Pseudo Election Campaign

Looking at the political scene , the pseudo election campaign have already started by both ruling and opposition parties, despite the Election Commission has not announced the election date.

The political talk show, and the political festival events, recently has produced two of the negative feedback. The foul mouth spokesman of opposition has caused him into problem with the pressmen. Being a scholar with PHD holder, he should know what to say and what not to say. he suddenly has overdo it, and offense the reporters. May be the young politician has been away from the country for too long, that he forget the important of reporters in the election campaign. He will surely gain less votes or lost his seat if he go for this coming election, if the relationship with the press is not amended.

The proxy of the ruling party has created the "White Ang Pow" incident. This old politician has been an MP for so many terms. Jumping from Barisan to Pas, and now an independent. He has been attending the Chinese New Year open house of his friends, supporters, and his allies for so many times, and he has never receive a white ang-pow. Either he has lost his past memory, or use the sentiment of Chinese new year as his election campaign to gain publicity for his personal political agenda, or to make news for his linked NGO, the action back fire. He will surely caused his master to loose some important votes, or even some seats...

From the two incidents, the voters must open the eyes to see who are the opportunists, who are the actors in the coming election. They may just only proxies for their master, they may or may not go for the coming election. Let them remain as an actor for their master in the political games, they are not fit to be a representatives of the people in the parliament. Please do not vote them in. There are more actors and opportunists to come, when election date become closer....some are big names.....

It is funny why there are so much monies from the government and political parties moving around, closing to election. There will be cheques sending from businesses and unknown sources into the account of political parties, either for the political campaign fund or some personal gain....this will not be disclose in our own eyes, it will be under the counter, without disclosure. That is why it is important to limit the election campaign expenses for each candidates, to avoid political corruption. The budget and actual expenses should be accounted for....may be to disclose their personal assets prior to and after the election day.

Other than the cow incident of federal level. the potential voters also must be aware of the two incidents happen in two of the states, Kedah and Pahang government.

Kedah
Rebate money or kickback, "consultation fee" or even lobby money is common. if you are in government contract business, you will hear that generally the award was not given to the best tender or the best contractor who can do the work. That is why recently there were so many cases pending in the court on the corruption based on the government contracts, the largest being the Port Klang PKFZ case. This is the issue which has been around for a long time, big or small....

Pas-led state government is currently facing claims that some Pakatan Rakyat representatives in Kedah have sought 30% in “rebate money” from allocations Chinese associations received from the state government.(source: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/2/13/nation/10726605&sec=nation). It has been reported that several Chinese association leaders claimed that the Pakatan representatives wanted a share of the allocations because of the role they had played in helping the groups secure them. If it is true, this will seriously affect the creditability of the state government and Pakatan Rakyat , and the chances of their retaining of the state in the coming election.

Pahang
From Pahang, not only Lynas issue, come the news of court award related to timber related transaction. Pahang state was famous for Tengku Wong incident years ago, during Dr M's time, if readers can still remember. Some readers may remember about Rahman Ya'kub's disclosure on timber concession in Sarawak in Ming Court affair in 1987. Logging concession has been one of the main sources of cases of corruption in Malaysia. Timber land and Timber concessions are normally awarded to people with no connection with actual logging business. Except for some small concessions or small timber land, normally it was given to people with connections, either politically or otherwise. Timber land was alienated to individual or companies with low layout. The actual loggers need to pay a large sum of consideration to buy the right of logging from the land owners or concession owners. Without any financial outlays(if you can arrange for someone to pay upfront the land premium and related expenses), the concession owners can easily gain millions of dollars form giving the right to the loggers. The problem is why the timber concessions are not given to the ultimate logging companies, and it must go to the third party to enjoy unproductive gains. This type of the industry(timber industry) is the biggest source of Ali-Baba collaboration. The timber concession is the biggest source of revenue for state government. Dr M had done some positive work in the industry, but not completely erase the malpractice, with some shit still remain. It has been the modus operandi in the states since independence.

A 55-year-old man threatened to burn himself to death if the Pahang government does not pay the RM70 million in damages to his company, as awarded in a court ruling.(source: http://my.news.yahoo.com/man-threatens-to-burn-self-over-rm70m-court-043425461.html). In a May 2007 decision by the Kuantan High Court, Seruan Gemilang Makmur was awarded RM37,127,471.60 in damages with eight per cent interest per annum backdated to December 31, 2000 after it won a breach of contract suit against the Pahang government and the state forestry director.The court ruled that state government and the state Forestry Department were in breach a of logging concession contract concerning the extraction of timber logs from a 10,000-acre plot of Umno-owned land in Mukim Bebar, Pekan district.

Voters, especially in Pahang must read carefully of the news, the case was a private business suit against a state government, for breach a of logging concession contract. The private business Seruan Gemilang Makmur obtained logging concession contract concerning the extraction of timber logs from a 10,000-acre plot of Umno-owned land in Mukim Bebar, Pekan district.

The land was owned by a political party, a ruling political party; and the awarding party is a state government. Unless the political party purchased the timber land in a arm length transaction(with financial consideration), and not obtain directly from the alienation of the state land. Is there any issue of legal complication or good state governance in the related or connected party transaction(from state government to a ruling political party)? let us ponder....if it is a business corporation(state government to ruling party link corporation) it will be in big trouble.... the moral of the story is why political party was involved in timber business? or owned a timber land?.....why compete with the ordinary businessmen for limited source of supplies in timber logging business?....

Lee explained that the company had spent about RM10 million to obtain a logging licence for the 10,000-acre land in 2001. However, at the end of 2002, the mentri besar had decided to stop issuing license to them. We do not know the detail of the case, but the High Court has decided for the damage award. The Court of Appeal, in reversing the Kuantan High Court’s decision, ruled that Seruan Gemilang Makmur had wrongly named the mentri besar as the respondent in the judicial review proceeding in the High Court to demand for the judgment sum from the state government.

State government and ruling political party were the stake holder in the case. From the court judgement, the victim of the case is a private business entity. Forget about the legal, remember about the big issue, why a political party was involve?

Some of the political donation may be from cases similar to the above two cases during coming election. Will it be political implicator for the coming state election?.

Voters, you must follow the cow case and the above cases, these are the icebergs floating in the sea, 8/9 of the actual story was not disclosed....

The big gun has lawyer to help them to escape from the legal barrier, and the transaction will look perfectly legal, but morally wrong in the law of God...

Why must the country allow the malpractice to carry on for so long...which increase our cost of production....unnecessary...with higher cost of production in the country due to corruption, political or commercial, we will not able to compete in the global environment sooner....

We need a clean environment, not only physical environment, but also clean political environment for the future....the non-corruption nation.

Your votes in coming election is very important. Look at the big issues, the election campaign is actually now on the move.....

Further readings:
1. Kedah MB vows to get to the bottom of ‘rebate money’,http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/2/13/nation/10726605&sec=nation
2. Man threatens to burn self over RM70m court award, http://my.news.yahoo.com/man-threatens-to-burn-self-over-rm70m-court-043425461.html
3. Abdul Rahman Ya'kub, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Ya%27kub
4. The Ming Court Affair, http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=101101495585
5. SPECIAL REPORT: The Ming Court Affair, Part 1-5, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/51574