Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 25/11/2016 Of late, leaders from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, particularly from Umno, and many Umno-linked NGOs have shifted their anti-Chinese chorus to that of George Soros. Sounds like Umno and its sponsored NGOs were deliberately making Soros a scapegoat for their political misadventure and to cover up various scandals linked to their leaders, in particular the 1MDB controversy and RM2.6 billion in the Umno president’s personal account. Well, Umno has just made Soros a well-known figure in Malaysia today by claiming his involvement in an “attempt to overthrow the BN government”. Every Malaysian would be interested to know if Soros has been laying a plan to become “Prime Minister of Malaysia”. It is all about foreign funding and the Jews when Umno and its associates are trying their best to discredit and bring down all the opposition parties and civil society groups. The momentum gained by opposition groups ha

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 21/10/2016 Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders, particularly from Umno, and top officials of the Election Commission (EC) have always wondered why many still do not trust the EC. Why view the electoral body and its functions with much suspicion? The latest redelineation plan by the EC has heightened this atmosphere of mistrust, with both sides of the political divide voicing their concerns on the proposals. Opposition parties from Pakatan Harapan and PSM, and BN’s predominantly Chinese component parties — MCA, Gerakan, SUPP and LDP – have criticised the EC proposal for promoting racial polarisation. The complaints and objections range from proposing constituencies that are overly Malay and overly Chinese, widening disparity in number of voters between constituencies, reduction of mixed race composition, and confusion among voters on voting districts. The main grouse of the critics is that opposition parties and BN’s “Chinese-based co

This article has earlier appeared in the Beritadaily.com on 11/10/2016 Recently, an opposition member of parliament uttered a remark on the passing of PAS spiritual leader Haron Din in the United States. The opposition MP tweeted “Adios Haron Din, may there be peace.” To the misfortune of the MP, his statement was quickly manipulated by many PAS leaders as “insulting Islam”. In response to the allegations of those PAS leaders and the police reports lodged against the MP, the police top brass was quick and overly eager in wanting to arrest the MP for questioning. This was despite the fact that he had already shown his commitment to cooperate with the police and come forward to give his statement. We are neither advocating the cause of the MP nor supporting the opposition party he represents, but the wisdom and characteristic of the police top brass should be questioned in this case. Why prejudge the opposition MP as “guilty as seen” by announcing that he would be arrested e

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 22/09/2016 Recently, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), under the leadership of the newly appointed chief commissioner Dzulkifli Ahmad, has made a string of arrests of high-ranking civil servants ranging from Datuks to Datuks Seri and Tan Sris. Well, whenever MACC is helmed by a new chief, such enthusiasm seems to be bubbling. It begs the question of whether the new broom can sweep as well till the end. Yes, Dzulkifli has adopted the right approach, according to many. But so did all the previous MACC chiefs, who had started well with a spate of arrests and prosecutions of corrupt public figures. But they ended up being frowned upon by many powerful politicians and leaders because MACC was trying its best to go deeper into these corrupt elements, their source and associates. And let us not forget what had happened to MACC last year when it was subjected to actions that demoralised its staff and made a mockery of it

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 9/9/2016 ‘Vote for PAS and your place in Heaven will be secured’; ‘Vote for Umno to prove that you are a pure Malay’; ‘Without Umno, the Malays will vanish from this earth’; ‘Vote for PAS, you uphold Islam to the highest’; ‘Vote DAP and you are betraying the entire Malay generations’; ‘Vote DAP, you are a traitor to the Malay race’; ‘Vote DAP, you are a kafir harbi’; Vote PKR, your Malayness becomes lesser’. These words are usually coined among Malaysians by certain political parties who claimed themselves to be champions of the superiority of the race and religion today. The intimidation of voters with such words or should we say, blackmailing, has become a norm today among competing political parties, their leaders and supporters in our nation in order to gain or regain support from the voters. Are all these so-called racial and religious political parties running out of practical ideas and policies for our people and

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 21/7/2016 Are you all surprised or shocked when we say a hung parliament will be good for our nation today? Yes, we suppose so. Some politicians will also condemn such an idea as crazy because it would not benefit them, their political parties, or help in their quest for power. They would reason that such a situation would only bring chaos to our nation. Correctly said, because these politicians have been in power for decades and yet they are yet to show any maturity in matters of governing this nation. A hung parliament is a situation where no political party or coalition of political parties from both ruling and opposition blocs obtain any absolute majority in number of seats in the parliament after a general election. The ruling party or coalition may gain just a sufficient number of seats, or it may be called simple or narrow majority, while the opposition party or coalition may have increased its parliamentary

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 31/8/2016 It has been almost a year now since Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia has spoken of his plans for parliamentary reforms. Pandikar also challenged the opposition members of parliament to resign from their constituencies if the parliamentary reforms do not take place under his stewardship. What and where are the parliamentary reforms that Pandikar has promised about a year ago. Until today, these reforms are yet to take place. Just exactly what did Pandikar mean by establishing a special chamber to discuss matters of public importance? Currently, we already have two chambers, the Dewan Negara and Dewan Rakyat. Then, why do we need another chamber for the parliament when the current two chambers are already sufficient to discuss matters of public importance. Reforms should be focused on the existing chambers in order to enhance their effectiveness, instead of creating another one to deal with some sort of “special

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 24/8/2016  Whenever there are rallies held in Malaysia, organised to seek reforms, just and fairness over important issues affecting our people and the entire nation, the Barisan Nasional government and their leaders are so quick to claim that these rallies whether it is civil society or opposition dominated were some kind of attempt to topple a “democratically elected” government of theirs. The question here is, are rallies here in Malaysia capable of overthrowing the BN government as alleged by many BN leaders, particularly of those from Umno? What specific or concrete evidence do they have to immediately implicate that these kind of rallies were deemed violent and attempted coup similar to those which had taken place in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Tunisia or Egypt? Are these BN leaders losing confidence on their own capabilities and leadership until they have to resort to such idea that someone out there

By WSWS Correspondent Just days after reported second-quarter growth figures pointed to a marked slowdown in the US and Europe, new manufacturing data released yesterday provided further evidence of global economic stagnation. The continued slump in the real economy is in marked contrast to the ongoing and ultimately unsustainable speculative frenzy on international share markets. The IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for manufacturing for the euro zone in July showed a marked fall from 52.8 in June to 52.0 in July. Germany, with a PMI of 53.8, was the main factor keeping the overall index above 50, the dividing line between growth and contraction. IHS Markit chief economist Chris William commented: “Expansions in output and employment are clearly being driven to a large extent by surging growth in Germany, while growth has almost stalled in both Italy and Spain, and contractions are being seen in France and Greece.” France’s PMI hit 48.6. Italy’s was the lowest in 18

by Bill Van Auken One week after the abortive military coup to overthrow Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there remains no doubt that Washington had a major hand in the bloody events that shook Istanbul and Ankara. Turkish military commanders with the closest ties to the Pentagon have been directly implicated in the attempted overthrow, including the commander of the Incirlik air base, where the US stores its largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in Europe and from which it carries out its bombing campaign against Iraq and Syria. Multiple aircraft supporting the coup flew out of Incirlik under the eyes of the US military. After it became apparent that the coup would fail, the Turkish base commander asked the US for asylum. It emerged Wednesday that a warning of the impending coup had come from Russia, which relayed intercepted radio communications between the coup plotters to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, known as the MIT. The warning was shared with the Turkish

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 6/7/2016 The results of the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar parliamentary by-elections clearly indicated the people’s choice and dissatisfaction. In disarray, Pakatan Harapan has taken the people’s views for granted. Have Pakatan leaders learned from the outcome? Yes, blame BN over some cash inflows and vote buying, but what about themselves? As the two by-elections had given confidence to the once-bitten Umno-led BN coalition, the prospects of a snap general election being called either at the end of this year or in early of 2017 seems to be coming into reality as BN leaders have been doing the ground work and dispatching their goodies since. The major problem here is that the people are very disappointed with the way BN is running this nation because of its corrupt and swindling nature which cause billions of ringgit loss from our nation’s coffers almost every year. Asides, afraid of its unpopularity and increasing criticism a

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 30/5/2016 The recent Sarawak state election on May 7 has exposed the true colours of the opposition. They can only expect worse come the 14th General Election if the bickering parties do not buck up and patch things up. The Sarawak Barisan Nasional won handsomely, getting 72 out of 82 seats in the enlarged state legislative assembly. The opposition Pakatan Harapan suffered a major setback, winning only 10 seats with DAP getting seven, down from 12 in 2011, PKR retaining its three seats, and Amanah finishing empty-handed. Opposition parties outside of Pakatan such as PAS were also wiped out. So, was it because of the Adenan factor? Some say it worked, but it certainly was not the only reason for the swing back to BN. The fact is that BN won with a landslide because the field was gravely uneven, where the ruling state coalition enjoyed all the advantages in terms of finance, logistics, mainstream media, communication channels a

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 14/5/2016 The multi-billion ringgit scandal of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) is far from over. The prime minister was hoping that the people would slowly forget about the whole episode and “move forward”. Just what kind of “move forward” is he expecting from us? The 1MDB report released by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) consists of many kinds of twists and turns which have left many readers and observers gravely confused and wondering if the sole purpose of this report was to absolve the prime minister of any blame or wrongdoings in the scandal. Well, from the eyes of a lay person, it is clear the report is implying that Prime Minister Najib Razak was in no way responsible for the scandal, even if he had signed many of those documents, blindly or whatsoever. The prime minister has nothing to do with decision-making in 1MDB. The prime minister is merely the chairman of the advisory board and he has no direct discretion

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 26/3/2016 Our nation is now in terrible darkness, both socially and economically. A lot of things happening in Putrajaya have undermined the confidence of the people and the international community. The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) and its dominant party Umno are becoming like a tumour growing in the heart of our nation. Why? It is all because of the alleged RM2.6 billion scandal of Prime Minister Najib Razak and the RM42 billion debt chalked up by 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), where Najib chairs its advisory board. The Najib government has given a new twist to the definition of “donation” based on the RM2.6 billion channelled into Najib’s personal account. Amid this brouhaha and political acrimony, here comes the Citizens’ Declaration initiated by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. On March 4, Mahathir, who is Najib’s chief critic, joined hands with political leaders from both sides of the divide and civil society

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 18/3/2016 The Pakatan Harapan government in Penang was recently embroiled in a controversy over the sacking of two PKR assemblymen from the boards of state government-linked-companies, InvestPenang and Penang Hill Corporation (PHC). The termination of the services of Ong Chin Wen (Bukit Tengah) and Cheah Kah Peng (Kebun Bunga) was announced by Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, in retaliation for their decision not to vote against an Umno motion to halt land reclamation projects in Penang. PKR, however, defended its two state assemblymen, saying its elected representatives are allowed to vote according to their conscience and the people’s interests. To add salt to the wound, the DAP-led state government appointed Seremban MP Anthony Loke to the board of PHC to replace Cheah. The state government has reasoned that Loke’s appointment was based on his capacity as the party’s shadow minister for tourism and culture at the federal level whi

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 14/3/2016 The government has decided that the outcome of the 1MDB probe will be kept under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) to prevent leakages, at least until it is tabled in parliament. So, why is the government hiding 1MDB under the OSA? In the course of the investigation, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had promised a thorough probe into every single detail in the 1MDB controversy to determine what went wrong in its asset acquisition activities which had resulted in debts of RM42 billion. When 1MDB’s RM42 billion scandal was first exposed, there were lots of speculations and guessing game as the government refused to reveal what had actually gone wrong in these deals. The government also took months to initiate its internal investigation, and the PAC’s probe too was abruptly put to a standstill on various occasions. In between, we saw the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) being raided, followed by the detention of

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 3/3/2016 Since 2008 when the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition first lost its two-thirds majority in the general election and again failed to regain the much needed numbers in the 2013 polls, BN leaders, particularly from its dominant party Umno, have frequently resorted to divide and rule tactics in an attempt to regain lost ground. These leaders would stir up racial and religious problems and put the blame on various opposition parties and their leaders, leading civil society and human rights groups claiming that these people are threatening the special rights of the Malays and insulting Islam. The intention of these leaders is crystal clear, to divert the people’s attention from the ugly scenes in the corridors of power: corruption, power abuse and mismanagement which have cost the nation billions of ringgit every year. Umno leaders have somehow realised that the people are now watching their every move and they have to c

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 26/2/2016 Barisan Nasional leaders, particularly those from Umno, should wake up and accept the fact that arresting and imprisoning people will not stop criticisms from being levelled against the ruling party and the government. Instead, it will certainly increase public suspicion over what these government leaders are actually up to. Apart from that, such actions will also give the impression that the BN government is trying to cover up weaknesses in its administration. In politics, public perception, whether negative or positive, exists in every form, be it criticism, commentaries, discussions, condemnations, debates, exchange of ideas or just simply a chat in a coffee shop. Whatever the BN government is doing or if any of its top leaders is linked to controversies or scandals, it will inevitably attract public attention and generate public perceptions based on the information obtained. Perception is prevalent and unless th