Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

Prior to the 14th general elections last year, the then opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) laid out its manifesto for the people to decide which coalition of political parties did they want to run the federal and state governments. And the people had made their choice on 9 May 2018 to kick out the then corrupt Barisan Nasional (BN) government and installed PH in place to reform and govern our nation with new policies, institutional reforms, combat corruption and to correct the wrongs in the judiciary system as well as civil service which has been killing our nation’s reputation for years. In aftermath of PH’s takeover of the federal seat, what has been discovered were our nation’s coffers had lost billions of ringgit as the result of swindling, mismanagement and corruptions by the leaders of the previous ruling coalition. Much has gone missing, unrecoverable and as the result of the nation’s debts which is at the highest ever, trillions of ringgit, our nation’s currency deval...

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 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 17/11/2015 WH Cheng Until today, we are still hearing many allegations made by politicians especially from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition saying that Malaysia has been practicing the Westminster system in our nation’s parliamentary and governance structures. In many occasions, these BN leaders had also accused the opposition bloc in the parliament over the later’s failure to establish a shadow cabinet, by all means labelling them as non-compliance of the so-called Westminster system when opposition leaders spoke of the same against the BN government. Well, we have some questions here for the BN leaders who loudly claim the Westminster system has been long established herein Malaysia. However, we are uncertain if they are brave enough to face the facts that the Westminster system has never been in existence in our nation’s parliamentary and governance framework. Let us look at the parliamentary system of electoral,...

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...

By WH Cheng TheAntDaily.com, 23/10/2014 In most democratic nations, the initial stage of democratisation at the local level often includes the people’s first experience and exposure with local government elections. Elections at local government level is a good place to start developing electoral participation since local elections are the first element of democratic governance. Local elections touch the daily lives of ordinary citizens. They also embody the people’s right to vote and elect local officials and this is a necessary element of democracy. Ruling parties and political leaders usually attach greater importance and weight to state and national elections rather than local government elections. They have often argued that local government elections would not make much difference in the political life of the nation. But this is far from true. In fact, local government elections have certain distinct elements compare with state and national elections, giving it cons...

From the Bloombergviews (1:15 pm.: Updated second paragraph to include reference to NATO reports of Russian military involvement.) The convoy of about 300 whitewashed Russian military trucks on the Ukrainian border, the first of which entered eastern Ukraine today, is an apt metaphor for this depressing conflict. Russia says they're carrying humanitarian aid. Ukraine says Russia has invaded. It may not be an invasion, but Ukrainian officials have the better of this argument. Many of these trucks are almost empty , and they are traveling without the Red Cross escort Russia agreed to. Now NATO  reports that Russia has brought artillery across the border. Still, Ukrainian officials must be careful in how they respond, because there remains plenty of room for escalation. Their campaign against pro-Russian rebels in their city strongholds has been making gains. But the closer victory comes, the higher the risk that Russian President Vladimir Putin -- cornered by the nationalist fervo...

Certainly, the 13th general election, held on May 5th, was Malaysia's most closely contested since the country’s independence from Britain in 1957. Yet it still produced the same result as at every election since 1957—victory for the Barisan Nasional (BN), a political coalition dominated by prime minister Najib Razak’s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). This despite the fact that the BN only won a historically low 47% of the popular vote, against the main opposition party’s 51%. Such disparities between the tangible evidence of popular sentiment and the apparently inevitable final result have forced many to question the integrity of Malaysia’s electoral system—not just now but after previous elections as well. Indeed, a whole new organisation called Bersih (meaning “clean” in Malaysian) was set up in 2006 to campaign for “clean and fair elections”. It has held three large rallies over the years in the capital Kuala Lumpur to press the government, and in particular the g...

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...

We guess, many of you would be wondering why are we asking such question, “What has MCA done to the Chinese community in Malaysia?” Obviously, none of us would ever realize the real and terrible impact that MCA has made onto the Malaysian Chinese and if they were to see this, the definite question too would be, “done what?”, “don’t know”, “not aware”, “none of our business”, or even, “we don't want to know at all”. The inception of MCA in 1949 can be traced back from the origins of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) and its chapter in the then Malaya, which was famously known as Kuomintang Malaya (KMT Malaya). In aftermath of the Second World War and the defeat of the KMT forces in China in 1949, the KMT Malaya has began to move towards transforming its Malayan chapter into a local Chinese based organization in order to preserve its existence and long term political opportunity in this county. And this is how MCA was born in February 1949, where the party later teamed up...

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...

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...

When Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB) chief economist Azrul Azwar Ahmad Tajuddin gave a prediction of a possible Pakatan Rakyat narrow victory in the next 13th general election, overnight, he has became a political enemy of his employer. The BIMB chief economist has been suspended from active duty by his employer until further notice and it was not clear that if he would later face the bank's domestic inquiry for an alleged "misconduct" as claimed earlier by the BIMB's managing director. What "misconduct" has Azrul committed in the forum which he has attended and had his view presented? If the BIMB managing director has mentioned that his view and prediction on Pakatan's possible narrow victory are entirely his personal, then why issue him a suspension on BIMB capacity? Has Azrul ever mention "according to BIMB's prediction, Pakatan will gain a narrow victory"? No he did not say so. Furthermore, Azrul has attended the forum in under...