Friday we would have a new government. He has also promised September 16 as public holiday. He said BM would be given much more importance as well as Mandarin and Tamil.
What he worries and all the defectors worry is that they might be arrested under ISA. This is the main reason he wants to meet the PM to make sure there is a smooth transition of power.
Zaid Ibrahim has spoken to Anwar after he tendered his resignation and Anwar has apparently told his in 3days things are going to change.
But like how Raja Petra has nicely said it. Nobody asked Anwar to form a government now nor did anyone ask him to give a dateline like Sept 16. So with all the hype and pressure everyone went thru and he fails to do anything. People will totally turn their backs on him. Then Anwar will be finished. RPK said Anwar would probably be joining him in prison then.

Let me shed some light on the issue.

There is a lot of criticism towards Anwar's approach to forming a Federal Government. A very hot topic. But If i was in Anwar's position. Being the Governments Number 1 target and being a man fighting for justice. There is no point i sit and let them kill me. I need to hit them hard and fast. Best before they do something to me. Kill or get killed. You only live once.
4 years from now where do you think Anwar would be? The biggest possibility is in jail. Counting the rest of his life in there or probably as self exiled. Living abroad somewhere is Turkey or London. Barisan National has seen the change in Malaysians. They know they are not current with the peoples thinking anymore. If they have decided their time is up they could launder every bit of wealth they can get their hands on and leave a crippled country to the opposition to carry on. Our country is already in such a bad shape. Our economy is doing so bad and people are suffering. We are already in such a state, do you really want to wait for another 4 years? Some say the Pakatan Rakyat government should concentrate in running the 5 states they already have. Lets be frank. Do you think BN will let them grow and flourish and make the other states envy of them? They would try their level best to tarnish and destroy their oppositions credibility before the next general election. That is BN and they have proven them self as such.
10 months ago we didn't even have an opposition government. We didn't have Pakatan Rakyat. I should give the credits to Hindraf and their movement who broke the gates of this Superficial Multiracial Multi ethnic Governance act. 10 months ago even i never thought it would be possible to stand up against UMNO. At last we are evolving. 50 years it took us to see light. And yet so many condemned the time is not right.
There is movie by the name of The Great Debaters by Danzel Washington about a true story. In it there is a women debating about civil disobedience used by Gandhi to bring down the British Government. During the same period this movie portrays. In it she questions "People say it is not time for the blacks to be given rights and equal citizenship. Fine! then tell me when is?" So lets stop kidding our self.
It does not take time, it takes a leader with a heart and mind to changed injustice and to instill pride to it's nation. That's why we have great leaders at times and hopeless ones too.
I should praise Dr. S.Subramaniam and Zaid Ibrahim for condemning the use of ISA by their government. During Mahathirs era we hardly heard any of the party members opinion. Mahathir was the only spokesperson for the entire government. Badawi is the total opposite.

Is it because i'm Black!!

MP Gopalakrihnan and his boys were arrested, 9 Hindraf leaders were arrested in this Permatang Pauh Election period. Why is this double standards happening? Don't tell me it was a total coincidence they all happen to be Indians. To uphold the truth we get beaten up. Being an MP and the police can whack him till he landed in hospital. If we dont stand up for our rights. This racial side lining will never stop. Firm and corrective actions need to be taken. Never by the use of violent but i think an act of civil disobedience should pave the way. We have about 2 weeks to see if Anwar is able to topple the government. If unsuccessful then Hindraf has to rise to the occasion and lead the movement to topple UMNO.If the police are not scared in doing that than imagine where they have put us as Malaysians.
I will refuse to obey to their orders and i will refuse to be treated second class. I was born here, my father was born here and my grandfather was born here and my children will born here. This is my home and my future.
Malaysia adalah untuk Malaysian. Malaysia adalah negara yang berbilang kaum. Di dunia sekarang hampir semua negara berbilang kaum. Adakah mereka berkelakuan seperti UMNO. Mengunakan isu isu agama and kaum untuk memegang kepada kuasa. Hancur UMNO, Hancurkan Politik berasas kaum.

Anwar has won with makkal sakthi

Glad to know the results. so what is left is will he swear in tommorow or BN going to delay it till next week so that he cant do anything during the announcement of the budget. But our target is to topple the government. Let us not forget our objective. BN has failed to serve the people for far too long. Time to make changes. Time to make malaysia a better place for all of us.
Merdeka...Merdeka....Merdeka

6 hours left in permatang pauh

Things are heating up as more questions arrise at the polling stations. If Anwar wins they will try to delay his swearing in till next week so that he misses this friday budget at the parliement. Look at how corrupt the entire malaysia system.
If they try to delay his swearing in. What are we going to do about it? Let's think how to bend the governments arm into do it?

Makkal Sakthi Lost in Translation

Barisan Nasional or Umno has successfully used the Makkal Sakthi banner to steal some limelight for them self.
I am a supporter of the Hindraf movement. I appreciate and support their hard work and struggle to expose the truth and bring up the one of the most neglected race in Malaysia. Makkal Sakthi is slogan used to represent the fire that is burning in all Malaysians heart who want a fair and equal Malaysia. Makkal Sakthi meaning people's power is purely for pursuing justice.
Unfortunately to show that the government is listening to the Indian community needs. They allowed a splinter group from Hindraf to carry out a special prayers at seberang jaya for the 5 Hindraf leaders in ISA. Badawi even went to attend this function and gave his assurance to look into their 18 points memorandum. This is the man who could not even accept a rose from a child.
If Badawi wanted to show good faith. Release the 5 Hindraf leaders. Hindraf is not a political party. It does not want to get involved with politics. So by this function carried out by Mr VK Regu only allows BN to use it as a platform to only garner the Indian sympathy votes for Arif Shah.
Another political game played by BN so professionally. But i think they did not expect the true hindraf to intervene so quickly. Hence the commotion at the function. VK regu was a member of hindraf but left it for sometime. He still believes in the struggle but hindraf has to plan and decide every action they take to ensure that the wrong message is not sent out. Having most of their leaders in prison they have to make sure they thread very carefully. The last thing they want to do is create racial tension. It is very easy to be misinterpreted. So by Mr.VK Regu's action, he was not considering the entire Hindraf struggle. Especially at a time were an election is being carried out. The 8 Hindraf leaders arrested yesterday was not necessary. Even 2 womens were arrested. I think the government blundered at that point. I'm sure the Indians are definitely not going to vote for BN now. Arif shah you just lost your 6% of vote.
Alot have criticised Anwar for showing support to Hindraf. He might or might not believe in their struggle but he has given them the encouragement and support they needed to keep the struggle going as even he is struggling for justice.
Anwar is not very much different from Mahathir. They are both very intelligent man. They both have the capability to bring Malaysia to great height's. Malaysia deserve an intelligent and capable Prime Minister. So lets not deprive Malaysia. The difference between this men's are that Anwar will owe his position to the people and Mahathirs was to his party.
Anwar has to stay true to his words because like a scientist. He has created a creature. If he betrays it then it will only destroy him. Just like playing with fire.
The People's Voice is much more stronger now. It will keep on growing. If Anwar fails in his task then I'm very sure the people will raise against him in the future. The Pandora's box has opened. So there is no point in UMNO's struggle. It is a falling party. If not now then by the next general election we will see it collapse.