SEMBANG SELASA: PITA POLITIK (3)

Monday, 31 March 2008
SEMBANG SELASA: PITA POLITIK (3)
BILA KATA HENDAK DIKOTA!
Anwar on Government-in-Waiting: Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said Monday he had held talks with a number of ruling coalition lawmakers interested in defecting after this month's landmark elections.
Anwar, a former deputy premier who was sacked and jailed a decade ago, helms a three-party alliance that made unprecedented gains in March 8 polls against the Barisan Nasional coalition which has ruled for half a century.
"People have come and approached me," Anwar said, adding that he had spoken with "quite a number" and told them their support would not be bought.
"If you want to surrender at a price, then you have chosen the wrong party," he told reporters, adding that they would be welcomed "if they accept our agenda".
Anwar confirmed he was canvassing support from coalition lawmakers in East Malaysia on Borneo island, which represents a power bloc that could unseat the government if it changed hands.
Barisan Nasional will have 140 lawmakers in the new 222-seat parliament, against 199 in the outgoing 219-seat parliament. The opposition alliance claimed 80 seats from just 19 previously, and four more states. (Extract from MSN News Service).

Malaysia's Anwar says moving toward forming new govt:
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said Wednesday he is moving towards forming a new government after landmark elections, with the help of defectors from the ruling coalition.
"I don't know how soon we can form the new government but we are moving in that direction," the former deputy premier, who was sacked and jailed a decade ago, told AFP in an interview.
The three-party opposition alliance made unprecedented gains in March 8 polls, seizing more than a third of parliamentary seats and four more states from the dominant Barisan Nasional coalition.
Anwar said that coalition lawmakers from Malaysia's eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo island had contacted him to discuss switching sides. The power bloc there could unseat the government if it changed hands.
"The MPs from there have come here to see me," Anwar said, adding that he was in no hurry to become the next prime minister, but that the opposition would already be in power if the polls had been clean and fair.(Agence France-Presse - 3/19/2008 10:57 AM GMT)

Mahathir: Election provision being abused?: KUALA LUMPUR: The nomination quota to contest top posts in Umno should be abolished, as it is being abused to prevent members from nominating candidates, said former party president Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
He pointed out that when he was president, anyone was free to challenge him, and although there was already the quota in place then, “those days it was easy to get 60 divisions (nominations)”.
However, he added, when Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah wanted to challenge Umno president and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2004, he only managed to get one nomination from his own division.
“(This is) because other divisions were told not to nominate him. There was no freedom. I think it’s about time they revised this provision because of the tendency of the people with the power to stifle any move to criticise or oppose them,” he said yesterday.
Dr Mahathir said there was nothing wrong with having a contest for the presidency in the upcoming December party election, adding that other Umno presidents, including him, were also previously challenged.
After Umno Baru was formed in 1988, Dr Mahathir had proposed the bonus vote system, which was accepted by the party supreme council.
The bonus vote system gives 10 additional votes for every nomination received by a candidate, as well as setting a quota of 30% nominations from divisions to contest the president’s post, 20% nominations for the deputy president’s post, 10% for the vice-presidents' posts and 5% for supreme council posts.
On who was likely to challenge Abdullah, Dr Mahathir said it could be Razaleigh (who had offered himself) or others. He said that Umno was not so poor in talent “that we cannot find even a single one to match the Prime Minister that we have.”
On the call by DAP Ipoh Timur MP Lim Kit Siang for an inquiry into the 1988 judicial crisis, Dr Mahathir was adamant he was not in the wrong.
“I don’t see why there is any crisis. It’s a political game,” he said, adding that DAP chairman Karpal Singh wanted action to be taken against him for the episode “because he hates me so much”.
He reiterated that the tribunal that tried former Lord President Tun Salleh Abas for misconduct had acted according to the law and there was no reason for an inquiry.
“So why should there be any apology by me, the Government or by anybody? It’s no good saying that 'oh yes, although it was according to the law but because of this...'. That is political,” he added. (Extract from MSN/AFP)


Comment:
Anyone buying? Well, the current PM seems to have been whispered probably by people who desperately want him to opt out a.s.a.p. I remember reading a book "Paradox of Mahathirism", written by one PhD student in Singapore and published by Oxford University Press, kuala Lumpur, 1998.

Posted by afyassin at Monday, March 31, 2008 0 comments
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