Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 30/3/2017 When the Romanian government planned to enforce a decree to make power abuse a crime punishable by jail only when the sum involved exceeds 200,000 lei, which is equivalent to RM210,000, an estimated half a million Romanians took to the streets to protest their government’s plan to legitimise corruption below the said amount. The Romanian police did not try their best to prevent the demonstration from taking place in the city of Bucharest by arresting prominent leaders of opposition parties and civil rights organisations. This is part of the democratic process which the Romanian security has abided by. But in Malaysia, the Umno-dominated Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition government has very often viewed protests and demonstrations as acts detrimental to parliamentary democracy, thus enacting many kinds of restrictions under the Peaceful Assembly Act, Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma), Prevention of...

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 ...

Decentralisation as an alternative Decentralisation is defined as the distribution and delegation of functions and powers from the federal government to state and local governments. In aftermath of the 12th general election in 2008, which saw the Barisan Nasional losing its two-thirds majority in the parliament and the opposition Pakatan Rakyat capturing five state governments, discussion arose about the need for decentralisation following some friction in federal-state relationship which are seen to be jeopardising the states’ administration, roles and development plans. In every kind of governing system, pros and cons are sure to exist. Much depends on on who, how and what kind of party or coalition of parties is elected. Other relevant factors including the ethnic groups or combination of ethnic groups involved; the ideology or combination of ideologies; the attitude of the governing parties and the governing policies at the federal, state or municipal levels. But in the highly c...

Many of us would be asking, what is the proportional voting system all about? And if we were to go into the online search engine to determine the actual definition on the subject question, you will find aplenty and few kinds of what we would see as proportional voting system. Yes, whatever definition that you would find in the online search engine on this proportional voting system is definitely accurate, the fact that, they are few kinds, but they all carry the same meanings and objectives. The fact that is, this subject is all about providing a more democratic space for our people by creating more representations in the parliament or state legislative assemblies. Asides, the voices of the minorities and smaller political parties would also be represented in these legislative bodies through achievement of certain percentage of votes or support from our people at large. There are two kinds of proportional voting systems herein. The first of the two kinds is the people or voter...

In our previous  topic , we had discussed and greatly emphasized on the importance of separation of powers between the party and the government. The main purpose of such measure is to curb any possible abuse of powers, corruption, favouritism and conflict of interest between the one party leader who is also a member of the government's executive body i.e. be it the state or the federal cabinet. And here you are today, the Selangor state government under the leadership of its Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim had did it. He has set a very good example and reference for everyone of us to see and proven that a government without any party leaders or chairmen at helm could be well managed or governed effectively. Tan Sri Khalid who is from PKR is not the state PKR chairman was appointed Menteri Besar of the state in 2008 after the party won the state jointly with its coalition partners in the Pakatan Rakyat and has been put to continue the state stewardship following the repe...