BERSIH 3.0

We were there.

With Krystyn and JJ behind the barricades

But from the beginning it was obvious the whole rally was not going anywhere...at least not physically. Dataran Merdeka was heavily barricaded by the police who showed up in great numbers. 

It did not appear that the government was about to be magnanimous at the last minute and allow the Bersih 3.0 crowd on to Dataran Merdeka at 2.00 pm. I felt this was going to be a problem since the size of the crowd at the intersection of Jalan Tun Perak and Tuanku Abdul Rahman was huge and increasingly being cramped by more arriving from the directions of Masjid Jamek and Sogo. There was no room forward and those in the front were ominously faced with barbed wire (I now know they used razor wire). It was a problem. 

We were part of that crowd for a while and looking at the developing situation we moved towards the Bank Negara side and somehow managed to go behind Federal Reserve Unit lines near the bank Negara roundabout. The FRU looked menacing and ready to advance.

At about 2.45 pm Twitter messages were saying Anwar Ibrahim was approaching with his group from the Masjid Jamek side. Shortly after, police at Dataran Merdeka suddenly started firing tear gas and water cannons.

People were saying after the fact, that over-zealous BERSIH 3.0 supporters had broken down the police barriers. I think it had more to do with frenzied Anwar supporters. As usual the police over-reacted and all hell broke loose. 



How will BERSIH 3.0 go down in Malaysian history? At the moment, the jury is still out. Next up will be the ballot box and Malaysian voters are in a pickle as the EC remains the EC. History as they say, is written by the victors.

Same Road, New Highway?

Read Malik Imtiaz Sarwar's blogpost below on why the Election Commission Chairman and his deputy must resign. Conflict of interest it seems. But then again, what else is new? Come to think of it, the Election Commission is just as important as the Judiciary in countries where the Executive reigns supreme. Will we ever run out of highways to build? 

Tan Sri Dato' Seri
Abdul Aziz bin Mohd Yusof
CHAIRMAN SPR



Datuk Wira Hj. Wan Ahmad
bin Wan Omar
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN SPR



Tun Zaki Azmi

**************************************************************

FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2012

Election Commission: Apparent Bias

The Chairman of the Election Commission and his Deputy must resign immediately. In the wake of accusations by the Opposition that they are members of UMNO, they have admitted the same.

It is self-evident that they can no longer hold their positions as the head and deputy head of the Election Commission, a body established by the Federal Constitution for the sole purpose of ensuring that the general elections of the Federation and States are run in a manner that ensure public confidence. Put another way, as has been consistently emphasized by the Coalition on Free and Fair Elections, the Election Commission must act in a manner that is seen to be impartial.

That the perception of impartiality is of crucial significance is underscored by Article 113 of the Federal Constitution, the provision which establishes the Election Commission. 113(2) provides:

"In appointing members of the Election Commission the Yang di- Pertuan Agong shall have regard to the importance of securing an Election Commission which enjoys public confidence."

It is manifest that a member of a political party that will participate, or which may potentially participate, in any general election cannot be made members of the Election Commission. The fact that they are members of a political party is indicative of their political loyalties being to that party. This creates an obvious conflict of interest. This is reinforced in situations where the party Constitution requires allegiance, as I believe the UMNO constitution does.

In the context of UMNO, this issue takes on added significance. Accusations have been made that the Election Commission has conducted itself in a manner that lend to an impression of bias. Leave aside the question of whether there is actual bias, the fact that there is an apprehension of bias is in itself sufficient for concerns to have been raised. To this it must now be added that the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Election Commission have been revealed to be members of UMNO. This will only fuel further speculation of bias. This in turn will add to an already high degree of resentment amongst voters about the way in which they perceive the electoral process to have been manipulated.

It is no significance that the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman were not active members or had forgotten that they are members. The fact that they are members is in itself sufficient to create the conflict of interest. One wonders whether they would have been endorsed by the Conference of Rulers and appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (as is required under Article 113(1)) if this fact were known.

In the circumstance it appears that there is little choice in the matter. The Chairman and the Deputy Chairman must resign. It cannot end there though. The Government must take steps to convince Malaysians that measures that have been taken thus far with regard the imminent General Election have been consistent with the highest expectations of a clean and fair election. If the Government calls for a General Election under this cloud, then it will reinforce the belief of many Malaysians that the electoral process has been hijacked.

Haris Ibrahim On MobTV

Click Here

Haris Ibrahim Sharing His Thoughts

Khairi vs Ambiga; More Obfuscation...

The UMNO Poster boy wannabe really eloquent with sweet nothings. Started with claim of special bond for being teargassed by the same police (he and only 150 so-called UMNO Youth Patriots; many recruited in situ) as Bersih 2.0 and followed by stating numerous "commitments" of BN Government to have the most free and fair GE in history, free and fair access to national media, stop dirty politics and corruption, have code of conduct for government, and other crap that is just figment of imagination in today's BN reality.

But who is this guy Khairi anyway? He is not even in the Cabinet nor wanted by UMNO. Don't be fooled by the command of language and delivery. Shit is shit no matter how wrapped or delivered.

Ambiga wasted her time with this debate.

Learn A Word A Day..."Obfuscation"

"Obfuscation" in the context of the following article is defined as: "...to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information". 

In this must read blogpost from Marina Mahathir, she is referring to BN subterfuge:

My Record-Breaking Run Continues...
by MarinaM

Dear folks, this must be something of a record but I've just been told that once again, my column's been spiked. In newspaper-speak, that means it's not going to be published tomorrow. This would make it the second of my columns recently that was totally spiked, plus one more that was chopped up badly. (See previous posts)

People ask me why I keep writing at The Star if they keep doing this. Well maybe I'm just sentimental. They gave me this column to write about 23 years ago when nobody else did and for the most part they've published most of what I've written. I do know that lots of people read it and I would feel as if I'm abandoning my readers if I just stopped. I'm hoping that those who read it in the paper also read me online and will realise that perhaps my days at The Star are numbered ( or at least until the elections are over.)

My editors at The Star did politely ask me to tone down my column. They even bought me tea to tell me this. They explained the type of nasty pressures they face over many articles, pressure from people who seem to be hyper-paranoid over every little bit of news that might be construed as anti-government, anti-Islam, anti-everythingtheystandfor. I can sympathise with my editors. It can't be fun being constantly shouted at on the phone or having to attend 'briefings' where they are told exactly what they can or cannot write, no argument.

But just last week I was at a forum on media freedom, in Singapore, and I listened to two Burmese journalists talking about media freedom in their country. They talked about how for years they had to deal with the military censors who insisted on seeing their articles BEFORE and AFTER publication. They had to find ways to creatively get their message across either through writing 'between the lines', using codewords or writing about foreign news which somehow had some relevance to Burma though obliquely.

Recently however Burma has been moving towards democracy. And with it has come new media freedom and many new newspapers and magazines have proliferated. And where once Aung San Syu Kyii was never mentioned in the papers, she is now on the front pages of almost every paper "because she sells papers". They now can write about most things although some things -like corruption - are still taboo.

But one thing they said left a mark on me. Through all those years of pressure, the temptation to self-censor was always there. And while others may have succumbed, this one young man decided he would not. "My job," he said, " is to write. The censors' job is to censor. I don't censor myself because that's not my job."

That's the way I view my column too. I don't 'tone down' largely because I don't know how to. But also because it's not my job.

So, for what it's worth, here is the column that should have appeared tomorrow:

Marina Mahathir for The Star

Obfuscation is a word I love. It means to make something obscure or to confuse people. I love it because it is an apt word to describe the noisy politics we have to endure these days, the sort of noise that makes it impossible for anyone to even hear themselves speak, let alone think about what needs to be thought.

Obfuscation is an every day occurrence these days in our country. When issues should be presented clearly, they are obscured by side issues, distractions and misinformation. People who attempt to bring some clarity are shouted down, drowned by the sheer noise of the loudest though not necessarily the smartest nor the most sincere of loudhailers.

How did a campaign calling for that most innocuous of causes, clean and fair elections, come to be characterized as a clarion call for LGBT rights? Only because some people decided that the best way to distract from a popular issue is to project it as one that is ‘really’ about something else. And then the ‘something else’ was defined as an issue which most people will reflexively react against.

So the logic now sounds like this: if you call for clean and fair elections, that means you want LGBTs to take over the country. Wow!

How wonderful is this obfuscation tactic that a man who was once hailed as a great nationalist patriot for leading a demo to call for the overturning of the policy of teaching maths and science in English, is now likened to a pervert because he is calling for clean and fair elections. He literally went from hero to zero overnight.

Meanwhile, so-called amendments to various laws are touted as the long-awaited reforms by a modern and democratic government. Yet such amendments are rushed through Parliament and ‘debated’ by parliamentarians late at night when they are no doubt sleepy and fuzzy-minded. Surely such important laws deserve better? But no, the obfuscation continues. The bulldozing is touted as ‘proof’ of genuine commitment to reform. And people actually buy this?

Some students decide to stage a tent-in in a public space for a cause that may be a bit too idealistic. Certainly it doesn’t seem to have captured much public sympathy. But the obfuscation continues, confusing the students’ right to voice their unhappiness with their cause. What’s more, news reports on the students seem not to have made clear that there are in fact two groups at Dataran Merdeka, and although there are some overlaps, there are some fundamental differences between the two. Not only are their causes different, so are their ways of working. But obfuscation requires that the two are conflated and by that, the tarnishing of all young people continues.

Today it is difficult to speak publicly in any intelligent manner because it is the unintelligent and the belligerent who rule. On university grounds, grounds where the intellect should reign, a man can blithely say that if LGBTs take over this country (despite there being no evidence whatsoever of this happening), he would not hesitate to take his keris out and use it. In other countries, such a pronouncement would elicit immediate arrest. But no, in this self-proclaimed moderate country, such violent arrogance is applauded.

What is the point of promoting any sort of science in this country when basic evidence is never respected? When anyone can come up with the most dubious statements without any facts to back it up? A full 30% of men in this country are gay, according to someone, and this is a danger to the country. What does this mean? Does that mean that out of the 28 men in our Cabinet, at least nine of them are gay? Out of the 13 Muftis making fatwas around the country, 4 of them are homosexual? If a full 30% of Malaysian men prefer their own sex, they also make a sizeable voting bloc. Why alienate them?

But there is no longer any point in talking sense or logic in this country. The less logic you speak, the more popular you are. The less facts you present, the more you are lauded. Better still, the more incorrect facts you give, invented out of thin air, the more you dazzle your followers.

Obfuscation however tends to bite back. The more you use it to blindside people, the more you make it a culture, the less people will trust you. It’s hard to continually create a fog around facts, to drown truth with noise. Sooner or later, you’re bound to trip up. That would be enough to create mistrust.

So, like the boy who cried wolf, even if you present facts now, it’ll be hard to persuade anyone.

Betul ke ni?

This was in Malaysiakini today. If this is true and assumed to be just the tip of the iceberg then Bersih 3.0 will likely not force the EC hand. The discrepancies would seem too blatant to be unintentional. If indeed intentional then can we expect rectification? Sendiri pikiak le...

Bersih 2.0 detects 24,000 double registrations in S'gor  Kuek Ser Kuang Keng
12:47PM Apr 12, 2012

Electoral reform coalition Bersih 2.0 has unearthed more instances of fraud in the latest electoral roll ahead of its April 28 rally, including 24,105 voters in Sabah and Sarawak allegedly re-registered in Selangor.

During a press conference today in Kuala Lumpur, the Bersih 2.0 steering committee claimed that 15,520 Sabah voters and 8,585 Sarawak voters had been registered twice in Selangor in the latest electoral roll updated until first quarter of 2012. 

However, they did not exposeany specific case when asked by the media, saying that details will be revealed at a press conference in the near future.

The committee jointly led by former Bar Council president S Ambiga and national laureate A Samad Said (right), also claimed that in the same electoral roll, 7,841 voters in Selangor alone had been registered under MyKad location code 71, which refers to citizens born outside Malaysia.

Another shocking finding was that no death was reported in Sabak Bernam, Sungai Besar, Hulu Selangor and Tanjung Karang, all parliamentary constituencies in Selangor, in the last quarter of 2011 although death certificates were issued in those places.

There were also houses registered with more than 15 voters in the electoral roll for the first quarter of 2012, claimed Bersih 2.0.

Those findings were discovered by the Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project (Merap), of which political researcher Ong Kian Ming is a member.

Ong had earlier compiled 10 major flaws of the electoral roll in two articles published by Malaysiakini.

The committee repeated its call for the election commissioners to resign immediately and be replaced with others who will act to ensure a clean, free and fair election.

It also urged that the electoral roll be cleaned up before the 13th general election is held.

‘Nowhere else besides Dataran Merdeka’

Asked on the progress of securing Dataran Merdeka as the rally venue, the committee said they have yet to contact the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, which owns and manages the field.

“We will maintain our venue at Dataran Merdeka no matter what. We insist to (hold the rally) there.

“We hope the authorities will approve the will of the rakyat,” said Samad.

The election watchdog also announced that its international campaign on the rally dubbed ‘Duduk Bantah’ (sit-in protest) has gained momentum.

A total of nine cities in the country and 33 cities abroad will hold parallel rallies on that day.

Insidious...

Where and what will this lead to?



Check out the Luton Town online newspaper here for a comparative view. A case of barbarians within the gates? 

Producing Illiterates & Worthless Pompous Asses

If this grading scale is real no wonder we have so many so-called educated students who appear unschooled and so-called top students who seem suspiciously inept. So much for the so-called K-Economy. Syiok Sendiri!!!
Click on photo to enlarge.


But this is what our Education Minister/DPM has to say about our education system. I wonder how his own KPI is graded.

**********************************************
Get smart and get real...the reality; a LGE response in Malaysiakini:

'Get real, Muhyiddin, fix education system'
 11:02AM Apr 9, 2012

Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is “out of touch” with the country's education system in claiming that it is better than that of the US, UK and Germany.


DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, who levelled the charge, said this is evident when no Malaysian has been admitted to the prestigious Harvard University for two years in a row.

"The quality of Malaysian applicants to Harvard University has deteriorated so alarmingly that none was even good enough to make it to the interview rounds," he claimed in a statement.

Muhyiddin had cited the World Economic Report’s Global Competitiveness Index 2011-2012 which surveyed 87 business executives on how well the Malaysian education system has met the needs of a competitive economy.

Lim said that at least one Malaysian has always been admitted into the Ivy League institution since 1985 and up to 2010.

At present, he said, Singapore has the highest number of Harvard undergraduates with 18, followed by Thailand (seven), Vietnam (six), Malaysia (five) and Indonesia (two).

"Instead of boasting that Malaysia’s education system is better than (that of the) US, UK or Germany, Muhyiddin should be worrying about being overtaken by Thailand and Vietnam," said Lim.

Read report closely'

Lim also said that Muhyiddin is in a state of denial about the crisis of mediocrity engulfing the education system, as a closer reading of the survey report indicates the system has deteriorated.

He said the report also notes that ‘as it moves toward becoming more innovation driven, Malaysia will need to improve its performance in education and technological readiness’.


"The result is the same for other indices such as in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment involving 75 countries,” said Lim.

“Malaysia was ranked 56th in reading ability, 55th in Mathematics ability and 53 in Science.

"The country's performance in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study has also seen a steady decrease from 1999 to 2007.”

Lim said Muhyiddin needs a reality check and should immediately move to address the deteriorating education system.

VOTE MALAYSIA! Youth Speak!

Yes we can!