Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

Daripada keadaan politik dalam negara ini, kita telahpun dan sedang memerhati beberapa buah gabungan parti-parti politik yang terkini, iaitu Barisan Nasional (BN) yang kekal begitu lama dengan parti komponen utama Umno memonopoli semua aspek keputusan di dalam gabungan dan kerajaan yang diterajui oleh mereka. Di pihak Pakatan Rakyat (PR) pula ianya merupakan sebuah gabungan parti-parti pembangkang utama, PKR, DAP dan PAS yang bekerjasama secara longgar dan masing-masing mempunyai kedudukan yang setaraf di antara satu sama lain. Di tengah-tengah kancah cabar mencabar di antara BN dan PR, terdapat satu lagi alternatif yang kini sedang menonjol, Gabungan Kiri Malaysia (GKM) yang merangkumi gabungan parti politik bercampur dengan pertubuhan-pertubuhan bukan kerajaan (NGO) yang kini dianggotai oleh Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM), sebagai peneraju utama GKM, diikuti dengan Solidariti Anak Muda Malaysia (SAMM), Pusat Sejarah Rakyat dan Collective Intelligence serta beberapa individu yang te...

Tajuk mengenai pembentukan kabinet bayangan (shadow cabinet) timbul sekali lagi setelah Datuk Ser Dr Wan Azizah Ismail mengangkat sumpah sebagai ahli parlimen Permatang Pauh yang baru dan seterusnya menerima perlantikan sebagai ketua pembangkang parlimen yang baru menggantikan Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Sehingga pada hari ini, ramai di antara kita masih belum faham ataupun kurang jelas mengenai apakah itu kabinet bayangan sebenarnya dan apakah fungsi-fungsinya di barisan parti-parti pembangkang di dalam parlimen. Kabinet bayangan adalah sebuah institusi yang dibentuk dan dikelolakan oleh barisan parti-parti pembangkang di dalam parlimen ataupun dewan perwakilan. Ianya berfungsi untuk memantau dan menyemak imbang (check and balance) segala perlaksanaan dan perjalanan pentadbiran kabinet kerajaan yang ditubuhkan oleh parti-parti yang memerintah. Biasanya, kabinet bayangan dibentuk seiring dengan barisan kabinet kerajaan yang ditubuhkan mengikut portfolio-portfolio kementerian yang tela...

The upcoming 13th parliamentary seating which will soon commence its first session will see some intense debates from both sides of the political divide. Both the Barisan Nasional (BN), that is the governing coalition and Pakatan Rakyat (PR), the opposition coalition had indeed made history for themselves. BN with its reduced majority under a minority government status (based on its lesser percentage of votes received nationwide) and PR with its dramatic increased representation in the parliament which had never happened in the past. What are expected here are bill, laws and issues that are to be tabled or forwarded to the parliament would see an intense debate. To get the bill and laws through, it is by simple majority, but again, it is certain that the oppositions would not let it through that easy. On the other side, the BN members of parliament (MPs) and its government ministers would not be feeling the comfort that they have been enjoying decades ago. The parliamentary su...

The elections campaigning would stop once the clock struck 12.00 am this midnight. Tomorrow morning, the  13th general elections shall commence nationwide. All voters are urged to come out without fear to vote for whoever in your minds, and should you have made the correct decisions, do not hesitate to put your choice into the ballot boxes. The destiny of this nation of ours is in our hands. We hope, with the choice this time, nation would be able to move forward towards a new dawn. Whatever outcome it may have after 12.00 am tomorrow then, we hope the political parties or coalition who are on the verge of losing or may lost, would gently accept with open minds the decisions made by our people (the electorates) for the sake of the nation. This is a democratic nation and in general elections, there are those who won and so does those who lost. This is indeed a democracy in practice. The winner gets the chance to govern for a period of 5 years while the loser would take this opp...

The 13th general elections (GE13) is approaching, approximately ten more days to go from today. And both side of the political divide, Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) are campaigning hard in order to gain support from the voters. In this year's GE13, it also saw a significant rise on the number of independent candidates. Well, the backgrounds of these independent candidates are of many kinds, majority are political party dissidents from both BN and PR, incumbents who are not being selected to recontest in their respective seats, and of course, for the first time, there are also a lots of serious contenders who are contesting as independents to offer what they said, "they would only serve the people in particular because they would not be tied up to the interests of the political parties". Then, on the voters' side. What do the voters of today actually want? The voters of today are very much different from the voters decades ago. Voters of today co...

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...

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...

According to Dr Chandra Muzaffar, the chairman of the Yayasan 1Malaysia, who is also the former PKR deputy president, changing the government in this country would not solve the problems of corruption within the nation's establishment. Asides, Dr Chandra also mentioned that not only is BN corrupt but the opposition Pakatan Rakyat is also corrupt in its administrations and politics. It shows that Dr Chandra is not only narrow minded when making such statement but he is not looking at the broader prospect of the proposal made by Pakatan Rakyat in its recently released electoral manifesto. So, does Dr Chandra mean, since Pakatan Rakyat is also corrupt, why not let BN who is "totally corrupt" to continue governing this nation so that these BN leaders could squander more in billions of Ringgit from our people? In this subject, where does Dr Chandra looking at? It looks like he looks forward for our nation to fall backwards instead of moving forward. Yes, Dr Chandra mayb...

Major shifts in political alliances here may occur after Election 2013, which is still expected to be a toss-up between the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR), Singapore’s  The Straits Times  reported today. The paper noted that much of BN’s hopes to keep federal power now depends heavily on the polls outcome in Sabah and Sarawak, both states still long-considered the ruling party’s stronghold. File photo of people lining up to cast their ballots in the Sarawak state election in 2011. Observers believe the coming general election will be too close to call. “Whatever the outcome on Polling Day, the story will not end here. If the PR wins more seats than the BN in Peninsular Malaysia, it is likely to woo BN component parties in Sabah and Sarawak to defect to it,” the English daily reported. “Bad losses for either coalition could worsen inherent faultlines in both and they could fall apart as easily as they were stitched together,” it added. Att...