Where is democracy?
July 9, 2009
At the Bar Council today
July 11th marks the first 100 days of Najib’s premiership.
Will his 100-day performance serve as an indicator for how our country is likely to be governed for the next four years, or was it all a big public relations exercise?
The next 100 days is just as critical and we, civil society organisations (CSOs), want to throw the gauntlet down to Najib to extend his program of reform to all aspects of life in the country, especially in the critical sphere of good governance. We would like to announce civil society’s Key Performance Indicators for the Government that can strengthen the process of democratization in Malaysia.
A group of 10 organisations who initiated this call will hold a press conference on Friday, 10 July 2009 at 11am at the Main Auditorium, Level 1, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, Jalan Maharajalela, KL. We cordially invite a journalist and photographer from your organisation to cover the press conference.
For more information, please call Chia Wei Loon at 012-6517 282 or Gayathry at 019-7257970 or read more about this HERE and HERE
Sponsoring Organisations:
Liau Kok Fah, Chairperson, Civil Right Committee, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (CRC-KLSCAH)
Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Executive Director, Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Dr Lim Teck Ghee, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI)
Andrew Khoo, Convener, Civil Society Initiative for Parliamentary Reform (CSI@Parliament)
K, Arumugam, Coordinator, Group of Concerned Citizens (GCC)
Maria Chin Abdullah, Executive Director, Pusat Janadaya (Empower)
Zaid Kamaruddin, President, Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM)
Haris Ibrahim, Convener, People’s Parliament
Tah Moon Hui, Coordinator, Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram)
Wong Chin Huat, Chairperson, Writer Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI)
July 9, 2009 at 9:24 pm
meet you there
July 10, 2009 at 12:55 am
Haris
If you want the Government or more people to take you seriously you cannto allow yourself to be infected with Limkitsiang virus where everything the government does is wrong
I have not heard you praise any of the moves recently made.
all you do is say it is not good enough
fair it is not good enough
but on the other hand you say everything that the PR does is good enough, even when it is deficient
all you have to do is be fair otherwise you are the same as the MSM that you so like to rubbish,
in fact you are worse because you are not under any coercion,
at least those reporters are looking after their rice bowl — at least that is what the opposition like to tell us lah
July 10, 2009 at 1:31 am
Haris, that’s a smart pic of you and interestingly enough, you are wearing BLACK, also a smart colour, but somehow tainted these days, by the undemocratic and brutal happenings in this country of ours…Malaysia.
Designers play on the colour Black and give it a real universal attraction. But here it is a symbol of a country that has become dull….. without any shine. Especially these days.
You are also asking a leading question, “Where is Democracy?” pity,but it is nowhere to be found. Too careless a reply? no, it seems that our leaders have been fooling about telling the world that we are a true Democracy.Or does it exist only for the rich and the famous.
Also look at the things that are happening, Uthayakumar is given an unconditional release from prison and yet there is a police surveillance on him, the poor man is being watched,all the time…where is Democracy? You give him the release and you don’t give it to him, how does that work out.
When Irene Fernandez and Latifah Koyah,2 human rights lawyers, with the right commaraderie set up stage to wish with some music, Human Rights Activist,Aung San Su Kee of Myanamar,a happy birthday recently, the police together with the FRU decended on us, even before we began, asked us to disband.And stood around watching if we would disobey. We had done NOTHING. It was assumed that we were trouble makers. They arrested 16 poor Burmese who are working hard earning their living in this country.
All of which may be indicators to your question, “Where is Democracy? Quite simply it does not exist. People say we are becoming something else……can anyone guess at what it is, we are becoming?
July 10, 2009 at 2:16 am
Good. Force Najib’s hand. If he is rated poorly by your ‘civil society’s KPI’ or if he simply ignores your challenge, it will show that his 1Malaysia and ‘people first’ slogan etc. are merely PR exercises to fool the people.
If the the result of a recent poll showing 65% approval for Najib’s job performance as PM is correct, it means his PR is already working.
July 10, 2009 at 6:14 am
Art of Tai Chi! That is what I would suggest for the next hundred days.
We literally challenged every thing said or done by Najib. Whether it was 1 Malaysia, some Toll issue, the liberalisation of 27 service sectors, The Cabinet resolve on Child Conversions, The scrapping of the 30% requirement and possibly a number of other things. The man must be thinking, “can’t I do anything right by these guys?”
O.k. la. He does not qualify to be the Prime Minister by everyone’s reckoning. But he is!! He is steering the ship!..Well, at least for once we are hearing commands that don’t sound very familiar, but something that we have been asking for. Sure, its not perfect. It does not meet our newly found finer details. But heck, there appears to be a shifting of the course…and maybe we got a whiff of shore as well.
So why not, for the next 100 days, rather than knocking him or challenging him, we lead him on. Play Tai Chi with him. Welcome his words and policies and just stretch them towards the direction we want.
One thing we got to take note of. The usual culprits in UMNO have remained silent a lot since Najib’s ascension. The war lords easy source of wealth might even be endangered and ye they remain silent. Ignore the old man la…he just pontificates vomit.
So far the jewel in everything that I have read as having been said by Najib, which I wholeheartedly endorse is his asking the people to stop tolerating, but to accept each other. As he said it, when you tolerate, you do so grudgingly. What is needed is to accept. And I thought I would never hear this from a BN leader. And so I dedicated a whole posting on “Finally Acceptance”!
July 10, 2009 at 9:40 am
Leading with a 65% in the recent poll, Najib still does not have the confidence to call for a fresh election in Perak. Just imagine??????????????
July 10, 2009 at 10:32 am
Give back to Perakians their right to chose their govt…we are then heading to somewhere, an encouraging beginning.
Otherwise, Mongolian C4 with his overcooked rhetorics are are just hot air!
A corrupted and racial coalition like UMNO-BN admisnistration, we have to wait for another half century to see changes and Democracy restored…the other alternative, “Vote for Change”
July 10, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Yo bro,
Throwing the gauntlet to Najib?? Not so long ago you were running a campaign with poll and all to try and stop this man from becoming Prime Minister! You, like many of us, pleaded with Dollah to stay in the No.1 seat. Now you are trying to engage him??
For God’s sake man! This is not someone that we ought to court – in any way whatsoever. You are legitimizing his premiership by engaging him. As afr as I am concerned he has no right to be our Prime Minister. If he went to the polls today – he would lose – hands down – and he knows it.
So whats with this press conference??
July 10, 2009 at 5:29 pm
That 65% pro Najib poll is nothing but shok sendiri statastics put forward by his PR team and the ever subservient MSM.
What another 100 days KPI are we talking about? Just today he was endorsing the Education Minister cum DPM’s take about the reversal to teaching Maths and Science in BM. He and his UMNOputras together with his rich towkays in MCA, Gerakan, MIC and other coalition partners DO NOT CARE for the school-going children and the future generation. They are happy to change education policies as often as they change their sarongs because almost all their offsprings are enrolled in International Schools or in top public schools abroad.
They have made sure that their children get the best education in English, French, Chinese or even Japanese.They are not bothered about the rural children or the children of ordinary folks.
The UMNO/BN goons do not want the children of ordinary folks to be proficent in the English Language. They just want them to go on to the local universities and graduate in Islamic Studies and Malay Studies.
Without a proper foundation in English, how do they expect these non-proficient in English students to take up medicine, engineering, economics, IT and others where a good command of English is necessary.
The latest ruling about English coming just ahead of the Manek Urai bye-election is just UMNO/BN strategy to fool the rural folks.
“There is no question about quality being compromised or affected.” I wonder what Najib is talking about. How can one not compromise the standard of English and enhance it by making it not important or compulsory? If this is the type of logic he is propagating by his tongue in the cheek statements, forget about using any KPI on him.
KTK’s KPI on the Cabinet and Najib should be more than enough. It is another case of syok sendiri.
July 11, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Hot News !!!!!!!!
Sugumaran Periasamy, Political Secretary to M.Kulasegaran also the well known and upcoming political icon in Perak DAP is planning to convert into islam due to family crisis. He made the decission after the family members of his ex-wife refuse to allow him to visit his 8 years old boy and 3 years old daughter. Sugumaran started to voice out his visiting rights over his kids to many of his family members but everything went against him. Source told, the crisis get worst after many of his close friends get involved into his personal matter. After struggling for 2 months, Sugumaran decided to convert immediately to islam because he wanted to have pure and truthful life with his kids. He finds that only Islam can help him and give the priority to his demands.
Will DAP support Sugumaran on this matter?
July 12, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“Where is democracy?”
It’s in the belly of the monster called UMNO!
We need to overcome UNMO, slit open its bloating tummy and rescue the democracy that had been raped by UMNO all these years.
Arise, the people of Malaysia.
Arise, Anak-anak Malaysia.
Break the yoke that the oppressors have laid upon the Rakyat.
July 28, 2009 at 3:50 pm
[...] Shakuntala komentuje: Zadajecie sobie również główne pytanie, “Gdzie jest demokracja?” Szkoda, bo nie można jej znaleźć. Nie dbamy o odpowiedź? Nie, wygląda na to, iż nasi liderzy wygłupiali się zamiast pokazać światu, że jesteśmy prawdziwą demokracją. A może ona istnieje tylko dla bogatych i znanych? [...]