Najib and Anwar should debate on ‘more food, less fear, for future Malaysia’

Can you win a general election without having a debate and winning it? Curiously, Najib Tun Razak and Barisan National seem to think so but the principal opposing alliance Pakatan Rakyat’s Anwar Ibrahim do not seem to think so. My take is, Najib Tun Razak and Anwar Ibrahim  should debate about “more food, less fear, for future Malaysia.” But this is not going to happen.

The government has a vested interest in fudge. After all, there can be no opposition if there is no position. Its best hope is to muddle through the 13th General Elections and return with roughly the same numbers through a strategy of least resistance. What is less comprehensible is the response of the Barisan National. It looks befuddled before fudge. Instead of raising issues, its spokespersons throw pebbles. If you cannot clear a haze, the haze has won the day. The Pakatan Rakyat has been more successful in creating the tension of a debate, but its resonance is limited to a couple of pockets, while the Third Front is too thin to be considered a net, let alone a magnet.

This is going to be a cold election. Neither candidate nor party will be able to waft on hot air. If the Barisan National wants to succeed, it has to remember a key fact: the young voter is outgrowing communal rhetoric. He wants more food and less fear. At the moment he is getting the reverse.

The UMNO has one advantage: Malays, its main vote bank, do not vote for something; they vote against someone. This suits the UMNO perfectly. It feeds fear to Malays, and offers development to other electorates.

Success breeds imitation, but change, the slogan which dazzled the US when Obama became President of America, will be insufficient in Malaysia. Frustration has stripped the Malaysian voter of illusions. Offer him change, and he will demand to know to what. Promise him a job and he will ask where, when, how and to whom. Americans gave Obama a pass on delivery systems and destination. The relevant slogan is not the one that ousted Pairin Kitingan’s  Sabah government in 1994 state election despite PBS securing a victory, but the one that laid out Pairin 18 years ago: It’s the economy!

Since no government in its senses would want to contest an election on the economy when jobs are disappearing in cities and farmers are finding hard to sell their produce because of the escalating prices on seeds, fertilizers and chemicals and even the rising animal and poultry feed prices is hitting poultry processors hard, the Barisan National/UMNO seems poised to offer a virtuous trinity of vitality (Khiry Jamaludin), morality (Najib Tun Razak) and nobility (Rosmah Mansur). The voter will, however, check for substance behind the advertising. The chief minister of the biggest Barisan National state, Sarawak, Taib Mahmud, has become synonymous with illegal land grab, a thousand plots of land acquired in recent years by the state, much of which have been passed on to Taib’s close relatives and cronies at dirt cheap premiums. Many of these plots of lands, which total more than 1.5 million hectares, were in fact NCR lands, secretively sequestered from the natives. Taib has lost the plot. Or, more accurately, he has sold the plot.

The arithmetic of a cold election will be determined by the sum total of regional numbers. The formation of the next government could depend on how well the allies, rather than the principals, do. The Pakatan’s partners seem more confident than the Barisan Nationals’ friends. But such is the perceived fluidity of options that Anwar Ibrahim, Tuan Guru Hadi Awang, Lim Kit Siang, see themselves as possible occupants of Putrajaya. They may not agree on anything else, but they believe that neither the Barisan National nor the Pakatan Rakyat will cross the 111-seat mark necessary to become the plank on which a government can rest. The politics of the 90′s and the 20′s has seen the rise of flexible morality leading to an explosion of opportunity in March 2008 GE12.

Will the politics of the 2010′s be different? Yes. There is likely to be fatigue in West Malaysia with the insular dynamics of regional parties in Sabah and Sarawak, trapped in concentric rings of family and state; and a yearning for political formations that offer more than stagnant regional horizons. The next government in Putrajaya, like this one, might be less than the sum of its parts, rather than more. There are no institutional methods of re-nourishment once the leaders of small parties in Sabah and Sarawak become vulnerable to age or accident.

You might then, with good reason, consider 2008 the semi-final election. The finals will take place in the elections after this, probably this year 2012, when the Barisan National and the Pakatan will square off in most parts of the country, sufficient to give one or the other over 111 seats. They will have younger, if not newer leaders, creating the base for Sabah and Sarawak to be the kingmakers in Putrajaya.

The debate will not change, because the problem will not have been resolved. Whoever wins the argument on food and fear in 2012 will control the decade.

The lessons from Sabah are slowly being assimilated!

In the next ten years, development will become the main political issue with different social groups demanding their share of the Sabah growth story.

The clearest evidence that the political paradigm is changing came from Musa Aman’s sweeping victory in the 2008 Sabah assembly elections. He cooked up a storm with a development plank that pushed traditional politics, both of patronage and identity, to the margins of irrelevance and gave him numbers that all political leaders dream of but rarely get.

It was a personal triumph for Musa Aman but the real significance of his win lies in what it says about the emergence of development as a key political issue in today’s Sabah.  So when the Sabah 2012 Budget was unveiled, it was the Biggest Ever budget in the history of Sabah and it amounted to RM4.048 billion, recording an increase of RM979.62 million or 31.92% as compared with the 2011 Budget of RM3.068 Billion, and this increase is all to be spent on development of the state. With the economy projected to continue growing at between 5-9% annually over the next decade, there is every reason to believe that development and governance issues will increasingly dominate public discourse with different social groups demanding their share of the GDP pie.

The Barisan National party’s politics of patronage of vote banks had currency in an underdeveloped economy. Race and religion-based identity politics took over as the process of economic and social empowerment began with the opening up of the economy.

Today, after a period of rapid growth, politics is set to enter another phase, which is likely to be defined by battles for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources. The lessons from Sabah are slowly being assimilated. Musa Aman’s mastery over the emerging new idiom reaped him huge electoral dividends.

Now Sarawak’s  Taib Muhamud is seeking to emulate Musa Aman as he scrambles to set his house in order before the 13th General Elections although he just won the Sarawak state polls, but losing much support in the urban areas. Like Musa Aman next door, he too is concentrating his energies on targeted development projects for marginalized native communities. Dayak villages are at the top of his list, but he is also trying to ensure that roads, electricity, water, schools and primary health care centers reach areas populated by extremely backward natives and minorities.

In fact, Sarawak’s utilization record of funds allocated for development of minority concentration districts is one of the best just like Sabah — almost 60%.

It is important to understand the nature of the development politics taking shape.

It’s not just a simple matter of building roads or providing electricity. The question to which voters are demanding an answer is: development for whom?

Musa Aman’s success lay in the focused manner in which he took development to different social groups to create a wider constituency beyond the narrow race and religion base. This is identity politics of a different kind in which mobilization is not merely on the basis of race and religion but also on economic, gender and age subgroups.

The coming decade will see an acceleration of the factors responsible for altering the political dynamics in the country. The three important ones are the mainstreaming of marginalized social groups, the communications revolution and increasing urbanization.

The biggest success of Sabah democracy has been empowerment of natives and communities that existed outside the social pale. The spread of adult franchise, a series of affirmative steps like communal land titles, a slew of welfare measures and the growth of market forces are changing the feudal nature of social and economic relations. The rise of native-based parties like PBS, UPKO, PBRS  and even the spread of Jeffrey Kitingan’s STAR Sabah chapter which is allign to Sarawak’s State Reform Party and Jeffrey’s own UBF (United Borneo Front) which promotes the Borneo Agenda, are all signs that those at the bottom are demanding to be heard.

Besides, increasing connectivity in Sabah and Sarawak has only strengthened the process of empowerment. Mobile phone connections have already zoomed beyond 3 million and are expected to cross 5 million by 2015 in Borneo States, while internet penetration, according to industry estimates, will cross the 60% mark by 2020. It means people in every corner of the Borneo States are rapidly getting connected and acquiring independent means of accessing information. It also means that voters can no longer be fooled by mere rhetoric and empty promises. They want delivery and are acquiring the means to monitor it.

The third factor, urbanization, has the potential to take politics beyond race to include class. More than one third of the population is likely to be living in cities and towns by 2020 and their concerns and issues will be shaped by their urban environment and the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, between those who live in gated communities and drive shiny, big cars and those who live in kampongs without basic civic amenities and have to make do with shoddy public transport.

A transforming Sabah means a changing polity. Those who keep pace with the times will emerge as the powerhouses while others will fall behind. The visible process of fragmentation into subgroups, subregions and subcultures gives regional forces an advantage over national parties which have to work with a larger canvas.

Regional satraps like Musa Aman or Taib Muhamud or Pairin Kitingan or even Jeffrey Kitingan (except Jeffrey Kitingan, while the rest who despite belonging to the Barisan National are really regional chieftains) are better connected to the grassroots. They also have the flexibility to knit together an electorally successful social alliance specific to their state without having to worry about the bigger national picture.

The Barisan National was compelled by local Sarawak considerations to allow scam-hit Taib Mahmud to continue as chief minister even as it fought a high-pitched battle over corruption allegations during the recent Sarawak state elections 2011. Taib’s victory underlines the continuing relevance of the satraps.

The Barisan National Sarawak in its glory days was an umbrella party of strong regional leaders. Its decay began when Taib Mahmud started cutting them down one by one till the Chinese based SUPP party stood decimated as can be seen in the recent Sarawak State polls 2011. Today, regional chieftains have created their own political units while Baru Bian and Wong Ho Leng survive in national party like the PKR and DAP only because they have been given almost complete autonomy.

Yet, as Musa Aman understood and as Taib Mahmud seems to be realizing, regional leaders have to expand their political horizons beyond race and religious identities to remain on top. They have to put together broader social coalitions while national parties will have to put aside their dreams of single-party rule and contend with political coalitions to run Putrajaya. This is one reality that is unlikely to go away even as the political frame expands to include issues of development and governance and Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Illegals getting Malaysian Identity Cards to become voters.

Past tense In politics, every player works and waits for a big moment. A real leader emerges when there is perfect harmony between his ideas and the people’s mood. But, at some point, he has to fade away. The leaders who make desperate attempts to cling to their receding turf often face humiliation. Taib Mahmud, once the giant of Sarawak politics, was rejected by the urbanites and even in one or two rural constituencies in the recent Sarawak State Elections 2011.

So, lets see what is there in the cards come the 13th General Election which should take place anytime before March 2013, and, with Anwar Ibrahim now acquitted from sodomy2 charges, things might move quite differently.

2012, Happy New Year

Dearest Readers and Commenters,

2011 has been an interesting year and we hope that 2012 calms down a whole bunch in comparison. The world needs peace and quiet instead of turmoil and war. So if wishes come true…..Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men…..

I hear that statement every year, but maybe it is time to make it happen. The world can become a far better place….

As for me, I am just going with the flow. Listening to some good music and consuming some “no good”.

Anyway, we’re done with another complete year. Isn’t it awesome? The year was full of surprises. Nothing was easily predictable. Life is such. Or else how and why we’d be happy or sad about anything! Am I getting philosophical?

Wanna write a little politics here, sorry! Yes, Barisan National has been big failure in controlling the prices of basic necessities of Malaysians.The prices of food, fuel, land, house rentals, clothes, provisions, groceries etc.have all reached sky high.

Millions and millions of our money are collected as Tax every year and most of it is spent for some screwed up projects, cows, condos and for defense.

Will this help in removing poverty from Malaysia?

The salary or income of ordinary people have not increased.

So how can common man survive in Malaysia and along with this Corruption is also high.

So the expected gift of Barisan Govt to Malaysians on New Year 2012 will be a big blow in the back of common people in the form of all the price hikes.

Anyway, lets just forget about politics now, want a make me puke!

Lets get to the New Year.

Here’s a toast to 2012! Some wine too!

Well! 2011 started on a busy note. So many thoughts. And blogging was obviously one of the best things of 2011. Blogging was quite a journey of learning. Every new post I write renews my spirits. And every comment I get, it gives such a pleasant feeling.

I wholeheartedly thank all of you for being there, for taking time to read my writings, for extending such a huge support and for adding significant value to me and my blog. It means so much that I can’t express enough!

Like any other year, months passed and every day was an experience of its own in 2011. You love a moment. You detest a moment. You are active. You are not. You enjoy. You complain. You plan. You succeed. You don’t. You act wise. You act foolish. You dream. You wish. You ask. You demand. And everyday was a mixture of emotions. You are content. You regret.

At the end of the day you go back to bed after experiencing a valuable day of life. And before you do, you already have thoughts running in your head about tomorrow. Life’s colorful, no? And there are people around to make it so. They love you. They like you. The feeling that you matter to another person in itself is very beautiful and keeps us going.

I’m sure the coming year too will be no different. But I want it to be even brighter. And I hope there will be many proud moments.I hope I will write more. And I hope I’ll get to read more random musings, thoughtful articles, and great insights.

I don’t make any formal resolutions but there are things I wish for. I want to learn to meditate more. Yes, many more. I want to see Malaysia grow into a great nation.

That’s it for now. Have fun. Smile often. We’ll give 2012 a warm welcome. No, the world is not going to end. I prefer to believe so. So, be prepared for another roller-coaster of 365 days. With a wide smile!

Wish you 2012 will bring great success in life. Have a good health and be happy! Dare to follow your dreams!

I end here with a picture of me at the top of Mount Kinabalu which I did on this 29th of December which happens to be my 3rd time up the sacred Mount Kinabalu. Here is my first climb and my Second Climb.

Happy New Year 2011 Everyone!

Cheers!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

To all my friends, as hard as this will be, I may have to stay offline over the coming days as the family are around and I will get moaned at A LOT if I sneak online….

I enjoyed collaborating with you all in 2011 and look forward to even bigger and better things in 2012, it’s going to be a blast!

….so in that case I shall wish you ALL a VERY Merry Christmas now, thank you for a great 2011 and here is to more networking, more blogs, more fun and more fun in 2012 for us all.

Lots and lots of LOVE and thank you all again for the kind words of support and patience during my “unscheduled” blogging hiatus. I really appreciate!

I leave you with this fantastic piece from Coldplay one of my favorite….

 

This is for Socrates, the greatest footballer of our time, Goodbye Doc!

HE was a hard-drinking, chain-smoking free thinker grappling with the higher reaches of truth passed on to posterity by Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx in an awesome Victorian auditorium of a Rio de Janerio University.

He was a head-banded, flamboyant young man with curly brown locks unlocking the splendour of Brazilian country music to an entranced audience.

He was a fiery-eyed left-wing activist, a Che Guevara-type radical spouting slogans while leading a student march to restore democracy in his country.

He was a professional paediatrician hugging sick children at a UNICEF health camp with the missionary zeal of a Mother Teresa.

Socrates Brasilero Sampio de Souza de Oliviera, who passed away on Sunday in Brazil, was all of these…and more. He was one of the most gifted players produced by the greatest of soccer-playing nations, Brazil, in the post-Pele era.

A rebel with a cause, Socrates had a stupendous ability to combine stardom with creative ability on the field. His one-two passing symphony with his team-mate and friend Zico had a Mozartian magnificence.

As the eldest of a middle-rung government official’s 10 sons, as a brilliant young medical student, Socrates was intensely in search of an identity in the fragmented world of the late 1970s.

“I am not a footballer. I am a human being,” he screamed at mediapersons early in his career, apparently fed up with their one-track line of questioning. It was the cry of a man trying to free himself from the chains of a media-manufactured image, the struggle of a very intelligent human being trying to shake off a straitjacket.

It is this protean quality that set Socrates apart from some of the most brilliant players of his era. Deeply rebellious against the over-ordering of life, on and off the football field, he was quintessential nonconformist.

“He would sing a song and all of us wound enjoy it. Then, almost suddenly, Socrates would go into a shell, an impenetrable shell of his own. We knew him, yet we did not know him,” said a team-mate of his when Socrates was playing for the Sao Paulo giant Corinthians.

To be sure, it would take more than an average footballer to have come to terms with Socrates’ multi-faceted personality. For, the Socrates persona was as contradictory as it was compelling. He was a man in search of individual freedom in an age ruled by conformity and organisation, both in and out of football.

If you ever saw a cold-blooded master of life’s capriciousness — someone with knowledge of Nietzsche’s amor fati — then you can picture Socrates striding back nonchalantly after missing a crucial penalty in a World Cup semifinal against France in Mexico.

It is not as if Socrates was an incurable eccentric with a finger on the self-destruct button. He loved the game as much as he loved anything else in life. But he knew sport was just sport, not a matter of life or death. He would have been more devastated by the death of a child in a Rio health facility than a missed World Cup penalty.

Never one to beat around the bush, Socrates admitted early in his career that it was for big money that he temporarily abandoned his life as a doctor to become a footballer. “As a footballer, I get much quicker to the financial stability I need to be what I want to be: a doctor for the poor,” he said.

On the field, he was a master. With Zico and Falcao, he was part of a midfield that was rarely matched in the entire history of the game. So confident were these men about their own skills that they ignored their defensive weaknesses as a resurgent Paolo Rossi of Italy claimed a hat-trick to dump them from the 1982 World Cup.

He made his presence felt in the 1986 World Cup too, but soon the game was up for Doc. But another one, perhaps more rewarding — serving the poor as a doctor and becoming a sagacious commentator on television — began.

“Life is not about quantity. It is about quality,” Socrates said over 30 years ago. By modern standards, he died young.

He drank his way to his grave, like so many other sportspersons. But the difference is, he was a wise man who did know exactly what he was doing. It was his hemlock.

This is contributed by Nirmal Shekar from New Delhi

Is Shafie Apdal the hidden hand behind KDM Malaysia?

The shadow boxing by certain UMNO politicians using Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a Barisan National component in Sabah and the Kadazandusun Murut Association Malaysia (KDM Malaysia) may be a precursor to a battle for the gaddi in Kuala Lumpur.

Sabahans often accuse their politicians of being short-sighted. Judging by the rhetoric’s, lobbying, mudslinging, conniving and scheming by the principal parties, we are actually looking at least as far into the future as the 13th General Elections, parliamentary and state polls, which must be held before 2013.

If you ask me the most interesting part of this coming election is the shadow-boxing within the Barisan National in Sabah.

Some UMNO leaders in Sabah namely Shafie Apdal is vying for the chief minister’s chair– not for today but definitely for tomorrow.

It is a bit silly to accuse — as Senator Chin Su Phin the Deputy President of LDP who with his President VK Liew has done — Musa Aman for being ‘opportunistic’ about the alliance with the Gerakan Party and for appointing Dr Yee Moh Chai of PBS as the new Deputy Chief Minister. To set the record straight, Musa Aman a fair man, has always has been loyal to UMNO and the Barisan National.

Musa Aman has stayed loyal and calm despite being accused by all sorts of things by LDP, even the UMNO chaps associated with Shafie Apdal are doing the same, hitting him under the belt. In spite of all these never once has Musa Aman lost his cool.

That loyalty — or political necessity — was also strong enough to withstand the disappointments of being accused and attacked by the his own UMNO fellows like Shafie Apdal using proxies like Senator Chin and VK Liew and now even KDM Malaysia trying to undermine him. Of course now after the story about VK Liew’s shenanigans with his Rungus staff  and the police report in Kota Marudu which came out in Malaysia Today website, things have cool down and now VK Liew is throwing heaps of praises on Musa Aman. Whatever other adjective you may use of Musa Aman he has proved anything but ‘opportunistic’.

Given this 10-year history why is Shafie Apdal now eyeing Musa Aman so warily?

The simple answer is that Shafie Apdal believes that UMNO shall be a real contender for power come the 13th GE. Shafie also believes that, in the absence of a towering figure such as Musa Aman, the leadership of the Sabah BN may be up for grabs.

Finally, Shafie Apdal also knows that he is — again Musa Aman apart — probably the most visible face of  UMNO Sabah and he thinks and he gives the impression that he has got Najib Tun Razak’s  blessings to replace Musa Aman. I doubt this very much because Najib Tun Razak openly acknowledges that Musa Aman is doing a fantastic job in Sabah.

In the ordinary course of events Musa Aman would probably be the clear front-runner. He is by far the best chief minister Sabah has ever seen, articulate, workaholic and has propelled his state ahead of the rest when it comes to development, and has won every electoral challenge thrown at him — Parliament polls or state assembly polls since taking over in 2003.

Now lets look at KDM Malaysia and see how Shafie Apdal’s hidden tentacles has come into play.

Datuk John Ambrose is the founder and President of the newly registered KDM Malaysia (KDMM) and its number one purpose is to get Kadazan Dusun Murut (KDMs) to support Umno and its second most important intention is to break the KDMs away from PBS, Upko and the PBRS. In other words it is a tool to divide the KDMs.

Everyone knows that Musa Aman has got a perfect relationship with Pairin Kitingan and PBS, and PBS is the second most important party in the BN Sabah after UMNO.  So in order to weaken Musa Aman,  Pairin and the PBS must be weaken. And this can be done if a sizable number of KDMs are taken away from the PBS. Even Upko will be weaken in so doing.

After the failed Umno KDM Task Force, Shafie Apdal together with John Ambrose and one Peter Antony hatched this idea of KDM Malaysia. The objective was basically to weaken the PBS in order to weaken Musa Aman.

Ambrose says, KDM Malaysia is an NGO and it will undertake welfare programs and build houses for the KDMs poor. But, where will KDM Malaysia get the money to build thousands of houses for the poor KDMs? Ambrose says, KDM Malaysia will get funding from the government to built houses for the poor KDMs. Is this true? Is it true that the Ministry of Rural Development under Shafie Apdal will be the money man? Is it true that Ambrose got a yearly RM 40 million landscape project from University Malaysia Sabah to fund his KDM Malaysia? Is it true that Najib wrote a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Sabah, YBhg Prof Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Kamaruzaman Hj Ampon to give the yearly RM40 million landscaping contract to Ambrose’s company?

Little bird tells me Bernard Dompok is very sore with the whole game play in trying to divide the KDMs further.

Little bird also told me that Bernard Dompok has met Anwar Ibrahim recently with a view to pullout Upko from the Barisan National if there is no Royal Commission of Inquiry on the issuance of blue IC’s to illegals.

Little bird also told me that Jeffrey Kitingan has agreed to stand on  SAPP ticket for the coming 13th General Elections.

Little bird also told me it seems Pairin may also step down as the President of PBS in order not to face the dilemma and let the party decide to whether to side with UPKO in the worst case scenario. Pairin is really disappointed with “the plotters” trying to divide the KDMs further. According to Little Bird, Pairin did ask Najib Tun Razak about the KDM Malaysia and Najib just smiled and didn’t respond.

So, in the end, only PBS, PBRS and KDM Malaysia may represent the KDM’s in BN, it is feared.

If KDM Malaysia is not handled properly, this will put a severe dent in Musa Aman’s acceptability, particularly in those pockets of the KDM belt where KDMs constitute a major chunk of the electorate.

Looking to 2013 is all well and good but there is the small business of winning in 2013 that looms ahead just now.

Myanmar approves first peaceful protest law

Today Myanmar’s President has approved a new law allowing Burmese to request permission to stage peaceful protests for the first time.

Demonstrations of any kind were previously banned in the traditionally repressive nation, where authorities have cracked down hard on anti-government protests.

The new law says anyone planning a protest must request approval five days beforehand from police, who can deny permission but must explain the reason why.

The move is the latest reform undertaken by the nominally civilian government since it took power from a military junta earlier this year.

President Thein Sein signed the legislation today.

See in Malaysia our BN lawmakers steam-rolled and approved a ban on street protests last week even though there was overwhelming public opinion against it. Our Peaceful Assembly Bill  was criticized by many but our government insist the ban is not repressive and not a threat to freedom of assembly. Who are they trying to kid. Besides, the speedy passage of the Bill has actually put Prime Minister Najib Razak’s commitment to ushering in greater democracy and civil liberties in Malaysia under intense new scrutiny.

Our Peaceful Assembly Bill would confine demonstrators mainly to stadiums and public halls. Depending on the venue, organizers may be required to give 10-day advance notification to police, who would determine whether the date and location are suitable.

Children under 15 and non-citizens would be barred from attending rallies, which also cannot be held near schools, hospitals, places of worship, airports or gasoline stations. Demonstrators who break the law can be fined 20,000 ringgit.

So its confirmed now that our  Peaceful Assembly Act is more Draconian than the law in Myanmar.

As  Bersih 2.0 chief Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan puts it “  It is shameful that Burma (Myanmar) can propose a far more democratic law than us.”

Cyber War on between Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan National in Sabah

The Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nastional, in an effort to target the youth and first time voters in the state, are leaving no stones unturned to outsmart each other in the usage of Information Technology tools.

Though, the Pakatan Rakyat clearly seems to have the edge right now, Barisan claims that it is fast catching up.

Malaysia has changed a lot since 2008 General Elections, and a lot of myths regarding ‘high-tech campaigns not translating into votes’ will be shattered this time around. This seems to be the mood in Pakatan Rakyat’s IT Cell in Kuala Lumpur, which is drawing its inspiration from Barack Obama’s heavily Internet-loaded Presidential campaign in November 2008.

The State IT Cell of Pakatan has a core team of 10 in Sabah, with 20 cyber teams spread across the state, to aid the core team. In addition, the party has notched up a database of one hundred thousand email ids for bulk-emailing; and about 125,000 mobile phone numbers for bulk messaging, caller tunes, ring tones and various other mobile services solutions.

The state unit also has links with websites namely, Malaysia Today, Malaysiakini, WikiSabah.com, Sabahkini, SAPP blog, Sabah DAP, Pakatan Rakyat Sabah and Anwar Ibrahim.com; with the help party workers and Pakatan sympathizers, videos containing speeches of Pakatan leaders will also be uploaded on video sharing sites like youtube.com. IT Cell In-charge Phua added,” Our presence is also significant in various social networking sites. For example, there are about 213 Facebook and hundreds of twitter users and communities on Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang and even Tok Guru Nik Aziz and Sabah state leaders from Pakatan.

Pakatan Rakyat is also planning a public rally around the state, “which will be attended by Facebook users and communities, not necessarily party workers,” added Phua.

When Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak called on his party to close ranks and prepare to go for war ahead of next week’s Umno general assembly, widely expected to be the last before the next general election; it didnt surprise me because I know Najib is going on a all out cyber attack on the opposition. And UMNO leader even announced that Barisan would be setting up hundreds of Internet Kiosks across the country, to promote an online campaign for enrolling youth into the party as well as inform them about the Barisan’s achievement, it surprised many. But the ‘Najib’ factor has definitely lifted the spirits in Malaysia, at least in the IT initiatives.

In addition, UMNO has also tied up with a number of .com to publish poll related articles as well as carry out live opinion polls. And UMNO source informed,” We have tied-up with various Internet service providers to pitch UMNO and Barisan links as sponsored links in 100′s of websites that witness the maximum traffic over a period of time.”

The party is also targeting a large fraction of tele-density in the state for mobile service solutions like caller tunes, ring tones, screensavers etc. Other initiatives like bulk emailing and bulk-messaging are also in the pipeline.

Regarding social networking in the cyber world, UMNO also has many Facebook users on Najib Tun Razak. These are maintained by the younger lot.

And as far as Sabah is concern, Musa Aman’s government which has promoted good governance and development centric with impeccable credentials will be a selling point in the cyber front.

Sabah 2012 Budget Is the Biggest Ever RM4.048 Billion

Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman has turned the fortunes of the state around since he came to power in 2003. He has come down hard on corruption, has improved infrastructure and infused new life into a creaking state machinery.

Sabah achieved sound financial management 11 years in a row with clean bill certification awarded by the Auditor General. Sabah also achieved the highest ratings of “AAA” by RAM Ratings Services Berhad for 3 consecutive years. Sabah also obtained ISO certification by Moody International for efficiency and proper state budget management for 3 consecutive years. Sabah under Musa Aman achieved record annual GDP growth, averaging 5%, in the eight years, 2004-05 to 2008-11. For 2012 the growth is projected 5% again when the State 2012 Budget was unveiled yesterday by Musa Aman amidst a backdrop of rising uncertainties in the global economy.

The release of the 2012 Sabah budget yesterday has left many Sabah observers relieved by what Sabah Chief Minister cum Finance Minister Musa Aman didn’t do: He avoided throwing Sabah’s economic recovery off course. The widespread view is that he has handled two major issues — the state’s Wellbeing and Prosperity — with aplomb.

The budget for the next fiscal year 2012 presents a balanced approach to long-term economic planning and short-term considerations of sustaining … the momentum in economic recovery. The budget reflects confidence and clarity and many describe the budget as “prudent and progressive”, and one businessman friend called the budget … pragmatic and practical.

In presenting previous budgets in his role as finance minister between 2001 and 2003, Musa Aman was as populist as they come. Today, his approach is different. “Fiscal policy has to be guided by the required framework for fiscal prudence,” Musa said as he unveiled the budget, proposing to spent RM4.048 billion next year making it the biggest State Budget ever in the history of Sabah.

The overall focus of the government on improving its fiscal position and increasing fiscal transparency is highly commendable. Musa Aman said the huge supply expenditure was estimated after taking into account the states financial strength and estimates of revenue totaling RM3.69 billion. The major revenue contribution is to come from sales on crude palm oil, petroleum royalties, income and interest from investment, land and forestry and another RM1.521 billion from the Federal Government.

Moving toward better fiscal management and transparency would mean a number of benefits, including increasing the efficiency of the economy, improving Sabah’s attractiveness as an investment destination and providing the government greater fiscal flexibility if — or perhaps when — it has to deal with future economic shocks.

Musa Aman who is also the finance minister has done “a decent job”, the 2010 Auditor General Report showed several actual figures that reflect the highest achievements in the states financial history such as:
1) State Reserves exceeding RM3 billion
2) State Revenue exceeding RM4 billion
3) Actual surplus amounting to RM730 billion
4) Development expenditures at RM1.17 billion
5) No arrears on Federal loans ( Under Musa Aman Sabah Government has paid all its dues to the Federal Government)

I’m sure the latest budget may lay the foundation for bolder measures in coming years. However, it is often the budget’s less bold and often boring bits that matter the most. That is, the reams of tedious fiscal arithmetic that go into determining whether the various commitments that the finance minister makes in his budget speech can be easily funded from the revenue or hinge on some preposterously optimistic assumptions. On this criterion, the budget fares rather well.

To critics of Musa Aman’s 2012 Budget, Keep in mind that Pakatan Governments would kill to be in the position Sabah is in, to grow at 5%, Sabah has endured the economic downturn with modest impact, and its economy “grew well” in 2011, “so let us not worry too much”.

Musa Aman has maintained relief for some sectors. For example, the implementation of infrastructure and public utilities programmes will involve an allocation of RM1.285 billion of which RM458.8 million is for water supply, Rm270.63 million for road and RM63.58 for sewerage. And then to strengthening further the agriculture sector RM335.95 million would be allocated so that there is high yield in local food production. Even in the tourism sector RM158.84 will be allocated and mind you tourism from January to September 2011 registered RM3.662 billion of which RM1.45 billion was from foreign tourist and RM2.212 billion from domestic tourist. Even the manufacturing sector will be getting allocation of RM98.15 million.

Sabah is addressing foreign direct investment (FDI), too. The Sabah Government under Musa Aman is working with the Federal Government and wants to make FDI user-friendly by consolidating regulations and guidelines into one document. This will enhance the clarity and predictability of our FDI policy to foreign investors. Musa Aman expects foreign investors to bring in big money — an estimated in billions.

If Musa Aman has his way, Sabah’s GDP will grow well beyond current expectations. One of his priorities is to revert quickly to the high-growth path of 9%, then find the means to hit double-digit growth. The economy stabilized in the first quarter of 2010-2011 itself, when it clocked a GDP growth of 5%, as against 5.8% in the second quarter of the preceding year. It registered a strong rebound in the second quarter, when the growth rate rose to 5.5%. With the advance estimates placing the likely growth for 2010-2011 at 5%, Musa Aman said “we are indeed vindicated in our policy stand.” The final figure may well turn out to be higher when the third- and fourth-quarter GDP estimates for 2010-2011 become available. He expects growth in the next fiscal year to be higher.

Many things do indeed seem to be going his way. The growth rate in manufacturing in December, for example, was 7% — the highest in two decades. There are also signs of a turnaround in merchandise exports, with growth in November and December after a decline for some months.

Indeed, Sabah has become miracle economy, defined internationally as those with over 5% growth. The best news comes from Sabah, historically the biggest failure. From 2004-05 to 2008-11, Sabah averaged 5% growth annually. It was virtually Malaysia’s fastest growing state, on par with Selangor and Penang. That represents a sensational turnaround. Musa Aman deserves an award for the most inclusive revolution of the decade and he deserves kudos for making Sabah stage a huge turnaround.

I must qualify this story. Fast growth in poor states does not automatically mean that growth has reached all poor people.

But let us celebrate the emergence of Sabah as miracle economy. This is surely one of the biggest achievements of the decade.

Is Najib Tun Razak coming to Sabah this weekend to announce RCI on ILLEGALS?

First Party Bersatu Sabah (PBS) called for the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

Then yesterday in the Daily Express, Bernard Dompok says he wants to meet Najib Tun Razak to bring the demand for a Royal Commision of Inquiry (RCI) into the drastic population increase in Sabah.

Today, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) also joins the clamour for a transparent investigation just to gain brownie points and not wanting to be left-out, after Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and the United Pasok Momogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko) called for the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to probe the scandal.

So now there are at least three Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties demanding a complete investigation on the issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

It is clear that the RCI involves real potential for political controversy as to administrative conduct of Kuala Lumpur and successive Sabah state administrations since 1970′s.

The issues for inquiry may become far more politically charged than imagined.

Federal Government, the Party who just doesn’t get it or pretends, because, they are responsible for creating this mess in Sabah. Kuala Lumpur, the Party who selfishly will do anything to stay in control and power, in order to satiate their own greedy needs allowed this problem to escalate on the expenses of genuine Sabahans. The Party who pretends to care, whilst pilfering and scheming behind Sabahans back. Now, Sabahans the real ones, have become minority in their own state all within 20 years…thanks to Mahathir and the Federal Government!

So Najib Tun Razak is coming to Sabah this weekend after completion of his pilgramage to Mecca. I hear from “Little Bird” that Najib might announce the following :-

1) Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the drastic population increase in Sabah and to address the long standing illegal immigrant issue in Sabah

2) Dissolution of Parliament????

I’m getting some strange signals here. As the grapevine has it, Yong Teck Lee’s SAPP might join back the Barisan National. Surprise? No surprise because SAPP has got no axe to grind with Najib Tun Razak, only with Pak Lah SAPP had differences, so no surprise lah if they go back to BN and what better time to announce when Najib is in town.

Looks like Najib has to pay special interest to Sabah because the state is a “fixed deposit” for votes, Barisan Nasional won 24 of the 25 parliamentary seats in Sabah during the 2008 elections.

And one more thing, this so-called ” Sultan of Sulu” Datu Mohd Akjan Datu Ali is now on bail and can be seen regularly at one of the coffee-shop in Kampong Air.

We shall see what happens the next few days!

In the meantime digest these figures on Sabah’s population explosion:

Note : Just got word that Najib Tun Razak has cancelled his trip to Sabah tomorrow, it seems Najib would be making some important announcement tomorrow in Putrajaya and it could be the dissolution of Parliament.