A Dawn of a New Era in Malaysia
The new General Election on 9th of May 2018 gave birth to a new hope for the people of Malaysia.
The message was delivered to me by Ken who said that he felt a release from oppression. Although he never been locked up, not once physically robbed of freedom. Not even pepper sprayed; we marched together in Bersih 4 (protest against unfair election and manipulation), and by then the FRU had stopped brutalising peaceful demonstrators. But on May 10 he exhaled a deep breath, tangibly relieved and mysteriously liberated. Why?
Malaysia was ruled by the same Barisan government for 61 years under the same authoritarian dominating party, the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) in the coalition of many other small parties. The last Prime Minister (PM) was Nazib Razak, the president of UMNO who believed that Cash is King. Cash amount to $42 million and $2.6 billions Malaysian dollars were deposited into his personal account and he claimed that the money were donated by Arab rich donors. A high power task force making up of : the Attorney General, the Governor of Bank Negara, the Police Director General and the Anti-corruption Director General was formed to investigate the corruption. Before the task force could carry out the investigation, the personalities were removed by the Prime Minister and the investigation was abandoned. A new set of people were appointed by the PM to replace them. Who were the people appointed?
They were all the PM's cronies who later declared that there was no case for the PM to answer. The PM was cleared of all the suspisions and declared clean. This is a picture of the PM Nazib Razak and his wife.
The auspicious date 9th May 2018 gave birth to a new dawn of a new nation Malaysia. The Barisan coalition lost the General Election and a new government, the Coalition of Hope (Pakatan Harapan) became the government of the days. The Coalition of Hope( Pakatan Harapan) is made up of 4 parties: The Justice party (Keadilan) , the Democratic Action party (DAP), Integrity party (Amanah) and the Pri-Bumi (BERSATU) party headed by a 92 years old leader Tun Dr Mahathir. Tun Dr Mahathir is now the new Prime Minister.
The picture shows the three stooges of the new coalition: on the left is Mr Lim Kit Siang (77 years old) of DAP, the centre is Tun Dr Mahathir (92 years old) and on the right is the leader of Keadilan. The leader of the Keadilan Anwar Ibrahim (71 year old) will succeed Tun Mahathir in two or three years time after Tun Dr Mahathir has cleaned all the mass of the last government. The new finance minister Mr Lim Guan Eng found that the nation debt exceeded 1 trillion Malaysian dollars. Most of the lopsided transections were never revealed and hidden under the red files accessible to only the last finance minister Nazib Razak who is also the PM.
Many heads of departments were chopped to give way to new talents to administer the machineries of the government. The first few weeks witnessed the actions taken by the new PM Tun Dr Mahathir and the discoveries were shocking. The cronises like Attorney General, Governor of Bank Negara, Director general of the Corruption Agency were replaced. The police forces were instructed to take action and cash amounted to 114 millions Malaysian dollars and foreign currencies were recovered from the ex-PM's premises. A hundred kg of gold bars and 200 over expensive ladies hand bags were recovered. The discovery shocked the whole nation.
BN’s reign was more a cloud on our minds than shackles at our feet. In a way, it would be easier to identify what held us back, and what to do next, if BN had ruled with an iron fist, a hard authoritarianism. We totally reset, rebuild from scratch; erase the constitution and write a new one.
This is not possible because of the diversity existed in Malaysia. The exploitation of special privilege to the Malay was used to benefit a few UMNO warlords and the Malay masses did not benefit. The Cash is King PM used money to buy support and votes.
But the authoritarianism was of a softer, subtle, insidious sort. Now we cry for greater freedom, equality, unity amid diversity. These are all winsome and wholesome things – but there is a learning process ahead, punctuated with subtlety, ambiguity and tension. Taking away restrictions on freedom and obstacles to equality, as promised by Pakatan Harapan, is right and necessary, but incomplete without clarifying and promoting these freedoms and broadening our conception of equality and diversity.
The people clamouring loudest for freedom will most heartily welcome it – activists, civil society leaders, “professionals”, journalists and editors, publishers, a handful of academics. I wonder, are we, as a nation, on the same page.
A new hope for the people of Malaysia is dawned and the new set of leaders are articulating a new concept of Malaysia for malaysians. A sign of relief is that everyone is now a Malaysian irrespective of whether you are Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kandans or aborigines. The majority of the population is Malay and their rights will be protected.
The "special position" of the Malays was already in the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1948 and in all the Constitutions of the Malay States. The quota system was already in existence before Merdeka and the Malays already were enjoying that privilege. It is very difficult to accept the belief that the Alliance Party, including Umno, had asked for the provision to be on a temporary basis. The Alliance Party had asked for independence from the British in order to improve their position and not to be worse off. It is clear that Article 153 was inserted in the Constitution for it to last a long time. It is a sensitive issue and no one should question it. In any case, Article 153 is an enabling provision and it is left to the government in power to implement its provisions as reasonably as possible.In Article 152(2) in The Constitution of the Republic of Singapore it states, “The government shall exercise its functions in such manner as to recognise the special position of the Malays who are the indigenous people of Singapore, and accordingly it shall be the responsibility of the government to protect, safeguard, support, foster and promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language.” This shows that even in a society wedded to meritocracy, there are hard truths that one has to accept.
This is the new political party BERSATU headed by Tun Dr Mahathir, the current interim PM of Malaysia.
He will be 93 years in a few days time. He promised to relinquish the post for the PM in waiting Anow Ibrahim. leader of Keadilan Party.
