Tag: politics

Civil Service Votes

A thought came into my head a few days ago, as I was taking my morning shower – “What if the civil service votes, swing?”

Our civil service has traditionally been a solid vote bank for the BN coalition. The generally held view is that the civil servants are a docile lot, with their saya yang menurut perintah mentality. As a rule, the civil service will vote for the government of the day and to protect their own jobs.

The PR coalition love to highlight the alleged abuses of power and corrupt practices that are carried out by many top BN leaders. Cow condominiums and unsinkable submarines are often the butt of many jokes in ceramah speeches. There is a wide perception by Malaysians that our government is corrupt.

What I thought about the other day was this – that the people who have a front-row seat in the corrupt practices are the civil servants. Most people who have never worked for the government before, have literally got no idea of how bad things are. Those working inside the belly of the beast have a much better idea on how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I am sure that there are a lot of people working for the government who are sick and tired of all the excesses.

However, the civil service has always obediently voted for the governing coalition. There are enough rumours of how those who vote against them are transferred to remote positions etc. Therefore, many do not vote according to their conscience but for expedience.

But what if the votes actually swung for once.

If there was ever a time for the civil service to swing, this would be it. There is sufficient momentum in the rest of the country that if the civil service votes swing, the BN coalition would end up being the opposition in parliament and the PR coalition would forever be in their debt.

What many people may not know is that there are actually a lot of PR supporters working for the government. In fact, while most senior leaders of the civil service are loyal party members of the BN coalition, the second line is full of those who are PR supporters.

More than half of my Law classmates work for the government in one way or another. Most of them are police and they openly tell us in class that while they know that the PR coalition would make a better government, they are forced to vote BN to protect their arse.

So, there is definitely a huge support for PR amongst the civil servants, even if it is not overt nor explicit.

But if this vote bank can be tapped, history would be made.

Can Pakatan Lead?

I know that change is afoot, when my mom asks me this: Anwar is a weak leader and DAP cannot work together with PAS, if Pakatan Rakyat wins the next GE, can they lead?

First, it’s good that Anwar is a weak leader. We do not need another strong man like Mahathir. Look at what kind of troubles he brought. Second, all of the parties will find a way to work together simply for political survival. If they break up, they’re as good as dead. BN will not let them live.

Our country has developed to a point where the people now want more freedoms and a less authoritarian government. We would do well with a little more decentralisation and stronger institutions. That’s why it’s probably a good idea to have a less dominant leader, like Anwar, than someone like Muhyiddin.

Anwar, as a PM, would have to govern with the help of his Cabinet, which will be made up of people from all sides, hopefully the best. He would not be able to govern by sheer force of will. I wouldn’t trust him to do it anyway as he’s not very smart.

I also think that there are a lot of capable and intelligent leaders in PR who can help run the country. I do hope that they field better candidates this time around. It’s time to retire of the dead wood within their own parties.

Furthermore, they will all have to work together to ensure their political survival. They are such a big threat to BN now that they would not be able to survive if they were disunited. They’re all politicians, out for power. They will find some way to sort things out.

In fact, for their first term, they would not need to deal with any contentious issues. Our country is so wrecked with problems that there are just so many low-lying fruits to pick on. These issues are things that all the rakyat can work together, to fix, with the politicians.

So, I don’t see any real problems initially. The cracks will definitely occur later, when all the simple problems have been solved. Then, they’ll need to tackle the big contentious issues.

But by that time, Malaysia would hopefully be in a better position to handle any political crises that may crop up.

Fake Circulars

I read with incredulity the claim made by our Home Minister that the allegations made against the National Registration Department are fake. Incredulity because, in light of the recent shocking but not surprising revelations at the Sabah RCI, it has thoroughly eroded my trust in any government institution.

The PAS-VP showed a copy of government circular and claimed that, “the alleged circular, dated Dec 14, 2012, required that identity cards that have not been claimed after 18 months be sent to Keningau, Sabah for processing by Dec 31 last year at the latest.”

That said, I’m going to be real fair here and say this.

If the allegations made by PAS vice-president Datuk Mahfuz Omar are false, he has committed a grave offence of not just making defamatory comments, he has also forged a government circular, which I’m sure is a big enough offence on its own. I’m pretty sure that all government circulars are numbered and his claims can easily be verified.

Therefore, I urge the HM to immediately lodge a police report on this so that the PDRM can investigate the matter and the AG can then charge the PAS-VP with a whole host of offences, which will put the nail in his coffin and lock him up for life. Personally, I don’t care if he ends up in jail or not.

Unless of course, the HM is actually afraid of further evidence that will surface in court of what these unclaimed MyKADs are actually doing there. Maybe there are proper MyKAD disposal facilities only in Keningau, Sabah. I honestly do not know, but am interested to find out what is so special about Keningau.

Until and unless this happens, I will take you for the liar, our dearest HM.

Update: Looks like the NRD has lodged a police report. Kudos!

Traitorous Elections

If what is being reported on the Sabah RCI is true, then there is a real serious question about the integrity of our electoral roll. If they can magically create voters out of thin air, then the voting results are a farce.

What makes the revelations believable is that people do not seem to be denying the allegations but are busy trying to justify their actions and to clarify the legality of granting instant citizenship to deserving foreigners.

The right thing to do would be to clean up the electoral roll to purge it of all sorts of problems. It is going to be a mammoth task to do so but it is something that has to be done to restore any semblance of confidence to our elections.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy problem to solve – made worse by the fact that the next elections are so near.

If we are to go into the coming general elections knowing full well that our electoral roll is tainted, it is easy to lose heart and be thoroughly dejected. However, there are always alternative actions that can be taken to beat the odds.

However, my fear is what happens after the results are out. Will the rakyat be willing to accept the results of such tainted elections, whatever the results may be?

If the rakyat are unwilling to accept the results, I think that there will be a democracy crisis in our country. I shudder to think of the lengths that the rakyat would need to go to just to preserve what little democracy we have left.

I honestly don’t know what to think.

However, one thing is definite. Whatever the result, the moment the elections are over, the clean-up begins. We cannot wait for any political will to clean up the electoral roll. The rakyat must work to fix this shit.

The members of the EC must be replaced. The entire electoral roll must be struck off. A massive voter registration exercise must be performed to flush out all the undead and bipolars. Registration must be made compulsory by law.

Traitorous bastards!