Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

Ever since after the 14th general elections held on 9 May 2019 last year, we saw the most effective opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) coming into power at the federal level together with few state governments as well which had effectively pushed Barisan Nasional (BN) from governing right to the opposition bench. The BN opposition previously under the leadership of the then Umno president had put in order a group of Umno and MCA members of parliament to form a shadow cabinet in order to provide the necessary check and balance on the current PH government. However, to our dismay, this so-called BN shadow cabinet has not been working on what they are supposed to. Instead these BN MPs particularly those from Umno had continue to raise issues and tensions on matters relating to race and religion. Worst of all these BN MPs had failed to show their maturity during the parliamentary sessions. Trading insults and gender remarks against fellow MPS has been their kind of character...

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 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 4/12/2015 WH Cheng When the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was in the midst of investigating the controversial and debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), its efforts and hard work were suddenly halted when the then committee chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed and some other members who are mostly BN parliamentarians were abruptly removed and 'promoted' to positions in the government administration in a reshuffle by the prime minister. During the transition, Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia had also disallowed PAC deputy chairman Dr Tan Seng Giaw from taking over the inquiry and had the entire committee suspended indefinitely. The suspension of PAC by the Speaker was justified by the explanation that the committee has been rendered ineffective following the departure of Nur Jazlan as chair and almost half of its membership. The truth is, the move by the BN government has made the PAC a lame duck, thus delay...

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...

By Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid The grim reality of elusive unity, plagued by ethnocentric and ethno-religious divisions, is underlined by the continual existence of fault lines that anthropologist Shamsul A. B. calls ‘axes of contradictions’ . The stubborn presence of such social cleavages, after half a century of nationhood, raises the issue of the efficacy of integrative policies pursued by successive Barisan Nasional (BN: National Front) governments. Momentarily eclipsed by the modernisation ethos of Mahathir’s Vision 2020 and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s Islam Hadhari (civilisational Islam), the ‘national unity’ agenda has made a comeback during Najib Razak’s era since 2009 in the form of his ‘One Malaysia’ (1Malaysia) scheme. It has not been smooth sailing for Najib. It is understandably difficult for him to admit that the multiple polarisation of Malaysian society was effected at the hands of none other than his colleagues and former bosses in the ruling United Malays National Organisati...

Socialism is usually defined into many kinds of ideology unnecessarily by many socialist leaders themselves as well as opponent of socialism. Such has indeed confuse many socialists, potential socialists and those who are interested in deepen their understanding on socialism. Why do we need to interpret socialism into so many kinds of ideological segment, such as Leninism, Marxism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Centre-Left, Social Democrats, Socialist Democratic, First International, Third International, Fourth International or whatsoever ? Some even claim they are more socialist then others and vice-versa. Some claim to be reformed socialist and this confuse our socialist community even more. As the result of all these differences, we could see first the Socialist, Labour and Communist Parties around the world disintegrating one by one like a domino, some of these parties are even split into two or three political parties but their names still remain as socialist or communist, with only d...

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...

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...