Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

In the first place, why are we now focusing on a two-party system to be implemented in our nation? Didn't we all realize that our nation has been adopting a multi-party democratic system where we are supposed to allow any political parties to contest in the general elections, to offer their respective manifestos for the people to decide and to convince our people that the said political party would be the people's best choice of representation. We supposed we have been overly focusing on one thing, to take down the current Barisan Nasional (BN) government which has been ruling our nation for more than 55 years now. Yes, with more than 55 years of power abuse, corruptions, mismanagement of public funds and racist politics, enough is enough but it does not mean that the choice of our people should be limited to only a two-party system? It looks like everyone of us has really forgotten what we are really looking for, that is democracy and social justice. In pursuing for a d

By Jack Wong, Ipoh Teachers are still confused over the School-Based Assessment or Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah (PBS) while students have become the victims. The idea of the PBS is good and there are successful examples abroad. However, why is it a problem for us? Even education officers and school heads are confused since the implementation of PBS, not to mention teachers and students. They wonder whether school examinations should be retained. Therefore, different practices can be found in different schools. Some have abolished the monthly tests and end-of-term examinations, some have retained internal end-of-term examinations while others retain the end-of-year examinations. The abolition of examinations is one thing but the bigger problem is the workload has been greatly increased due to inadequate training, vague instructions and burdensome paperwork. Under the PBS, teachers cannot concentrate on teaching and, as a result, they do things gingerly and are worried about the out

The Registrar of Societies (ROS) or its name in Malay language, Pendaftar Pertubuhan is a department under the jurisdiction of the Home Affairs Ministry tasked to receive, review and approve the applications from various groups or parties to establish societies, associations and political parties in accordance to the Societies Act. Asides, the right of our people to assemble and our freedom to establish associations are also enshrined in the Federal Constitution. Since 1998, it has been noticed that groups or people who are trying to establish new political parties are usually being harassed or discouraged from doing so by the ROS without whatsoever reasonable explanations. Hassles such as, provision of documents, repeated requests for amendments of the party constitutions or by-laws, missing documentations, seeking unreasonable explanations and many more had in fact prevented and discouraged various groups from coming forward to have their groups, clubs or associations registered

We are very certain what the Penang Umno youth chief had previously quote, "There will be trouble, not from Umno, but we cannot control them" . These are the word uttered by the said Umno leader in a press conference earlier at Penang after he received some rumours of a PKR leader who criticized the role of the security forces in handling the Sabah crisis. As promised by the Umno youth chief, the trouble starts in a timely manner. Umno members and supporters started to run out of control, turned violent and began to issue life threatening messages onto the PKR leader in his number of ceramah series recently. We wonder if this is what the Umno youth chief had warned. It shows that Umno leaders are incapable of controlling their members and supporters for being too emotional when come to issues that touches their mind or whatsoever. Will Umno leaders come out and sincerely admit that being party leaders, they had indeed failed to educate their party members and supporters

Where is your Shadow Cabinet to prove your ability in governance? This is the question which is usually demanded by leaders of the Barisan Nasional (BN) to challenge the Opposition front Pakatan Rakyat (Pakatan) to prove their ability to work together (PKR, DAP and PAS) to govern this nation should they were to takeover Putrajaya after the 13th general elections (GE13). First of all, let us all ask the BN leaders and ourselves before we jump into some sort of conclusion or being influenced by what is being mentioned by all those BN leaders. Are the institution of an Official Opposition Front Bench and the establishment of a Shadow Cabinet being recognized in our nation? Does the Federal Constitution states that such institutions for the Opposition must be established? Or are there any provisions in any laws in this country which stated that the Shadow Cabinet would be recognized and shall work equally with the government of the day to provide various check and balance? The answers

Besides having the need to reform the entire government machinery in order to reflect its professionalism and making it into a service-oriented corporation, the Parliamentary System in this country ought to undergo the reform as well. As we can see, eventhough our country is practicing parliamentary democracy, our nation's parliament does not seem to be functioning as it was supposed to be. Yes, there are loopholes, a lot of loopholes in the current parliamentary system. People has been commenting that Malaysia is adopting a rubber-stamped parliamentary system which is only task to proposed and approve laws. Which means, the political parties who hold the majority number of seats in the parliament shall always be a winner and limited debates are only allowed in order to provide some "democratic avenue" to the Opposition bench to provide their views. This is correct, having an absolute majority and having always got the powers to approve and amend laws or bills does n