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.

Popularity: 48% [?]

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 ! :)

Forget it. Just read this!!

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.

Popularity: 51% [?]

Sorry for the simple post but I just had to link up Nat Tan’s posting of Pak Lah on CNN.

I have to echo his question.. “Can you imagine what the world thinks of us? That we are a nation led by….. this?”

I’m not a diehard Anwar follower but I still have to admit he can hold his own in debates and discussions, while the current crop of ministers look like idiots whenever interviewed on international TV.

Popularity: 16% [?]