Towards The Final Countdown

I love science fiction stories especially when one comes in a good movie, like Alien with yummy Sigourney Weaver as the heroine or, as my post title alludes to, The Final Countdown.

The Final Countdown is an oldie science fiction film about a modern aircraft carrier that travels back through time to a day just before the 1941 Japanese naval air attack on Pearl Harbour.

I love the story-line on how the captain of the aircraft carrier deals with his unusual predicament. 'Twas about decision-making under extreme pressure, namely, the pressure of war as well as the pressure of known history and that challenging question, should he interfere with it?

But for this post, The Final Countdown would be obvious to be my dear readers as Malaysians 'multi-task' by holding their breath for who will emerge with the majority of federal parliamentary seats in GE-13, while somehow (indeed miraculously, wakakaka) continuing to vent their spleen and spew out bile against anyone they consider as the competitor or non-supporter.

Poor Michelle Yeoh was one such victim of feral cyber-fascist attacks. Some Malaysians can't handle democratic differences. I dread to think of those intolerant cyber-bullies ever coming into power.

Other unjust victims might have been 3 PKR office holders in Kedah, S. Manikumar (the incumbent for Bukit Selambau), Lim Soo Nee and Tan Joon Long, who were not re-nominated by their party as candidates for GE-13 but, to add insult to injury, weren't even informed of being dropped. So they decided to relinquish their office-appointments and remain as just ordinary members in PKR instead of office bearers. Nonetheless, they were cursed, lambasted and excoriated for being frogs, traitors, rubbish and whatnot - all this vicious bile piled against them despite their remaining in PKR as non-office bearers - see Malaysia-Today's Three Kedah PKR executive councillors quit all posts in party, which tells us:

The trio will remain as PKR members but would not participate in party matters, including attending meetings. Manikumar said they were disappointed because they were not given any explanation by the PKR top leadership why they were dropped as candidates.

He said they were among the five top state leaders and were also in the state leadership council. Even the Kedah PKR chairman Datuk Wan Salleh Wan Isa himself was not notified about their being dropped, ...

RPK has been more than spot on when he had on several occasions sneered at those moronic mindless Malaysian myrmidons for their lack of basic reading skills, or they would have known the 3 didn't resign but merely, and quite within their rights, chose to relinquish their office appointments after expressing their frustration at not being duly informed.

don't fret darling, kaytee still loves you, wakakaka

Yessirree, there's lots of tension, wakakaka.

The most interesting events to watch have been those intra-party squabble brought about by members'  dissatisfactions for being omitted from the candidate nomination list as well as those back-stabbed like PKR party president Dr Wan Azizah and PKR member Chegubard (Badrul Hisham Shahrin) - wah, the gnome had been very busy in the noxious depths of his malodorous putrid subterranean cavern, wakakaka.

Just imagine, a party president's candidature was decided by her party subordinate, sheeesh!

Of course PKR is not the only party having internal strife as Johnny, Jimmy and Jenice (no pun intended, wakakaka) merajuk over their omission from the party candidate list and decided to do their own things.

PAS is also getting excited as its ulama see the pending fruition of their dreams, making Malaysia an Islamic State, even though such an event has never been part of the Pakatan Agreement.

In their usual 'amnesia' brought about by their anticipated spiritual 'ambrosia', they have conveniently forgotten or ignored coalition agreement on the non-event of hudud.

Like sharks sensing blood, the PAS ulama heedlessly move aggressively forward to stake their pet claim and are already licking their chops at the thought of implementing hudud, a legal move which I suspect has more to do with consolidating their power than any pious piety and which will render their positions impervious to questioning by the hoi polloi as they know they, the majlis ulama, will be the only ones who will be 'untouched' by the harsh penal code of the hudud.

Why? How? Because they will the ones who decide who shall be prosecuted for whatever and who will be found guilty, wakakaka.

Additionally, they decided to go for broke and grabbed as many seats as possible, even and especially from their PKR ally, wakakaka. Like thugs, they even attempted to violently prevent Chegubard from submitting his papers for the Sungai Acheh state seat. Alhamdulillah, they weren't successful.

Chegubard

Five more days to go! What other peccadilloes and political atrocities will we witness? wakakaka.

Poor Dr Mahathir has worked himself into a frenzy of racist spewing even unto saying untrue stuff like Lim Kit Siang was responsible for May 13. One of UMNO's kitchen sink wakakaka.

The son of the late Gaffar Baba stepped in to tell the truth, that while Lim Kit Siang was actually in Sabah at the time of the tragic May 13, it was Dr Mahathir himself who had supported UMNO (Tun Razak) engineering of the tragic May 13 incident to depose Tunku. Good work by Mohd Tamrin Abdul Ghafar and DAP advisor, Zaid Ibrahim - for more, see Malaysiakini Ex-Umno man defends DAP against May 13 charge.

Najib and Mahathir have been playing good cop, bad cop all along, with each selecting the role he prefers. It's a shame that Bapa Bangsa Malaysia has become Bapa Bangsat Malaysia.

In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are - Robert Louis Stevenson

It's not only UMNO throwing in the kitchen sink. I have NOT been impressed at all by the wife of the world's best private investigator coming in at this juncture to tell us of alleged recent nefarious interference in her life, with predictable (or desired?) outcomes.

There have already been so many inconsistencies demonstrated by her husband and she has now added to that list of inconsistencies, for example, first informing us she didn't know what her husband was doing, then asserting her husband didn't do this and that. But really, the timing of her media interview sucks.

Anyway, on that evening of 05 May 2013, we'll know one way or other which coalition gets to govern Malaysia for the next five years (or less, as our political system is that of a Westminster democracy where a PM can, with the approval of HM the Agong, dissolve Parliament early and call for a new election), indeed, with or without the 'help' of the EC, or with or without the use of the so-called 'indelible' ink, wakakaka.

Meanwhile down in Oz, friends who went to Canberra to process passport renewals and whatnot, came back relating stories gleaned from fellow Malaysians at the High Commission that BN was doomed, wakakaka.

Another case of counting the chooks before the eggs have been hatched? Bet you the UMNO will not lie down quietly on its back and accept the long overdue screwing it should get. Things are likely to get even more vile, vicious and violent as we get nearer 05 May 2013, inclusive of self-planted and detonated devices for sympathy votes, wakakaka.

Note I've underlined 'which coalition' (no single party will emerge with a election majority) because I'm disappointed by the way campaign events have moved along, deliberate or unwitting, towards a presidential style election as a choice between Najib Tun Razak or Anwar Ibrahim (though many PAS members would silently disagree with the latter, wakakaka).

There is no denying that the reputation, personality and charisma of a coalition leader is important and can attract or/and sway the opinions of voters, but I would have loved to see the election fought over policies and of course the governing track record of a coalition, which alas, we Malaysians have been less than fortunate in that throughout our nation's independent political experience, we have only experienced one ruling political coalition. Besides, what's there to choose between Najib and Anwar? wakakaka.

Of course, when we talk about governing, we include and embrace issues like competency (performance), integrity (non-corruptibility), transparency (good governance), and accountability (fiscal responsibility and prudence).

In this, some could claim the virgin (or lack of) track record of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition should be an advantage because they have a clean slate. But equally so, others could argue voters would be chancing their and their children's future by voting for a coalition without any track record in governing.

Likewise, some could claim the track record, warts and all, of the Barisan Nasional coalition would be an advantage because they are able to show they have brought the nation to where it is today. But then, others could argue that voters could have obtained a far better deal (look at Singapore as an example) by voting for the alternative political choice which will be less corrupt, more prudent and less wasteful, more effective, efficient and accountable, and asserte these by pointing to the performance of state governments the Pakatan Rakyat have governed for the last five years (despite severe handicaps, wakakaka).

Though almost every voters have more or less made up their mind, the competitors are working on their 'more or less' because some voters can be a wee fickle (like a couple of my Ex's, wakakaka) and liable to last minute change of minds.

And this is what Nat Tan has attempted to do with his letter to Malaysiakini titled In business and gov’t, folk gain from competition though I think poorly of his attempt at the following analogy he wrote:

It is as if for all time, our neighbourhood has had only Hypermarket A, and no other supermarket.

As in all monopolies, the lack of choice for the consumer inevitably means higher prices and terrible service.

Today, for what is in effect the first time ever, we have the opportunity to allow Hypermarket B to open its doors in our neighbourhood.

Viable competition creates immediate ripples: both competitors suddenly trip over themselves in trying to reduce prices, offer rewards, and provide better service.

Customer satisfaction means nothing to a business without competitors, it means everything to a business that must beat its competition to survive. A consumer without options is a consumer without power.

How can a government elected into power faced governing 'competition'? There can only be one government of Malaysia. It's either so-called Hypermarket A or Hypermarket B, unlike the commercial world where both can exist at the same time as hypermarkets and where the public can choose between shopping at A or B, or even both!

Sorry Nat, poor pathetic analogy.

The far superior advice, zillions of kilometres by far, comes from Khoo Kay Peng who posted Irrational Voters & Check-and-Balance: SAY NO TO 2/3 MAJORITY! at his blog.

Khoo has been spot in by his observation of voters', or more correctly, party supporters' irrationality as the one I mentioned earlier about Michelle Yeoh and the 3 PKR members in Kedah.

In his post he advises voters to consider 4 points before voting, most of which will be wasted on those irrational voters. But the one I believe is a gem is this:

Do not allow any political coalition/party to gain a 2/3 majority. In the last 5 years, the reforms that we enjoy is a result of a strong opposition. A good check-and-balance needs a good government and a strong and constructive government (should be) opposition.

Well pointed out, Khoo. For years we had experienced the evils of 2/3 parliamentary majority which allowed the BN government to muck around with our Constitution, the most amended in the World, surely a record for our own Malaysian Book of Records. And we have been bloody responsible for giving BN that 2/3 majority.

A coalition requires 113 to rule (112 majority plus a speaker). Give the one you prefer, say, 123 with an extra 10 MPs for political stability. We must avoid giving any coalition or party a 2/3 majority again.

Considering Dr Mahathir, the obsessed proponent of the idea of 2/3 majority, indeed insisting on it even as late as yesterday, had once said if he won by one single vote he would still rule, it's a bit rich for him to demand 2/3 as a minimum standard of a good government.

I suspect he wants to be like the captain of the aircraft carrier in The Final Countdown movie and travel back into time when he was PM, with all the weapons. For him he won't face a dilemmatic problem in decision-making as had challenged the captain of the aircraft carrier captain in the movie. He would simply blast all opposition to smithereens regardless of whether he might interfere with history as it had unfolded, wakakaka.

His so-called lecture on some bullshit 'solidarity' to naval personnel at Lumut, as informed by S Thayaparan in Malaysiakini's Something rotten in Lumut naval base is a lamentable politicization of the military.

Thayaparan wrote: Many former and current serving armed forces personnel are bewildered by Navy chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar's comments that former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was addressing the crowd in the Lumut naval base about "solidarity" and not "politics".

Why do the armed forces need a lecture in solidarity? Whom do they have to come together against? And the implication here, considering that Mahathir is the Perkasa patron, is that solidarity means Malay/Muslim solidarity and the question, then becomes, is this the kind of solidarity that a supposed multiracial 1Malaysia armed forces requires?

But PKR has been equally bad as well in bringing on board the despicable former IGP, Musa Hassan. PKR is certainly living up to its 'taxi sapu' label.

Anyway back to the issue of a government with a 2/3 majority. Such a government will be tempted, as BN was, to muck around with the Constitution and various other agreements our founding fathers had agreed upon.

Yes, so much is at stake that, as mentioned, each side has already resorted to throwing in the kitchen sink.

Recall I mentioned in my previous post Najib's Han Chiang Counteroffensive? the caretaker PM would do well to woo the Chinese voters on a topic close to their hearts, namely, vernacular education.

As I have written several times before, it's not so much vernacular education per se that the Chinese are concerned about, but rather the high and reliable standards of education they have come to favourably identify Chinese independent schools with, while viewing national types schools either with disdain/disrespect or suspicions, or both.

The quite recent exposures of the racist behaviour of BTN-ized headmasters of national type schools had merely consolidated their suspicions their children would have gotten a rotten deal if they had attended national type schools.

Unfortunately, visitors reading and interacting vis-a-vis my previous post have strayed away from the thrust of my article into social debates over the merits and demerits of vernacular education. My post has been about the politics and not social dimension of vernacular education.

As my erstwhile matey, sweetie Helen Ang once remarked in Malaysiakini's Di mana bumi ku pijak:

"The [Chinese education] boat has left the harbour and sailed too far to turn back now."

Be that as it may, I thank my visitors for their interesting discussions which perhaps I will use to formulate a new post sometime in the future. 

Thus, Najib and Muhyiddin have both played on the education theme promising to build or improve Chinese schools in Alor Setar, Pokok Sena, Johor, Rawang, etc, and even approved Han Chiang College as a university college with a grant of RM1 million. It's a pity Najib didn't capitalize on the occasion to announce approval of the UEC. He would have stolen a gia-normous march on Pakatan with all the attendant political benefits.

Quite frankly Najib and Education Minister Muhyiddin would have obtained more certain support from the Chinese if they had done this much earlier as there now exists a high degree of scepticism about BN promises, but I suppose it's never too late.

But nonetheless, much as Pakatan may not like what I now say, Najib would have scored a few brownie points with the Chinese voters - though I stress, only a few brownie points - on approving Han Chiang university college status.

We continue to watch with interests, wakakaka.