PERWI

KUALA LUMPUR - Seperti kebiasaan suasana pilihan raya tidak akan sunyi dengan kehadiran pihak berkuasa, dan ini tidak terkecuali di ketiga-tiga kawasan pilihan raya kecil yang akan diadakan pada 7 April kelak.

Menurut Setiausaha Jabatan Pilihan raya PAS Pusat, Wan Nik Wan Yusoff, khemah dan pondok polis juga telah mula didirikan di sekitar kawasan pilihan raya kecil Parlimen Bukit Gantang.

"Setakat pemerhatian yang pihak jentera PAS jalankan, terdapat pondok dan khemah-khemah polis yang diwujudkan sepertimana yang dibuat di pilihan raya kecil Kuala Terengganu," katanya kepada Harakahdaily.

Namun jelasnya, keadaan tersebut kali ini dijangka akan mengalami sedikit perbezaan memandangkan pilihan raya tersebut diadakan secara serentak bersama dengan Dun Selambau dan Batang Air.[more]

KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 — It was a vintage end-of-assembly for Umno, as it bid farewell to its sixth president and fifth Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

As in all previous assemblies leaders, including Abdullah, asked for forgiveness and forgave for mistakes and slurs, intended or otherwise.

And as in previous assemblies, especially when divisive party polls are held, they all hugged each other, some cried, most were emotional, and all promised to be one family — kekeluargaan — as stressed by all their leaders in their closing speeches.

Until next year, at least, or when the next party polls are held.[more]

The former prime minister and the current prime minister shook hands on stage at the end of the five-day Umno General Assembly.

Najib told the delegates earlier that he would try and bring Dr Mahathir and Abdullah together and consult both of them on party and national issues.

But while party members loved the idea of Dr Mahathir returning to Umno and the prospect of the two former party presidents putting their differences aside, not everyone was elated over today’s sideshow.[more]

A lawsuit filed by Perak Speaker V Sivakumar and six others to compel the Election Commission to hold fresh election in Behrang, Changkat Jering and Jelapang will be heard on May 28.

High Court judge Lau Bee Lan fixed the date after the matter came up for mention in chambers today.

Three Pakatan Rakyat assemblymen - Chen Fook Chye, Tai Sing Ng, A Sivanesan - and three voters - Ahmad Sabry Wahab of Behrang, Abdul Latif Ariffin of Changkat Jering and Foo Hon Wai of Jelapang - had along with Sivakumar filed for the judicial review.[more]

So why is there this terrible disconnect between what our politicians are saying and what is happening on the ground? Is this a case of over-zealous functionaries trying to second-guess the powers that be? If that is the case then it is easily remedied by immediately reversing these orders. However (as I suspect it is), if these orders have the approval of those at the top, then this is a case of a serious mismatch of word and deed.

This Jekyll and Hyde syndrome reflects an undignified sense of insecurity. Our leaders must make up their minds. Are they interested in upholding the rule of law and our democratic institutions or are they insistent on showing utter contempt for all that we hold dear just to protect the interests of a few? If only they would realise that they are more likely to win the popularity contest if they would instead show utter contempt for dishonesty and injustice and constancy in protecting the rule of law, the independence of our institutions and the freedoms of our people. If only they would realise that the whole world is watching us and that our platitudes on human rights (particularly at the universal periodic review that just took place) ring very hollow.[more]

With the Bukit Gantang parliamentary by-election just days away, the Pakatan Rakyat-controlled Perak Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today recommended to freeze the salaries of both rival governments.

The State Assembly PAC chairman Wong Kah Woh said the committee decided to freeze the pay for Menteris Besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin and Datuk Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir together with their respective executive councils.

"We want to avoid the double payment of their wages, allowances and any perks until the legitimate mentri besar and his exco men have been established," Wong told reporters here today.[more]

Umno Youth today suggested that all quarters, including the media, cease using the term “Pakatan Pakyat” to refer to the opposition pact because the loose coalition of opposition parties is not a legitimate entity.

Langkawi Umno Youth Chief Nor Saidi Nayan said the entity called Pakatan Rakyat was not a registered or an approved organisation under the Registrar of Societies’ rules and regulations.[more]

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will end all speculation over his departure from office when he announces the date he steps down as prime minister during his speech at the close of Umno general assembly tomorrow.

The prime minister has kept the date a secret from even his close advisors and wants to follow the tradition of Umno and inform party members first of his retirement date. He told several party officials — who have been urging him to issue a press statement and quell speculation over his political future — he intends to follow in the footsteps of Umno presidents Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn and inform his party when he will hand power to his successor.[more]

Losing Umno vice-presidential candidate Datuk Seri Rais Yatim said the entire Cabinet must technically resign when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi steps down.

“It is a ideal situation, when a prime minister resigns all his ministers are deemed to have resigned. This is the conventional interpretation of the Westminster system,” the Foreign Minister told reporters at the Umno General Assembly today.[more]

Party conferences are seldom thrilling but this week’s gathering of over 2,500 ruling-party faithful in Kuala Lumpur has the eyes of the nation upon it. For, as Umno goes, so goes the country.

Since Malaysia’s independence from Britain in 1957, Umno’s chosen leader has always become the country’s leader. This year the torch is passing from Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the prime minister, to Datuk Seri Najib Razak, his deputy, who is standing uncontested as Umno leader and due to be sworn in as Malaysia’s sixth prime minister next week.[more]

Ex-PKR assemblyman Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu, who quit the party and toppled the Pakatan Rakyat coalition from Perak in early February, has now been accused of abusing his powers by appointing his second wife to a government company.

Titi Serong assemblyman Khalil Idham Lim Abdullah from Pas today lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), accusing his former comrade of failing to disclose the family relationship when approving her appointment as managing director of Tourism Perak Sdn Bhd.[more]

When Deputy Premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak appealed to Umno delegates to vote him a good team, he had an unspoken list in mind. By the time the two-day party elections closed, it appeared that he did get most of what he wanted.

Indeed, he seems to have a fairly formidable team. A strong slate of the president's men will mean that Najib can count on the support of loyalists, and unite a fractious Umno that has been locked in leadership tussles for a year.

Just as important, the newly elected team is likely to be acceptable to many Malaysians. They are mostly in line with the choices named by Malaysians in a survey by the independent Merdeka Centre.[more]

Dua menteri dan empat Menteri Besar antara 24 calon Majlis Tertinggi (MT) yang kecundang dalam pemilihan parti Umno kali ini.

Menteri Pelancongan Azalina Othman Said serta Menteri Perdagangan Dalam Negeri dan Hal Ehwal Pengguna Shahrir Abdul Samad, yang sebelum ini adalah anggota MT, terpaksa akur dengan kehendak perwakilan dan melepaskan kerusi masing-masing.

Menteri Besar yang gagal mempertahankan kedudukan sebagai Anggota Majlis Tertinggi pula terdiri daripada Menteri Besar Pahang Adnan Yaakob, Menteri Besar Negeri Sembilan Mohamad Hasan, dan Menteri Besar Johor Abdul Ghani Othman.[more]

Najib expected to make sweeping changes to cabinet and introduce radical economic reforms very soon. – Bernama pic

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak will take over as premier "soon after" the end of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno)congress tomorrow the senior source said today.

Umno is the main party in government.[more]

Having agitated the speedy demise of Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as Umno president, the party's new No. 2 is quickly working to stress party unity ahead of three crucial by-elections.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin also stressed his support for Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his efforts to reform the party.

"Najib has his way of doing things, very much focused and committed on seeing issues being addressed," the deputy president said today.[more]

Stung by his loss at the Umno polls, Datuk Sharir Abdul Samad will submit his resignation from the Cabinet at its weekly meeting on April 1.

The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister lost in the race for an Umno supreme council spot yesterday.

“For me, I chose to become a minister because of the support I received from the party. I feel I need a strong moral basis in order to perform my job well because if I become a minister, I have to face the people, the government servants, the opposition,” Shahrir told reporters at the Umno annual assembly today.[more]

Despite a leadership calling for Umno to be more inclusive and narrow differences with other communities, delegates today pushed the party to move further to the right in governance and politics.

In speech after speech debating a motion of thanks for outgoing Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's opening address, the delegates spoke on diverse of subjects centred on the party's domination in governance and politics.

Terengganu delegate Datuk Zubir Embong urged the government to be strict in banning the Christians from using the word 'Allah' saying it confused the Malays.[more]

State speaker Teng Chang Khim said both are in contempt of the State Assembly when they failed to attend the Select Committee for Competence, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) inquiry into Balkis, a charity set up by the former Barisan Nasional state government for their wives.

“It’s the Legislative Assembly which established Selcat and action can be taken against Dr Khir, who is a member of the Assembly, while his wife is liable for criminal action under Section 3 of the Contempt of the House Enactment 2008,” Teng said today.

Teng disclosed that any member of Selcat can refer the former Selangor Menteri Besar to the Privilege Committee while the Selcat secretary may lodge the police report against Zahrah.[more]

KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 - The expected backlash from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has arrived.

And the venom was aimed directly at Khairy Jamaluddin, the politician who defeated Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir on the way to becoming the Umno Youth chief.

More questions than answers were raised today during a public inquiry on the Wives of Selangor Elected Representative Charity Organisation (Balkis), which was dissolved by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) on Feb 11 this year.

Selangor Speaker Teng Chang Khim lashed out at the ROS for dissolving the charity based on an Emergency General Meeting (EGM) by members who had no voting rights in March 11 last year.

Selangor ROS officer Tairah Yusof, who continued her testimony before the Selangor Select Committee for Competency, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat), raised the ire of the committee when she admitted that no checks were made on the composition of Balkis members who voted to dissolve the charity.[more]

It was to have been a glorious start for Umno Youth as their new chief was crowned. But an ugly incident of in-fighting initiated by unhappy supporters of one candidate exposed cracks within the wing that point to a more serious illness within the party.

The drama began slightly after 11pm last night as the results for the wing was announced. It was the last of the three movements under Umno to be read out, delayed by recount after recount for the top post.

All of a sudden from the sidelines, several groups started chanting “Rasuah! Rasuah! Rasuah!”

Believed to be the disenchanted cheerleaders of Mukhriz, they quickly surged from all directions towards one corner of the hall to confront the Khairy faction.

From above, the entire floor looked like a fight between two colonies of fire ants.

On the sideline, a red-eyed man in songkok, the Umno white baju Melayu and checquered sarong pelikat, was overheard exclaiming: “This is the end. We’re going to lose all three by-elections.”

No doubt the anonymous man was referring to the upcoming by-elections in the two Bukits and one Batang. Perhaps it was a spur-of-the-moment exclamation, an outburst of overwrought emotions, but such thoughts said aloud do not spell a bright future for the wing at such a vulnerable time.

A couple of hours later, as the last of the workers exited the Putra World Trade Centre, a woman campaigner remarked to her companion: “The opposition media were here. It’s so shameful!”[more]

Permodalan Negri Selangor Berhad (PNSB) chief executive officer Datin Khairiyah Abu Hassan testified before the legislature today that the state subsidiary was ‘instructed” to pick up the cost to Melbourne for the wife of former menteri besar Datin Zahrah Kechik to visit their son who was studying there.

Khairiyah told the Special Select Committee for Competency, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) that she received the instructions directly from Zahrah and was “told” to accompany her on the three day visit, in 2007.

Over RM14,000 was spent to purchase return business class and economy class tickets sometime in December 2007.[more]

Two Komodo dragons have mauled a fruit picker to death after he fell out of a tree in an orchard in eastern Indonesia, in a rare attack on humans by the world’s largest lizard.

The man, Muhamad Anwar, 31, was found bleeding from bites to his hands, body, legs and neck within minutes of falling out of a sugar-apple tree on the island of Komodo and died later at a clinic on neighbouring Flores. The giant lizards had been waiting for him under the tree, according to a neighbour, Theresia Tawa.

The carnivorous Komodos, which live for up to 50 years, can grow to 3m in length and weigh up to 90kg. Though they rarely attack humans — and had not previously killed an adult for more than 30 years — an eight-year-old boy died after being mauled in 2007 and attacks are said to be increasing as their habitat becomes restricted. Their diet usually consists of smaller animals, including other members of their own species.[more]

[William Leong Jee Keen is Member of Parliament for Selayang. A prominent lawyer, he has extensive and long years of experience in the legal arena. The above was his speech to Parliament on Mar 23, 2009]

12. Besides organized crime, drug trafficking and corruption, there are also other offences which should provide protection to witnesses. These include money laundering, obstruction of justice, trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants. Malaysia has been named as one of the countries in which offences relating to trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants have become serious proportions.

Relocating Criminals

13. One of the problems that have arisen in the Witness Protection programme in the government giving the witness a new identity in a new relocation is that the witness himself is a criminal. Many of them have after being given the new identity in the new location has returned to a life of crime often causing harm and losses to the persons in the new location.

China’s economy has touched bottom but further interest rate cuts remain an option, a Chinese central bank adviser said on Wednesday.

Fan Gang, who sits on the Chinese central bank’s monetary policy advisory committee, said a 25 per cent rise in car sales and accelerating investment in China indicated the economy was showing signs of improvement.

“Before (the economy) bottoms out, it has to bottom. I believe it has bottomed, with the stimulus package and signs of recovery in some industries,” Fan said in an interview during the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong.[more]

Civil society leaders and political analysts have slammed as short-sighted and oppressive the moves by the government to curb the by-election campaigning of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and his Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

Last night, police shot rounds of tear gas and chemical-laced water into a crowd of more than 5,000 who gathered to hear the reform icon speak in Sungai Tinggi, Bukit Gantang, where a parliamentary by-election is due to take place on Apr 7.

Their action was a repeat of the night before, when they also trained tear gas and water canons into another peaceful crowd that came to hear Anwar - this time at Bukit Selambau in Kedah. [more]

They have now become part of a committee formed under the PM's Department responsible for the implementation of a program called 'people centric'.

This programme has, as its objective, the upliftment of BN's image in the eyes of the public and the battering of the image of the PR.

This is then to lead to the defeat of the PR government in Selangor in the next General Election. The activities which are being planned in relation to this program is to be financed by Federal funds!

If this does not constitute misuse of public funds, I do not know what does![more]

Mahfuz dalam ucapan ringkasnya mendesak agar dihapuskan kuasa Menteri Dalam Negeri menggantung atau menarik balik permit sesebuah akhbar.

"Sudah tiba masanya kuasa memberi dan menarik permit sesebuah penerbitan bercetak diserahkan kepada mahkamah bukan kepada menteri.