There I said it. If you watched it last night then do drop a note and tell me what you thought. Will update with youtube links once they are up.
Briefly, LGE opened with a flurry of accusations, touching on 5-6 “land scandals”. As the night went on though they focused on one particular scandal, the “40 million loss” related to the awarding of land to a private quarry contractor.
Koh managed to defend himself very well imo. His points were:
- The root cause of the confusion was a slipup made in the land dept 40 years ago.
- He had not met with the government privately to discuss the issue as they were constantly “going public” with new claims of “land scams”
- The “40 million” figure was merely the court amount. The contractor is apparently willing to settle for 1.5 mil.
- He had not fired the individual involved, as he had ordered investigations not once but twice against him but there was no concrete proof that there was criminal intent involved. The new government had not fired the official either.
- He had not gone public as the case was in court and he would be committing subjudice.
LGE made glaring errors in the debate:
- During the cross, Koh pointed out that the contractor was willing to settle for 1.5 mil; presumably the new Govt knew this as well. He asked why the 40 mil figure was constantly bandied about when the case was still being contested in court. LGE didn’t answer the question but did some pandering instead.
- Koh pointed out that the new govt had earlier accused of having come into an empty office with the state documents missing, but in fact while the office of the CM itself was free of documents, they could all - “thousands and thousands of them” - be easily found in the private archives on the same floor. LGE didn’t respond directly to this.
LGE did a lot of pandering to the crowd, which I thought was a waste of time. It made him look as if he were running for reelection. The constant tirades against the old govt instead of focusing on the topic at hand made Koh’s points seem more valid.
Koh on the other hand only focused on the 40 mil issue. Although he handily rebutted LGE’s accusations on that issue and definitely came out looking good, I would have liked to hear about PGCC.
For my part, the debate did a lot to convince me that the current govt is going down the wrong path in constantly going after the old administration. I remember after Koh’s gentlemanly concession in March, they were initially planning to consult him on governing the state. Gerakan was once an opposition party, and recent events hint that some within the party are dissatisfied with BN. I’d try to build bridges, not burn them.
[update]Lim Guan Eng also made an extremely bold statement during the debate: that his government would eradicate hardcore poverty in Penang within one year. That’ll definitely come back to bite him if he doesn’t deliver.
Well now seriously. When Khalid Ibrahim made his suggestion for 10% of UiTM placements to be opened up to non-bumis, who did you think he was looking out for? The non-bumis? When was the last time you heard Chinese or Indian students clamouring for UiTM allocations? A degree from UiTM is probably worth less than a good private diploma (outside the govt sector that is).
Yes it’s true that the majority of (private) university and college students are non-bumi - but the solution isn’t to cloister yourselves up in a bumi-exclusvive institution. Degrees are only worth as much as the university behind it: from the university’s own site, half of its “international achievements” come from those dubious Geneva exhibitions we heard about last year.
As Education Malaysia points out, it’s pretty hard to see how UiTM is justified as a university, aside from its name, when it’s non-selective and mono-ethnic. “Charity school funded by taxpayers” is a more apt description, or perhaps “Umnoputera factory”.
The political response is also telling:
- The Higher Education Minister Khaled Nordin reads the suggestion as an “insult to Malays”.
- UiTM vice-chancellor Ibrahim Abu Shah called Khalid a “traitor to his race” (Education Malaysia dug up an interesting profile on him as well ).
- “Prime Minister for all Malaysians” Abdullah Badawi vetoed it saying Khalid had “no power” to implement such a thing.
- Toothless MCA and Gerakan pay lip service to Khalid’s suggestion (or maybe not?)
- Malaysian Muslim Consumer’s Association director Noor Nirwandy Mat Noordin had the most insiduous comment of all:
“If something like this is allowed to happen, then there will be a worrying situation where many Malay institutions will crumble and be ‘Malaysia-nised‘.
It’s exactly 2 weeks before Merdeka Day. I find it hard to celebrate.
On March 1, 2008, then Cabinet Minister Rafidah Aziz said this about PAS’ calls for a debate with Abdullah Badawi on their election manifestos:
Rafidah also said that it was unnecessary to accede to a PAS suggestion for the party to have an open debate with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak because it was irrelevant in terms of the culture of Malaysian society.
“The BN track record is there for us to scrutinise and appreciate. We do not emulate the American style of open debate,” she said.
The right way would be to debate with the people themselves, and discuss the issues with a view to resolving them immediately.
“We debate with the villagers. We debate with the urban folk. That’s our way. Debating here means holding ceramah (talk), discussions and question-and-answer sessions on local issues,” she said.
Things have changed indeed! Shabery Cheek, the current Information Minister, agreed to debate Anwar himself over the rising oil prices, and the papers reported this:
Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek today expressed the hope that debates between two sides with differing views would become a culture in Malaysian politics.
“These (debates) have yet to be institutionalised in our political system and last night was the beginning,” he said in reference to the debate on the fuel price increase between him and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Hari Ini Bentuk Kerajaan, Esok Turun Harga Minyak
I actually missed the hour-long live telecast (because of you Marv :< ), but I wasn’t too worried because I knew it would be on Malaysiakini and Youtube :). And sure enough it was. I’ve just watched it and here’s my blow-by-blow. Spoilers, obviously, so you might want to go watch it yourself if you haven’t already. The Youtube vid above is the first of eight parts. I also ripped the audio out and made an mp3 of the debate (right click, save as; 23MB ).
Let me state here though that I am NOT a diehard Anwar fan, in fact I’m quite the skeptic when it comes to him. It’ll take a bit before I’ll be 100% convinced he’s changed his spots. So bear this in mind (oh did I just spoil it for you??).
Opening statement
Anwar started off with the main points he would reiterate throughout, starting with his proposal to reduce oil prices by 50 sen, which would cost the govt RM 5 bil. He criticized the lopsided contracts given to IPPs, and stated that if TNB reduced its power reserve from 40% to 20%, RM2 bil would be saved. He points out that corruption and “leakage” contributed to the situation; bailouts of Perwaja amounted to RM 13 billion.
Shabery’s starts off strongly with a statement that a 5bil estimate was outdated, oil prices have risen so high that we would now need 50 bil to finance that reduction.
He then follows up with a personal attack (first of many) on Anwar, reminding him that he led protest against price increases during the Yom Kippur War in the 70s, and accusing him of being a “populist”.
Round Two
The moderator then invited comments from both speakers on this statement: Given that Petronas only owns a 40% share of the local fuel market, a govt subsidy affects foreign conglomerates like Shell and Exxon-Mobil as well.
Shabery replied first by stating subsidies needed to be pulled back so the govt could spend on the people. He attemped to rebut Anwar’s claim of wastage by pointed out that even developed countries like Norway and Finland had raised prices. (This led to applause from his supporters, but I couldn’t see the connection).
Anwar then addressed Shabery’s personal attacks by going for the high road, stating wryly that this was not a debate about “Anwar and Shabery” and he wouldn’t, for example, bring up Shabery’s previous involvement in Semangat 64. He then jumped on Shabery’s weak rebuttal, saying that Norway’s GDP was 10 times Malaysia’s (wow, preparation!), and said there was no basis for a straight comparison. He took the chance again to point out the hardships of the poor (stressing that the majority of the poor were Bumis) and that the increase showed the govt was out of touch. He said that when money was given to industries and projects, it was called “incentives” or “bailouts”, but when given to the people it was negatively called “subsidies”.
Panelist questions (first round)
A representative from each side then posed a question to the opposing.
Shabery’s rep quoted figures stating that local oil operations represented only a small portion of Petronas’ profits, and got a carried away into a speech accusing Anwar of being like a child who was using his dead father’s inheritance to distribute, so that he could be popular.
Anwar answered that Petronas was only in the top 100 oil companies, but it was in the top ten based on profits. He said that he would not touch Petronas’ profits directly, but took issue with the profits that was given by Petronas to the govt.
Anwar’s representative then posed his question. He stated the govt had claimed the RM4 bil saved from the 2006 fuel hike would be used to improve public transport, but only RM 900 mil had actually been spent.
Shabery sarcastically said that if he were in the opposition, “bagi free pun boleh“, but oil prices had doubled. He then went off on a tangent reiterating that other oil producing countries had high inflation, and brought in the govt’s ability to offset the food crisis (Huh?).
It was quite obvious though that Shabery had failed to respond to the query on public transport.
Panelist questions (second round)
This time the reps asked their own side questions.
Anwar was asked about his efforts to establish a Tabung Warisan ala Norway. He briefly touched on it but then devoted the remaning time to rebut Shabery’s statement on inflation, saying there was no logic in pointing out that low oil prices led to inflation, since it didn’t follow that high oil prices would lead to less inflation.
Shabery’s rep again went off into his own speech, but was basically “asking” why Anwar had not focused instead on decreasing tax, or inflation, but chose oil prices instead.
Shabery chose to go back to Anwar’s earlier speech, but amazingly decided to wave off Anwar’s statement about only taking from Petronas’ profits (Anwar had said Petronas was among the top 10 oil earners). He said our oil would soon run out, and made time to praise Mahathir for his handling of Petronas.
Cross-examination
The next round, Anwar reiterated that his main points were the sudden spike in fuel price and the wastage of funds, and why the govt, after having promised not to raise prices before the election, had now raised prices and manipulated the media against reporting opposition points accurately.
Shabery pointedly refused to address the question directly, repeating instead that oil prices were a global phenomenon. He tried another ad hominem attack, accusing Anwar of having brokered unreasonable deals with IPPs in the first place, and brought up the old “Anwar wanted to sell us to IMF” argument from 1997.
Shabery then asked Anwar what would be done when the country runs out of oil in 2015.
Anwar parried the attack by reminding us that the 2015 estimation is only based on Petronas not finding any more oil fields by then, and that it had once been predicted that Malaysia would run out of oil by 2005. He praised Petronas for its resourcefulness. He rebutted Shabery’s personal attack by announcing that he had, in fact, actively opposed the terms of IPP agreements along with the former TNB chairman, who resigned over the issue, and this would be backed up in the records (oo burn!). He said he would debate the 1997 crisis in any forum in the future. He then takes advantage of the recent announcement by Petronas that an additional RM 6 bil would be given to the government - saying that if a billion of that were to be given to the public it would benefit them greatly.
Conclusion
The time given for this round was short: 90 seconds each. Anwar quickly summed up his points again. Shabery continues making personal attacks, painting Anwar as a rebel, and saying that Anwar had once praised Mahathir to the heavens.
——————————————
What I think
It was sadly obvious that Shabery simply wasn’t in the same league as Anwar. DSAI was persuasive yet affable and hit the right tone at the right times, and had ready answers for nearly everything Shabery threw at him.
Shabery came across as confrontational, mocking and sarcastic. The brunt of his argument comprised personal attacks which may have entertained supporters in the elections, but were conspicuously vacuous in a debate setting. He didn’t have answers to key questions.
This is not to say that Anwar was 100% right - it is true that he had been using the fuel hike to his advantage even before it took effect, knowing that it was inevitable. But he whipped Shabery good in the debate, and while people are comfortingly saying everyone came out winners, the debate was a big step forward, etc; I don’t think there will be another debate featuring DSAI soon. It’s pretty obvious why the government is scared stiff of him.
Fine, a lot of people are posting about this already - but hey, it could be worse; I could be blogging about XX vs DY…
It’s just all very odd. Mkini conducted a poll and a whopping 95% of its readers thought that it was a political conspiracy against Anwar. Unsurprising really, given the political climate, not to mention the fact that the previous sodomy charge was overturned in court.
Our Govt can be really dumb, make no mistake. We after all had a Tourism Minister who accused bloggers of being lying and unemployed, and a bungled attempt to prevent indelible ink from being brought into the elections based on “reports” to the police - that couldn’t be produced when asked for. A government that said it would not serve foreign cars at petrol stations near the border, abolish that directive, and then introduce a dual-pump system - all in the space of one month. A government that said it would remove subsidies from RapidKL to be fair to other operators, and then announce that they would be giving RapidKL more buses two weeks later.
Yes, a kid playing SimCity might make better decisions than our govt sometimes. But this (being a conspiracy) just sounds too stupid a move, even for our government. Consider the facts:
1. A 23-year old youth being sodomized by a 61-year old man with back problems - oi, you can’t rape the willing.
2. The myriad photos of Saiful hobnobbing with BN leaders barely months before - surely no conspiracist would be this careless!
3. Correct me if I’m wrong but proving anal rape isn’t rocket science. There would be bruises/tearing, DNA samples.
4. It was a luxury condo, likely with strict guards who would surely remember someone as famous as Anwar going there.
5. Anwar was already absolved of a previous sodomy charge, which he publicly thanked Pak Lah for not intefering in. Surely there are other ways you can fake charges for.
I’m sure there are many other things you can think of. The point is, there are just too many holes. But the alternatives?
a). Anwar planned it.
Not impossible (unless you are a diehard Anwar fan). Having disappointed those who were waiting as deadline after deadline passed for the anticipated crossover of MPs, he is on a roll now - holing up in the Turkish Embassy, declaring he was in danger of being assassinated ( why would the government bring him into the limelight with a fake sodomy charge and THEN assassinate him when he is likely to be under the spotlight? ), holding mass rallies, and planning a nationwide tour.
b). Anwar did it
My aunt used to say “No smoke, no fire” :). Like I said though, DNA evidence should tell. Considering the fact he has not one, not two, three, four or five but six children though (and that Saiful is engaged), there’s your proof that bisexuality is indeed a middle ground :).
c). Someone who wants to see BOTH the govt (or at least the leadership) and Anwar go down is behind it.
Reasonable conclusion, but hard to get proof for…. and too many suspects.
d). The government is just that stupid
What do you think? I’m afraid I can’t tell you what I think - I might piss people off ! :)
Explosive claims linking Najib to Altantuya
In the statutory declaration, Balasubramaniam said he was told by Abdul Razak on Najib’s links with Altantuya. These include:
Abdul Razak had been introduced to Altantuya by Najib at a diamond exhibition in Singapore.
Najib informed Abdul Razak that he had sexual encounters with Altantuya and that she was partial to anal intercourse.
Najib wanted Abdul Razak to look after Altantuya as he did not want her to harass him since he was now the DPM.
Najib, Abdul Razak and Altantuya had all been together at a dinner in Paris.
Altantuya wanted money from Abdul Razak as she felt she was entitled to a US$500,000 commission on a submarine deal she assisted with in Paris.
Meanwhile, during the course of his investigation, Balasubramiam said Altantuya made some disclosures including:
She met Abdul Razak in Singapore with Najib.
She also met Abdul Razak and Najib at a dinner in Paris.
She was promised a sum of US$500,000 as commission for assisting in a submarine deal in Paris.
Abdul Razak had initially bought her a house in Mongolia but her brother had refinanced it and she needed money to redeem it.
Her mother was ill and she needed money to pay for her treatment.
Abdul Razak had married her in Korea as her mother is Korean whilst her father is a Mongolian/Chinese mix.
Since Balasubramaniam disallowed her from meeting Abdul Razak, she hoped that he could arrange for her to meet Najib instead.
“We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed,” Mr Mugabe told his supporters. “We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?”
The warning came a day after he declared: “We are ready to go to war.” Evidence, say observers, of mounting concerns that he may not have done enough to secure the vote.
What causes men to act like this? Ego? A hunger for power? Mental illness? Or is the man just plain evil? I just hope Zimbabwe has a future.
It was only a matter of time before RPK was hauled up for the statements made on Malaysia Today. He is a great man, but even I find it hard to swallow his posts sometimes. I stopped reading MT regularly partly because of this, and partly because the unadulterated anger in the hundreds of comments left on his posts make me wince.
In the infamous post “Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell” RPK accuses Najib of everything short of triggering the C4 himself. Najib had his press secretary write a letter to MT warning that he would “seek legal redress”. RPK thanked him for the letter, but stood by his guns.
Quite frankly, considering the accusations made, any leader would certainly have charged the person making them. Hey, at least we are under Najib in Malaysia and not Putin in Russia, where critical journalists mysteriously disappear.
That being said, the charge under the Sedition Act, as Polytikus points out, is unwarranted and a travesty. Part of the problem is the loose wording of the Act:
(c) to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Malaysia or in any State;
(d) to raise discontent or disaffection amongst the subjects of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong or of the Ruler of any State or amongst the inhabitants of Malaysia or of any State;
(e) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia; or
I can certainly think of many examples where the current government has been guilty of sedition!
Sedition is, according to the dictionary, the “incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government”. But Najib is flattering himself if he thinks that he is the government. This is not an isolated example - Lim Guan Eng was also charged under the Sedition Act when he alleged that Rahim Thamby Chik, then CM of Malacca, had raped a young Malay girl.
The more suitable charge is libel. Accross the causeway, Lee Kuan Yew has happily charged detractors with libel suits - and won, most of the time. Unsavoury, but at least better than assuming that allegations against you are allegations against the country.
I am not sure what was going on with the “hunger strike” or the bail-raising stunts, but the next week should be interesting. I wouldn’t want RPK in jail, but with the government out to get him, I have that sinking feeling. Still, RPK hints he has an ace up his sleeve.
Malaysiakini recently reported on a study by the Centre for Independent Journalism which analysed the election coverage by the mainstream papers:
According to the report, The Star was the most partial among English newspapers in terms of elections reporting in favour of Barisan Nasional (BN) with 63.12 percent its election reports being ‘pro-BN’.
The daily was also found to have had the smallest proportion (5.5 percent) of pro-Opposition reports, while 31.3 percent of its stories were ‘neutral’.
…
While the NST had slightly more space (5.9 percent) for pro-Opposition stories than the Star, it had only slightly more (31.31 percent) of neutral stories.
In terms of pro-BN stories, NST is up there with Star as having 60.29 percent of its stories being in favour of the ruling coalition.
…
The Sun was found to have dedicated the most space (40.87 percent) in its pages to ‘neutral stories’. Just over 16 percent of its stories, furthermore, could be described as pro-Opposition.
Pro-BN stories, however, still dominated the free newspaper with just under 43 percent.
This phenomenon has been called “shadow boxing“, e.g. the papers would print articles bashing Anwar Ibrahim over something he had said - only that since the papers had been carefully obliterating any coverage of Anwar, no one actually knew what Anwar had been talking about.
In the aftermath of the tsunami, there were many people who simply found that they did not know anything about most of the opposition MPs. This was a direct result of the newspapers abdicating their responsibility to the public.
To be fair, the coverage given to the Opposition government-in-waiting has “improved” in leaps and bounds. The Star even quickly started a daily “Know your ADUN” section. But the jury is very much out on whether this is the result of genuine soul-searching, like what Gerakan is doing; or whether this is more in line with Samy’s laughable flipflops on Hindraf.
Wong Chun Wai whined about why the MSM’s live election coverage lost out to their online competitors:
The websites of mainstream newspapers had an even tougher time, being overly cautious on accuracy, particularly on results, and not wanting to rely too much on unconfirmed news.
In the end, the alternative media scored better as it did not have to worry too much about accuracy. An example was the newsflash on the purported 14 unopened ballot boxes in Lembah Pantai, implying there would be rigging. The report turned out to be false.
A patently lame accusation, giving that the Star had been publishing full-page lies threats advertisements for BN - I would prefer a newsflash that is corrected in minutes over blatant propaganda!
His excuse makes no sense anyway - polling ballots are counted at the stations by representatives from each party, and forms are then issued. The media certainly had people at counting centers. Why would you offer “live” election coverage and then wait for official announcements anyway?
The Star also published the results of a survey commissioned by itself in collaboration with IIUM a week before the elections, claiming that newspapers were still the source of information for the public:
The newspaper is still the principal choice of media for Malaysians as their source of news and information, despite the rising popularity of Internet usage.
On the credibility of the Internet, The Star-IIUM election survey revealed that the gap is wide between those who ticked “totally disagree” and “totally agree.”
A total of 29% respondents totally disagreed about believing content on the Internet, but only 5% said they totally agreed with the notion that Internet content could be believed.
Internet penetration is also low among the 2,930 respondents, with 58% of them saying that they don’t surf the Internet at all, compared to 6% who use it daily.
On belief in Internet content, Malaysians were asked to give ratings from “totally disagree,” “disagree,” “agree,” and “totally agree.”
IIUM’s Prof Datuk Dr Syed Arabi Idid said the poll results were highly revealing of the Malaysians’ distrust of the Internet, and agreed that the newspaper and television were still the main information staple of the public.
“Generally, the poll revealed that Malaysians have doubts about information published on the Internet,” he added.
In the study, 64.5 per cent of those aged from 21 to 30 years trusted blogs and online media for reliable information compared with 23.1 per cent who relied on the television and only 12.4 per cent on newspapers.
Of those between 31 and 40 years, 61.7 per cent believed that the information in the blogs and online media was true while 23.5 trusted the television and 14.8 per cent the newspapers.
One wonders how Professor Datuk Doctor Syed Arabi Idid conducts surveys with a 60% error margin.
Did the media believe their own spin? It would seem so, judging from ex-Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin’s last press conference, where he obstinately, pitifully, quotes the findings from the Star’s poll:
Scandals and scoops come and go, but at the end of the day the foundation of a paper is its credibility. Without that, a paper is nothing. When you have the trust of only 15% of your readers, it’s time for serious soul-searching. That the predicament of the MSM mirrors that of BN speaks volumes of how politicized our media is. And the solution is the same. Change!
Test yourself: You hear of a riot in Penang. Do you
Go to Malaysiakini
Go to Malaysia Today
Go to [other blog of choice]
Google it
Turn on the TV for the hourly bulletin
Buy the newspaper, or visit their website.
When you think about it, we are doing Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, and the numerous unemployed women out there a disservice when we call the newspapers the “mainstream media”. Are they still “mainstream” when no one takes them seriously? Perhaps, like the ex-BN governments in five states, we should now call them the “alternative media”.
Any other politician would have taken the easy way out. Denounce all ties, slam the media, find some other way to put the opponent down. Maybe redefine the meaning of the word is.
That was what I thought Obama would do when a series of video snippets surfaced on Youtube of his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright. In them, Wright slams the US, making racist, even unpatriotic remarks - “The US of KKK A” and “God damn America … for killing innocent people” among them, as well as claiming that 9/11 was retribution for America’s arrogance.
But what Obama did instead was to go home, put his children to sleep, and start writing a speech. TIME called it “the speech he’d been turning over in his mind for much of his adult life”. In it, he would finally touch on race, a topic he’d been conscious not to make the center of his campaign.
He avoids dramatic gestures; never raises his voice. It’s all about what he has to say. He condemns his pastor’s rhetoric, but refuses to condemn him, instead challenging us to look beyond the words and realize that they stem from “the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect”.
The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change.
But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
I really really encourage you to read/listen/watch his speech for yourself and hear what he has to say. Most of you won’t be American but his words still ring true. With Bush, you know he’s either just too plain dumb to grasp the intricacies of leadership (did you read about how he described the Afghan conflict as romantic?). With Clinton, you know she’s pandering to the crowd to get elected. But with Barack Obama, you have the rare politician who is completely believable, who genuinely wants change and rebuild the bridges Bush burnt.
Maybe the tsunami from Malaysia will carry over to the US :P. There is hope for this world yet!
