By Helen Ang
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Last night Loh Gwo-Burne spoke at a ceramah in Subang Jaya. I shall put a check on my acerbic tongue as to appraisal and give the guy credit for guts in standing on stage and speaking in front of a crowd.
Gwo-Burne had also this to say to his detractors: “When you compare Datuk Lee and myself, yes, he has more experience but I have no experience in corruption.”
DAP’s Tony Pua spoke as well at the event and said what people want from the holders of elected office is trust, truth and fulfilling of promises.
For the People’s Parliament segment of readership that requires ‘reassurance’, I shall – if I must and you insist – spell out my stand (which regular readers of my Malaysiakini column would already be familiar with). It is this: The BN is corrupt and rot permeates all our institutions of state.
My favourite word to describe MCA has been ‘punkahwallah’. A ‘punkah’ is a huge fan hung from the ceiling in the days of the British Raj before India had electricity, and ‘wallah’ is the boy (usually) who sits in the closet working the fans by tugging at the cables. So a punkahwallah is a person who ‘mengipas’, or fans his masters.
And do I see Lee Hwa Beng as a good man in politics? No.
But do other media personalities see Lee Hwa Beng as a good man in politics? Yes, they do. One of them is ‘Citizen Nades’, as theSun’s deputy editor R. Nadeswaran is popularly known. He made his endorsement of Datuk Lee in MalaysiaVotes, the website that sprung up overnight to cover this elections.
The parachute website which carried Nades’ endorsement is also coincidentally founded by two former Sun staff, and incidentally an outfit that has refused to reveal its sources of funding. In comparison, those of us whose names you see actively in People’s Parliament are volunteers who contribute on our own time and at our own expense.
My overall assessment is that Lee is being promoted beyond his level of competence. In contrast to Nades, I’d already sussed out Lee in my post ‘Poor as churchmouse in shophouse’ https://harismibrahim.wordpress.com/?s=churchmouse, and this before I started on Gwo-Burne.
However, I don’t see any reason to belittle the voters who have decided to back Lee, nor disrespect veteran journo Nades whose opinion is at odds with commentators here.
A rough guide to what is minimally required of MPs to carry out their duties should encompass: Task of studying reports, proposals, complaints and petitions; to present, debate and vote on new laws and changes to existing ones; look at bills before they become law; work with the government to develop policies, etc.
Tertiary qualification in law, public policy or economics is helpful. Attendance at Parliamentary sittings would be … err, nice. The MP represents the interests of the people who elected him to office.
The personal qualifications for an MP should include: Knowledge of political, economic, social and cultural aspects of national life; knowledge of the district they are representing; familiarity with official parliamentary procedures; excellent communication, public speaking and debating skills; the ability to make decisions, plan, organize, negotiate; and to interpret and evaluate information.
Please understand that those following the Nades school of thought rate Lee higher than Gwo-Burne on the qualifications scale, though I still don’t rate Lee highly.
These people additionally believe the Datuk will help them keep their neighbourhood drains clean, their roads free of potholes, their streetlamps in working order and his MCA service centre will assist those illiterate in Malay to fill up official forms in triplicate and navigate the maze of Little Napoleons.
Mainstream media has not educated readers on what an MP’s duties are, and what he should not be expected to do – i.e. ‘jaga longkang’. If Malaysians have been long brainwashed, what needs to be unclogged is brains, not drains.
The People's Parliament 
bayi
March 3, 2008
Citizen Nades can have his opinion like anyone else, including us. But the difference between him and my family is that we are registered as voters in Kelana. And our answer of Lee Hwa Beng is a resounding NO!
arusa
March 3, 2008
About Malaysiavotes…
Shortly after the first Khairy post “A Tempered View” or something like that, I expressed my disappointment in a comment. The gist of it was that, given one of MV’s declared aim (about Us page) to cover “news that would not gain attention of or fair coverage from the traditional media…” one must really be blind to think Khairy wasn’t given any/fair coverage.
If readers will note by now, Khairy has somehow warranted a 2nd post. Can Malaysia Votes not think of anyone else who got none (or unfair) coverage from the traditional media in Malaysia? Needless to say, my comment was not published, and up came this comment guidelines… hmmm
From the “framing strategy” adopted in the post headers alone, (and it doesn’t take any ‘content analysis’ know-how to see this) MV is clearly promoting Khairy under the guise of being mainstream.
Febraury 24 – 1st header — A Tempered View
March 2nd post- The Moderate Mischief of the BN
A case of “Wolf in sheep’s clothing” la….
arusa
March 3, 2008
oops… correction, shoudl read..
MV is clearly promoting Khairy under the guise of being ALTERNATIVE TO mainstream. Implict is the idea of fairness, I suppose.
arusa
March 3, 2008
I have just posted the following comment in MV’s “The Moderate Mischief of BN”:
[I really don’t mean to be rude, even if I doubt this comment will see the light of day.
This is the second post about Khairy . Isn’t there a whole lot of other (even BN) candidates out there who fit the bill of ” news that would not gain attention of or fair coverage from the traditional media”.
Besides, the the captions … ‘tempered’, ‘moderate’ are a bit obvious and PR-ish.
Please credit us, your readers, malaysian voters, with some intelligence.]
koolgeek
March 3, 2008
That’s a good one, “Unclogging Brains, Not Drains”
Paul Warren
March 3, 2008
Halleluyah! I couldn’t have said it better. I now also see in The Sun, today, Teo Nie Ching of DAP contesting in the Serdang Parliamentary seat quoted as having said “I will not sell you out. I will speak up for your rights in Parliament. That’s what an MP must do. Not inspecting drains, garbage bins and dumps.
“That is the job of the municipal council. If they don’t do their job, sack them and stop wasting taxpayers’ money.”
I suppose Lee Hwa Beng will be inspecting drains and pot holes while UMNO will slowly but surely be whittling away our rights, morals, intelligence and wealth in Parlaiment.
Sadly for Nades, he has for so long been looking through his looking glass at Municipality issues and the hands on roles played by Lee Wah Beng in resolving the same. Nades completely ignores the fact that Lee has absconded from his sworn oath to speak up at the State Assembly where it really matters. He could have spoken up over the policies of temple destructions or even the shop house churches at the Assembly where policies are formulated and issued to Municipalities to follow. He could have spoken up over the new policy enacted through precedent setting actions over the Zakaria Deros mansion affair when he got away with contempt for the Assembly and its by-laws. But no!
Nades needs to be told that just because he is a wonderful juniour school soccer commentator, it just does not qualify him to comment on professional football!
Paul Warren
March 3, 2008
All these candidates vying to become MPs promising their constituents all kinds of wonderful things that will be done for them in terms of rads and drains completely ignore the fact that their work is supposed to be done in parliament. Not at their constituencies! Can voters be educated of that? I cannot believe that MSM will do that.
hope for the future
March 3, 2008
“I have no experience in corruption” said Loh Gwo-Burne – good one. I laughed.
Malaysians have been long brainwashed, what needs to be unclogged is brains, not drains. didn’t laugh but agree totally.
General services cannot be compared with the SERVICE for the betterment of the country.
Can Lee Hwa Beng give such service in the Parliament, does matter if Nades give his endorsement (who is he anyway???), anyway heard he joining MM (lucrative offer?). Even if my grandfather endorse a BN candidate – I’ll say “Buzz off”.
Vote wisely Kelana Jaya folks. Your children will be your judge.
SV Singam
March 3, 2008
To me, Loh Gwo-Burne qualifies as a suitable candidate on two counts…
1. He had the courage to stand up and present evidence against “the powers”,
2. He can be expected to vote on behalf of the rakyat in parliament.
Not every MP needs to be an outstanding orator. Otherwise, we’d have pandemonium. So long as there are enough strong voices to keep the house on its toes, the rest can be useful in poring over bills to watch out for issues in conflict with the rakyat’s interest… things like that and, most importantly, they can provide the numbers needed to push votes through.
Since I’m not in Kelana Jaya, Loh can only get my virtual vote, but that he gets wholeheartedly.
Sharing
March 4, 2008
MV, to be looked from different angle!!
Apparently this is a “friendly” sites for BN and they do give a lot of exposure of BN “top” (in position, not capacity!) candidates. But, they also wrote in between lines that are for information on the dark side of those.
When they allow comments which doesn’t appeared to be in line with what they are trying to promote but remain to be on “moderation queue”, they are actually leaving a mirror to what they had written. Or, space for commenter to tell otherwise!
When MSM are manipulated to say 100% good about BN and no Opposition, MV could serve some purpose if we read between the lines and look from another angle than what they seemed to promote!!
Or, anyway to get back side info of BN when MSM cannot or will not report??