PopPacket

McCain’s abandoned ex-wife. It’s not a good article but WTH?

Bursa’s profit dropped 40% in Q1 this year. Is that worrisome enough?

Madonna to do two shows in Dubai. For God’s sake, UAE is more “Islamic” (by population). Why not doing a show or two in KL? Imagine the number of Asian crowd we could pull. Air Asia could sponsor and make loads of money, too. Well we might be just as Islamic as they are, but not as rich.

Ann Althouse and someone known as Jeralyn Merritt on Hillary’s sexism.

Finally.

Second trading day after political tsunami hit Malaysia, KLCI regained 2.8% from steep drop yesterday.

First trading day after 12th General Election, KLCI plunged by 10% limit.

As writing this, I am currently following the live reports on Malaysiakini. It came to my thinking, shall a new government is elected out of this general election, what will they need to do? Optimistic thinking? Maybe, but judging how the opposition currently leading (unless, of course, you‘ve been tuning to RTM at this time) the votes counting thus far, it is not impossible.

Update: I started writing this around 8:00PM before went to eat. Hence, the projection of opposition’s possible majority in parliament. So on the new government thingy, till next general election, I guess. By then, I will be voting. Postal vote tell ya. How cool is that?

Shall BN fail to retain majority in the parliament, DAP, PAS and PKR have to first and foremost, merge in a coalition in order to form a legitimate majority. This crucial step can be the most gruesome part of the whole process of forming the new government. A lot of questions will arise. The most important one would be: who will be the leader of the coalition? Should he/she be the leader of the party that won the most number of seats, in total or in proportion? Should he be Anwar, since he is right now the “it person, capital I-T”? Should they adopt the BN model where one party dominant over the struggling others? Should they embrace true democracy with regards to forming leadership of the coalition? Should they instead have leaders from each party, on equal standing, co-preside the coalition?

Next, the coalition, after settling down with the leadership issue, will need to form a cabinet. Who to perform in which portfolio might not be a problem. They have got the best people in various fields. However, to form a unified cabinet with streamlined policies can be an extremely difficult task. Each party in the coalition has its own vested interest and will attempt to shape the cabinet policies to their liking. PAS will definitely pursue its Islamic state agenda, in the open or otherwise. DAP will try to DAP-ize all Malaysians where each and everyone is equal and not better than other, which is good, but going to make some people unhappy, especially those who had been enjoying so much under BN government policies favouring the Malays. PKR will obviously be playing the “Anwar says” game. Haven’t they been worshipping Anwar Ibrahim all this while anyway?

This has never been a problem in Barisan Nasional cabinet as UMNO supersedes other parties. The president of UMNO, who eventually is the coalition party president and the prime minister, will make final decisions on practically all cabinet policies. One way to make all parties to be unified is by adopting an agreement on fundamental principles of the government, which must be based on universally accepted values. It is something like the social contract that BN people have been talking (out of proportion) about but social contract is actually a different concept than what I am talking about. The agreement can be something like the People’s Declaration championed by the People’s Parliament. It must be documented and upheld at all time.

Once the coalition achieved both things above, the next task would be to commit in institutional reform. The new government will be under enormous obligation to replace all bad laws and policies of the previous government. An active constitutional reform, or rather reversal, is necessary. Unconstitutional laws like the Internal Security Act, University and College University Act and Police Act, just to name a few, need to be replaced. There are so many loopholes in the law, the Official Secret Act for example, allowing corruption to take place. A new level of confidence has to be instilled in the judiciary while the Lingam scandal is still warm (and before we forget about it). The new government have to look into other institutional reforms concerning the police force, the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Election Commission and other independent bodies that are currently not-so-independent; and into powers of religious departments, of Rela, etc.

There are many economic policies that need a revision especially those relating to distribution of wealth and subsidies. The new government need to face the problem of high inflation growth and have to keep up to their election promises ensuring no highway toll hike and no fuel hike, which in my opinion, the latter one is unachievable. The new government have to come out with an effective mechanism to handle escalating crime rate. On education, they have to close the gap between rural and urban areas. All in all, they need to rebuild everything from scratch and look at each aspect of governing some 25 millions people from the bigger picture.

Lastly, what they need to do are maintaining good performance and popularity as well as ensuring peace and stability. In order to make sure all such reforms in governance come to fruition, they must hold power in government long enough. To do so, they cannot afford to lose in following election especially the immediate next general election, unless they go corrupt like the present government. After all, election process is a popularity contest. To win, you just have to make everyone happy. The BN government have maintained a reasonable level of “peace” and “stability” and over the past 50 years, alluring foreign investments and topping world charts on all sorts of things. The new government have to do better so that we need not to lose out to other countries at eyes of world. In the end of the day, what others think of us is the only thing that matters, isn’t it?

Malaysiakini has a very educational article on what happen after voting.

Have you heard the news? I am a little surprised, too.

On Tuesday, the prime minister said, “[n]o, not tomorrow” but yesterday, he “couldn’t give any indication on the election date… [Agong] has to give consent first”. Some people call him a liar but what the heck, everybody lies, right? Only that he’s just extremely terrible at lying, I suppose, to the point of looking like a boob. Wait, that’s not lying, it’s merely contradicting yourself. All politicians do that, especially Hadhari ones.

The way The Star carried the story is even funnier. Checkout the earlier report and the later one when he dissolved the parliament. Both are published yesterday, the former was in print, I believe.

The announcement really knocked Keadilan and DAP for six. Keadilan’s Anwar Ibrahim said early election “shameful” and DAP responded immediately with a video. Anwar was obviously very upset because he would not be able to run. Come on, you are a history, no matter what. Lim Kit Siang (of DAP) said parliament dissolution in the midst of Chinese New Year celebration is disrespectful of the Chinese. I just don’t see the link. It’s not like if the parliament is dissolved all celebrations have to be stopped. Instead, this year’s CNY celebration would be a memorable one for all Malaysians as it will be some sort of double celebrations extravaganza. Don’t we all love that? Get over yourself, old man.

Frankly, I feel indifferent about anticipating the upcoming election mainly because like the past 18 years, I am not voting, not even eligible to. And will most probably not be able to vote in the next two general elections (if things go as planned).

Still, it will be very interesting to observe the election this year. It amazed me learning how the internet, particularly the blogsphere, making an enormous impact towards the way people think and vote and the way the politicians campaign. I can’t wait to see the final products of this year Freedom Film Festivals which will surely touch on the election this year. The recent developments in Malaysian politics like Bar Council march, Bersih rallies, Hindraf demos, the whole Lingam madness, the government cockups are such eye opening revelations. It will definitely be the best general election experience in 50 years of Malaysian history.

And personally, my experience working at Malaysiakini gives me a broader perspective on Malaysian politics. Of course it won’t be as fascinating as rooting Hillary Clinton for president (it’s fading though, they’ve completely messed up) but it’d be fun ridiculing and laughing at the foolishness of Malaysian politicians and learning how my older fellow Malaysians think.

Here are the things I am looking forward to in this year’s election.

• How ridiculously ridiculous Parti Mahasiswa Negara can be?
• More rallies during election period?
• Badawi’s fiery speeches (because they remind me of a teacher at my old school, they really sound alike when giving speech)
• Counter-spins on socio-political blogs of The People’s Parliament likes
• Malaysian political blogs dominating WordPress.com News Department
• Election fraud claims despite the use of indelible ink
• My parents and sister coming home showing off the indelible mark on their fingers
• Someone lead another historic (the “no, not tomorrow” part is historic first) civil action suit against Badawi for giving misleading statement
• And all the usual, silly unintelligent political antics for entertainment

So what about you?