Effective Rights

The grave situation that the country is experiencing is not just the mismanagement of government funds by the present government.

 

It stems out from a culture where money has been channelled to many parties over previous administrations. There has never been a proper concept of open tender for all government projects.

 

If only all had practised this simple concept, the people would have saved billions of dollars. This of course would have helped our bottom line thus increasing our reserves and consolidated funds which would help strengthen our ringgit.

 

The new administration of Abdullah seems to blame the old administration of Dr. Mahathir for the problems the nation is facing now. The old master, Dr. Mahathir and his select crew have been defending their previous decisions and blame the present administration for the woes that the nation is facing.

 

Clearly this signals that there is a massive crack in UMNO in particular and Barisan National in general. There will be more than fifteen people contesting the vice presidents’ posts during the next UMNO elections. This provides evidence that given the opportunity, all of them in UMNO want to contest but previously, contesting without the approval of the UMNO cabinet would have been taboo.

 

This is a good change but the top two posts remains uncontested as there is an agreement that the transition of power will end in 2010 when Najib Tun Razak becomes the head of UMNO. Depending on whether the Barisan Nasional is still the ruling coalition at that time, Najib would also automatically become the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Is this power transition still relevant today? Does it really ensure stability? One must wonder whether the electorate is still relevant in Malaysia when the Prime Minister is being appointed rather than being elected.

 

However, there is the argument that a vote of no confidence can be brought against the new Prime Minister if the Lower house collectively wants to. The keyword here is collective. With the whip system that we practise, all the Barisan MPs must vote for the interest of Barisan not their constituents.

 

Even in Britain, when Tony Blair left, there was a transition of power from him to Gordon Brown. However, as soon as Brown took over, he had many problems within his government and the opposition being very strong, they put considerable pressure upon him. They practise the system of vote of no confidence because they understand why it is important and that they are accountable to the people not to their political allegiance.

 

We do not practise such a system here as the opposition is getting stronger but still not strong enough and political allegiance is seen as far more important than what the constituents have in mind.

 

Even in MCA we can see unprecedented changes with many divisions having contest for their chairman’s post. Chua Jui Meng is contesting in a three cornered fight for the Bakri division. Chua Soi Lek on the other hand, will be Batu Pahat chairman uncontested.

 

The MIC are rebranding themselves so the Indians will trust the party more and vote for Barisan in time to come. The former youth head, Vickneswaran unceremoniesly left the party saying he has no confidence in the leadership of Samy Vellu. Some people followed in his footsteps. Since Samy Vellu took over, there has been many casualties in the war to control MIC. These would include S. Subramaniam, Pandithan and Pathmanaban who all tried to challenge him but failed.

 

The real rebranding the party needs is the removal of its top leader as this is the only way forward for the party. The party has been beaten by the public so it can regain its senses of what the party was really built for. No one would have imagined such turn of events if not for the results of the last general elections. The people must exercise the power that they have.

 

These may seem like a healthy trend but it also exposes Barisan for the political party that it is. The love of patronising those who are close to you regardless of their capabilities and capacity to do the job properly has caused Barisan to crack and if Anwar Ibrahim does form a new government, then even bigger cracks will come out of Barisan.  

 

The talk all over town about the Anwar sodomy – Najib Mongolia issue seems to be the same – people are fed up with all this drama and want those we elected from whichever side to get on with their jobs and help us reduce our financial burdens. The government defends the rise in fuel costs by attributing it to rising world fuel prices and that Petronas has given all its dues to the government.

 

There are two major problems here. The first is that unlike many countries around the world, we are an oil producing nation. Since Petronas first made money was through oil, the government can now tap the entire group funds to help subsidies our petrol problem. Secondly, we do not have a comprehensive public transport system like the ones in UK or Singapore. People would complain less if they have alternatives. The government does not provide alternatives; instead they build bigger highways charging bigger toll prices.

 

The average Malaysian spends almost 25% of his/her wages on fuel and toll. The fuel and toll prices would affect the select few who made money through closed government tenders as they have our money as their reserves. It affects people like you and me who struggle to make a living in a country that is full of resources. Malaysia has everything any nation in the world would desire for except a regime corrupted by funds from big business empires. These business empires want to keep corrupting the regime as well so their well will never dry up. The common man’s well has become non-existent.

 

If things continue to be as they are with rising inflation and lack of governance, unemployment will hit roof high and at time, Vision 2020 will be Vanished 2020.