Pak Lah's transition plan met a dead end. Well... human beings are gifted with the ability to PLAN. But only GOD decides. I see this as God's "design" for a better Malaysia.
A good leader DO NOT abondan his party and people in bad times. BN is suffering a really BAD TIME now. Pal lah ONCE AGAIN proved that he is a "good man" , when he announce a short but essential To-do-list before he resign.
A MESSAGE FROM DSAAB FOR THE RAKYAT
My current term as president of Umno ends in March next year. There are several initiatives I intend to see through before I leave office. These initiatives are important because they are necessary to move our country forward. These initiatives are needed to regain our country’s competitiveness. They are necessary to enable our nation and our society to face the challenges that the world has in store for us.
I ask all Malaysians to unite and join me in working towards making Malaysia a better place
ESTABLISHING the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission with greater powers of investigation and enforcement.
ESTABLISHING the Special Complaints Commission to enhance the integrity and effectiveness of enforcement agencies.
STRENGTHENING and enlarging the Social Safety Net to ensure aid to all, regardless of race and religion.
HOLDING a Barisan Nasional convention to improve inter-racial and inter-religious relations.
Refering to the to-do-list above, i read with interest a article published in The Star Online. Its on 10 things UMNO must do. ( Ref : Thestar.com.my)Somewhere along the way, the Umno train became derailed in terms of serving the genuine and pressing needs of the Malay masses. Instead the focus came to rest on things such as contracts, companies, cuts, equity stakes and such - in other words the enrichment of a relative few in the community.
Sometimes such things have been at the expense of the interests of the country when businessmen (including some from other communities) got deals which were too good from the Government. That is already bad but this was coupled with less attention and intelligent effort on vital areas such as education which has set the clock back in some cases.
The best way of doing this is to simply get the Anti-Corruption Agency into the act to stop vote buying and tampering. It is against the law to buy votes, so let the law enforcers in - it cannot be kept as purely a party matter and only for the party’s disciplinary committee to deal with. Only if such measures are taken will Umno members and the general public be convinced that the leadership wants to do away with money politics once and for all.
The evidence of corruption is all over the place if one cares to look for it - people living beyond their means, questionable contracts, strange land deals and so on. These are all at great cost to the nation and an immediate stop must be put to such things.
Measures already considered for more independent law enforcement as well as prosecution of offenders must be put in place to give real meaning and effect to fighting corruption instead of just lip service.
It may be just too much to expect the nexus between business and politics to be nixed just like that. But certainly a lot, lot more can be done to ensure that patronage politics does not do undue damage to the interests of the country.
One easy way of doing that is to ensure that the awarding of contracts is more transparent and follows guidelines. The next point shows how this can be done.
There are international benchmarks available for the procurement of all manner of goods and services. It is also possible to employ consultants at a fraction of the cost of a project to determine benchmark prices and to oversee the project to see that it is finished according to acceptable standards. Doing such simple things ensures that the Government never needs pay excessive sums for goods and services while ensuring that they are up to international standards.
It must be pretty obvious by now that Malaysian communities are not taking too well to the tried and tested means used by the politicians of yore - race - of increasing their appeal to their own communities. If that does not change, there is great risk of polarising some sections of the voting public - and these days you can’t afford that, as the not-so-recent elections showed. Policies these days must appeal to the broader mass of Malaysians.
Religious issues have often been deliberately manipulated by all shades of politicians for their own narrow benefits, not of the community even but of the politicians who seek to be champions of their own race and religion.
There are real problems of religion, especially when it comes to things like conversion and the rights of individuals. These won’t go away if their honest, frank and considered discussion is suppressed - they merely surface somewhere else. Politicians must facilitate the discussion of religious issues rather than suppress it, in the spirit of acceptance and tolerance.
Long ago, Bahasa Malaysia was accepted as the national language. There is no issue there. What we have to do is to think of how we can get our people to equip themselves with everything that they need to thrive in a very competitive world.
One of that is mastery of the English language and we must not let our affection for the Malay, Chinese and Tamil languages stand in the way of that. If we can’t agree, then perhaps the best way is to give people genuine choice in the kind of education they want. As long as language gets politicised, it’s going to be very difficult to move forward.
The old mode of working among the BN coalition was to shout and to draw the lines and this was especially so with Umno. The approach was well, rather confrontational.
And, of course, when the lines are drawn, they are pretty difficult to redraw. It would be far better to seek reconciliation through accommodation and consultation instead. In that mode, chances for solution - rather than stop-gap measures - are infinitely better.
The time has come for all parties to think of themselves as Malaysians and see how we all as a group can move forward. If we help all the disadvantaged amongst us, automatically the most disadvantaged communities will be helped more.RELATED POSTS:
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