Apa itu Perlembagaan ?

The fall of UMNO/BN - by Dean Johns

by Dean Johns Nov 11, 09 10:31am, Malaysiakini

As optimistic as I usually am that Malaysia will someday be free of the burden and blight of the Umno/BN regime, I sometimes get discouraged. But then something happens to rekindle my faith that freedom can prevail in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

Today, for example, my spirits are lifted by BBC TV coverage of celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Who'd have dreamed, just the day before Nov 9, 1989, that such a key sector of the iron curtain would ever crumble, let alone so suddenly?
Or that it would pressage the collapse just a few years later of the entire structure of that Stalinist totalitarian monstrosity, the USSR? This anniversary of the fall of the Wall (below) also recalls the sudden destruction of some other obscene regimes that seemed destined to prevail indefinitely.
The stunning People Power revolution that put an end to domination of the Philippines by Ferdinand Marcos. The unstoppable student-led riots that freed Indonesia of the scourge of Suharto and his Golkar-party goons.
Then, of course, there were the military defeats of the forces of Serbian mass-murderer Milosevic and the butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein. Admittedly, and regrettably, lots of other candidates for collapse are still standing.
The Generals are still holding the Burmese people at gunpoint as they have for four or five decades, and keeping Aung Sang Suu Kuy under house arrest almost 20 years after the she and her party were voted into office.
The terminally-nasty Kim dynasty still keeps the North Korean people in a state of slavery and starvation and its North-Asian neighbours nervous with its nuclear programme and missile tests. Iran's terror-exporting theocrats continue to cling to power and crush critics of their country's rigged presidential elections.
And in Zimbabwe, despite the instigation of a "power-sharing" arrangement with the opposition MDC, Mugabe and his army-backed ZANU-PF thugs still arrogantly rule the roost. Meanwhile the big daddy of all surviving dictatorships, the so-called "People's" Republic of China, is apparently going from bad to worse.
Orchestrated violence
Most of 14 human rights activists featured as Asiaweek magazine's "People of the Year" cover in 2005 have since disappeared or been jailed or exiled. And President Hu Jintao (below) revised the rule of law backwards from its already-dubious aim of "professionalism" to the "three supremes", which put the interests of the Communist party first, those of society second, and the letter and spirit of the law dead last.
Of course there are dozens more depressing situations around the world that I could mention. In fact I could go on citing cases of criminal governments that haven't yet had their come-uppance until I completely talked myself out of the optimistic state of mind that the anniversary of the fall of the Wall has put me in.
But instead, let me switch back to the positive and talk about some hopeful signs I've seen lately, like the move by the International Criminal Court against fat-cat politicians in Kenya. Following a 2007 election in which incumbent President Mwai Kibaki declared himself the winner despite his challenger Ralla Odinga's having a million-vote lead, over 1,000 people died in a wave of allegedly orchestrated violence.
Now, as the Sydney Morning Herald reported recently, "After months of stone-walling by politicians in Kenya - where top leaders have long escaped prosecution for corruption and other crimes - the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, announced that crimes against humanity had been committed in the post-election period and that he would seek a formal investigation into them".
With former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, already on trial for war crimes, power-brokers and other suspects in Kenya would do well to take the ICC's threats seriously. As would politicans in many other countries where, to hark back to the Sydney Morning Herald quote, "top leaders have long escaped prosecution for corruption and other crimes".
Malaysia's leaders, or, more accurately, misleaders, have been getting away with corruption and other crimes against the nation's citizens, civil institutions and constitution for as long as I can remember.
Kenya's post-election riots of 2007 inevitably recall the bloodbath in Malaysia in May 1969 allegedly fomented by Tun Abdul Razak in a successful bid to replace Tunku Abdul Rahman as prime minister.
Ops Lalang
And Umno has used the threat of a repeat performance ever since as a big stick to keep the opposition in line. Then there were Mahathir's mass arrests of opponents in his notorious Ops Lalang, his sacking of elements in the judiary who refused to bend to his will, and his framing and jailing of Anwar Ibrahim so as to crush the reformasi movement.
With precedents like those to encourage them, Mahathir's successors, despite their repeated promises of reform, have done nothing whatever to improve the situation. In fact in many ways it's worse.
The financial scandals are getting bigger and more frequent, suspicious deaths in police and MACC custody continue to soar and the perpetrators to go unpunished, while the findings of cosmetic royal commissions are routinely and completely ignored.
Opposition politicians and supporters keep talking about voting these Umno/BN crooks out of office, but the Najib Razak (left) government has taken to buying opposition members and overturning elected state governments. First to fall, with the consent of the courts and its sultan, was Perak, and now the process appears underway in Selangor.
The electoral system is a travesty too. Thanks to a totally compromised Electoral Commission, elections are so stacked in Umno/BN's favour by a combination of gerrymandering, roll-rigging, postal-vote stacking and blatant bribery that the next general election so many good, honest Malaysians are avidly anticipating looks set to be a joke.
What will it take, I wonder, for the international community to start taking as avid and active an interest in Malaysian affairs as it is in Kenya's? The political murder of a foreign citizen from a country with more clout than Mongolia? Another show-trial of Anwar on another trumped-up sodomy charge? An investigation in France or elsewhere of corrupt submarine or other arms deals with repressive regimes?
Whatever it is can't come too soon. Because like Marcos, Suharto, Milosevic, the USSR and the hated Berlin Wall, it's way past time for Umno/BN to fall.

'BN will win elections if held today'

Well, 99% of Malaysian voters can vote for BN, I will still vote for Pakatan. Most people who choose to vote for BN are ignorant. Without a free media, there is no healthy competition between the two coalition. Most people especially those in the rural areas, are still rely very much on mainstream media to judge BN and Pakatan, and their assessment on Pakatan's performance is lopsided. And not to mention, ever since Pakatan took over last March, they have not really have the opportunity to govern effectively. Sabotaging at the states level and zero assistance/cooperation from Federal level to name a few, are all working towards crippling Pakatan state Government.

Pakatan are not even given the opportunity to govern effectively, so what is there to talk about performance? 50 years of misrule and corruption by BN and you want Pakatan to correct it in 3 years and without Federal power how are they going to correct it in the first place?

So Malaysian, don't be the ordinary Germans during the Nazi period where they willingly became the executioners of Hitler. Because if you do so, disaster awaits all of us. Just like Hitler and Germany, they were destroyed completely, totally annihilated because of their sin in supporting a crook regime. So as I said earlier, I don't know who are these Malaysians in the survey who said they will vote for BN, my advise is that open your eyes and ears to see and to listen clearly, the consequences of supporting BN are all yours to bear, me and my family are not part of this sinful adventure. I will never vote for BN unless of course when they become opposition, then I will consider to vote them back to power if they change totally.

by Athi Shankar Nov 15, 09 7:44pm, Malaysiakini
Barisan Nasional would fare better than the last general election if the 13th general election is held today, according to Merdeka Centre director Ibrahim Suffian.He said BN may also regain its two-thirds in the 222-seat lower house of Parliament, with rival block Pakatan Rakyat winning about 50 to 60 seats."This is my personal assessment based surveys done by the centre this year."It may not be prefect but would not be far off the mark," he told the weekly Sembang Sembang Forum in Caring Society Complex in Penang today.

The 1 Sekolah Debacle

I commented on 1 Sekolah issue on Dr Rafick's blog:-

Dr
I respect and admire your writting. On this issue, I am actually for and support single school system, but I need to clarify a few things:

If I am not mistaken the single stream school system has already in place since merdeka ( of course in between we change from BE to BM) and Chinese/Tamil stream school are only available at the primary level. Furthermore, this vernacular system is funded 99.9% by the Chinese and Indian community respectively. Unless ones work for these vernacular schools, you would not understand the teachers’ condition, the welfare/salary, etc. are not compatible to what the national schools’ teachers are getting. The new building, equipment and all are antirely funded by the community themselves. So if this is not enough, I dont know what else the government can do or wants to do to kill off the vernacular system. Establishing 1 Sekolah is good, but unless the Government chass away all the Chinese and Indian, there will always be a need for this vernacular schools. The need for this vernacular school I think is really only about learning the basic spoken Mandarin/Tamil, because as I observe, majority of the parents would send their kids to National Secondary Schools and later university. The goverment must also understand it’s the race-based political system that give birth to everything race based from education to applying for an IC. I may be wrong, but dont make the vernacular system the scapegoat for government’s failure in forging a united Malaysia.

Dr Rafick 's reply:

Yeap Cheng Liang

Thank you for the admiration. The feeling is mutual when I read your level headed comments which presented in a very professional manner. We need more people like you.
I am not sure about the history portion you mentioned. As indicated there is a lot of misconception here. There is no where we suggest that all other schools is to be close down.
In the single stream, all types of schools are allowed to exist but the government funding applies ony for the national school.
In other words, religious school, chinese school, Tamil school and other similar school must come under the private school category and they have to operate on the basis of charity and business.
Trust this clarifies

What is Happening in Perak?

As reported by Malaysiakini. People voice their opinions on what is happening in Perak.

Spokenthots: Another successful, BN project - capture Perak at all cost. The people are expendable and don't worry about the Perakians, they will get over it.After all, Malaysians are very forgiving. Give them a project and they will forgive you. Superb training over the last 50 years. Don't worry about all the technicalities, BN can resolve them to stay in power.Pakatan wake up, you don't rule anymore and your Perak assembly is no more sacred. The sanctity of that institution is no longer visible.Neutral bodies are roped in to do the unthinkable. What to do but vote Pakatan at the next general election. Enough of this nonsense by BN.Perakians will awaken from their peaceful slumber and there will hell to pay for all that is taking place today. A true and great Perakian son, Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin will bring back justice to this proud state.Stand fast Nizar, for you stand at the threshold of history as a true son of Perak. Fighting for her abandoned people.

Chipmunk: Truly another new chapter by Malaysians for Malaysians (or is it for BN by BN)? Never in history did we have double dose of laughter, sadness, resentment as in this Perak state assembly episode.BN seems to have been prepared with their ‘gangsters' and cronies but one can never take away the hearts of the people, the rakyat.I guess it's countdown for Perakians and BN. As long as their so-called elected reps don't bother to practice self-restraint and continue to be arrogant, BN will only lose the battle.

Chan Kong Art: The sultan allowed this to happen and now it is now not going according to plan so the only right thing to do now is to end it.BN was given his ‘blessings' to take over, and nothing has come of it. And after BN ‘seized the chair' they have not managed the state assembly.So morally, the sultan must end it. Call PM Najib Abdul Razak in, like the last time but this time do the correct thing. Let the rakyat decide.

Jefferson76: If you need 20 ‘guards' to protect you as you sit on the speaker's chair, then you don't belong there!

Lim Chong Leong: The whole Perak state has been taken over illegally and by ‘gangsters' using brute force. We may have to learn from history and from countries like France or Russia to regain the people's rights. Rise, Perakians.

Gk: Seriously, the Perak sultan needs to do something concrete to end this fiasco. We cannot ignore how foreigners look upon Malaysia now. With this fiasco prolonged, not only Perak is affected but the whole of Malaysia too. Please do something, sir.

Chee Hoe Siew: I am following the development with much concern. While both parties fight, those who suffer are the people. I think it is time for both teams to sit down and talk, remove their party lines and think of the welfare of the people.

John Smith: Pakatan Rakyat, you are being unfairly treated by people who are not following the rules. I suggest you all resign today in protest.You cannot get the Perak assembly dissolved; but at least by putting almost half the seats up for by-elections together, you dissolve half of it to seek a clear fresh mandate.

Job: Oh, my god! These PKR guys as my state reps? What have we done? I cannot understand the logic of their behavior today, behaving as if they are the legitimate government.Is serving the people who voted for them not an issue anymore? My rep is nowhere to be seen. Isn't waiting for the next general election (no matter when it comes) not better for them if what they say is true?They should win 57 seats at least. No! The grand plan is to upset every state assembly held till polling time so they can remind the people.Funny, but the last time I checked, their popularity is waning. I, for one, don't like the position taken by them today at all. One vote lost.

Fly Emirates: I have given up on Malaysia. Najib Razak - you can fool some people sometimes, but you cannot fool them all the time.Bet you Lee Kuan Yew is laughing his socks out how stupid Malaysia has become lately. Seems like foreign and local investors are agreeing with him too with the poor foreign investment figures.

National Sucks: The people of Perak have been deprived of their fundamental rights as a citizen. This state has been placed under politicians and their cronies who have no fear or love for God.This will turn out to be the biggest joke of the year. Najib Razak preaches ‘1Malaysia' but the things that he does and condones simply tells you he is a hypocrite.Louis: Why not settle the issue once and for all and call for a fresh election? I hope the sultan hears our plea.We, as the rakyat, feel so ashamed of BN highhandedness and we do hope His Highness sees it the same way.

Satu Lagi Project Barisan Nasional

Malaysians are reaping the fruit of corruption? I wonder whether proper inspection was conducted by JKR before the government allowed the bridge to be used by the public?


It's sad and I grief for the parents who have to endure such pains.

I have a daughter also. And I would rather her go to jail than going to this stupid camp. I just don't have the confidence and trust in whatever the government says or does anymore.

BN, have you found your conscience?