Ahad, 21 November 2010

Anwar Ibrahim

Anwar Ibrahim

Mahkamah Sahkan Ada Penyelewengan Serius SYABAS

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 06:55 PM PST

Dari TV Selangor

Mahkamah Tinggi Shah Alam mengesahkan adanya penyelewengan yang serius dalam operasi Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas).

Persuruhjaya Kehakiman Hadhariah Syed Ismail berkata demikian selepas meneliti laporan Ketua Audit Negara keatas Syabas, dan perjanjian konsesi yang dimeterai Kerajaan Selangor dan Persekutuan.

Hadhariah dalam rumusannya menegaskan rakyat bakal menerima kejutan sekiranya mereka menatap kandungan dua dokumen itu.

Ahli Parlimen Klang, Charles Santiago memetik kehakiman Hadhariah bertarikh Jun tahun ini, di taklimat air anjuran Panel Penilaian Air Kerajaan Negeri Selangor di Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya, semalam.

“Pendedahan perjanjian konsesi ini dan laporan audit akan mengundang kritikan terhadap kerajaan,” kata Charles memetik kehakiman mahkamah.

Charles menjelaskan pihak mahkamah mengakui bahawa usaha syarikat konsesi menaikkan tarif air dibuat sewenang-wenangnya. Bahkan, mahkamah turut membidas tindakan Kerajaan Persekutuan menguatkuasakan Akta Rahsia Rasmi bagi menutup penyelewengan ini.

“Konsesi menaikkan tarif air secara sewenang-wenangnya, dan penguatkuasaan Akta Rahsia Rasmi bukan sahaja tidak menepati matlamat akta itu, tetapi juga bercanggah dengan prinsip ‘good governance’,” kata Charles memetik kehakiman itu lagi.

“Kepentingan rakyat seharusnya diutamakan,” tambah beliau, disambut dengan tepukan gemuruh hadirin.

Gabungan Membantah Penswastaan Air memfailkan permohonan meminta laporan audit dan perjanjian konsesi yang dimeterai Syabas dan Kerajaan Selangor pada 15 Disember 2004 diisytiharkan bukan sulit tetapi dokumen awam.

Gabungan ini terdiri dari Kongres Kesatuan Sekerja Malaysia dan 13 badan bukan kerajaan yang mewakili pengguna di Selangor, Kuala Lumpur dan Putrajaya.

Mereka berhujah laporan audit Syabas yang menjadi asas yang mendasari keputusan Kerajaan Pusat menaikkan tarif air sebanyak 15 peratus di Lembah Klang pada 14 Oktober 2006 harus dibuka kepada pemantauan umum.

Permohonan gabungan pengguna ini bagaimanapun ditolak Kementerian Tenaga, Air dan Komunikasi pada 4 Disember tahun yang sama atas alasan laporan audit dan perjanjian konsesi tersebut adalah sulit dan rahsia kerajaan Malaysia.

“Bahkan Kerajaan Persekutuan berjanji untuk memberi pampasan kepada Syabas sekiranya konsesi itu gagal mencapai KPI yang ditetapkan,” kata Charles.

The Unmaking Of Zaid Ibrahim

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 06:35 PM PST

From Malaysiakini
By Terence Netto

When Zaid Ibrahim joined PKR in June 2009, less than a year after resigning on a matter of principle from Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s cabinet, there was a role waiting for him more certainly than there had been

one in Abdullah’s team when the latter abruptly appointed him de facto law minister in March the previous year.

Basking in public esteem over his decision to quit because he disagreed with the ISA detentions in September of 2008 of controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, DAP MP Teresa Kok and journalist Tan Hoon Cheng, Zaid found

himself propelled into the role of policy coordinator for the opposition Pakatan Rakyat.

Though there was never such a position in the lexicon of the opposition, the candidate and the role met in near perfect unison.

Pakatan, improbable in its beginnings as a loose grouping for electoral purposes of PKR, DAP and the Islamic fundamentalist PAS, was in need of a common platform.

That need became pressing after Anwar Ibrahim had pulled off the biggest feat of Malaysia’s post-May 13th history by barnstorming the country to deny BN its customary two-thirds majority in the general election of March 2008.

Coming as it did with control of an unprecedented five state legislatures (Perak has since reverted through chicanery to BN), Anwar’s tour de force made feasible things previously held to be inconceivable.

Zaid fell in easily with this mood of the newly possible.

This was enticing to Zaid. He had found quitting Abdullah’s cabinet easy to do because the judicial reforms for which the former PM had selected him to push ran into heavy weather caused by erstwhile cabinet colleagues, Rais Yatim and Syed Hamid Albar.

The latter fought a rearguard action on behalf of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the likeliest to be shamed if judicial reforms proposed by Zaid had gone through. Abdullah remained non-committal in these intra-cabinet battles.

A Johnny-come-lately

Within weeks of his arrival in PKR, Zaid found grating the jealousy a Johnny-come-lately is apt to stir among the entrenched and the longer-serving.

A seasoned politician would have found aspects of his reception par for the course. But not Zaid Ibrahim, a man whose wealth was amassed from the lucrative legal contracts on the North-South Highway that were steered his law firm’s way by former finance minister Daim Zainuddin.

Zaid displayed a ‘I’ve no time for all this’ hauteur whose more obvious demonstrations were the brevity of his attendances at PKR central leadership council meetings and at Wednesday night’s politburo meetings. He would leave these meetings, sometimes in less time than it took to get from his Tropicana golf resort home to the PKR headquarters nearby.

This lack of interest in the warp and woof of party affairs would have been understandable given his oft-expressed stance that he was not interested in holding high position in PKR. It would have been more understandable if he had remained focused on his immediate task which was the formulation of the common policy framework for Pakatan, to the exclusion of other concerns.

But from October 2009, Zaid began to take positions that were at variance to Anwar’s on issues like Sabah and Sarawak. Ructions in the Sabah chapter of the party saw Zaid sympathetic to forces allied to Dr Jeffrey Kitingan.

On Sarawak, Zaid’s exertions had the same thrust which was empathy for the locals’ desire for autonomy in matters of leader- and election-candidate selection.

Invariably, Zaid’s positions were at odds with Azmin Ali’s which were influenced less by what was the best thing to do in light of PKR’s main plank – the people’s right to decide – than by who and what were good for his popularity as the presumptive party No 2.

Incumbent Dr Syed Husin Ali had already signaled that he was not interested to retain the post in the party polls that were scheduled for late 2010.

Azmin was readying for a run for deputy president. He looked on Zaid as a rival whose protestations of a lack of interest in rising in the party hierarchy were met with skepticism.

Anwar pressured by party reformers

In tandem with this rise in competitive rivalry between Azmin and Zaid was the discontent, plentifully bubbling by late 2009, felt by some factions in the party towards Anwar for what they viewed was a maddening refusal to introduce changes they espoused as for the party’s organisation and structure.

By late 2009, this faction began looking to Zaid as their candidate to become the No 2 in the party. With Zaid at deputy president, they felt they would force the changes to party structure and organisation that Anwar had disdained to introduce.

More than others in the party, Anwar possessed an appreciation of the reality that PKR was a confluence of interests tenuously uniting ideologically disparate groups.

He was the only one who could hold it together, just as he was the only one who could hold the avowedly secular DAP and the theocratic PAS together in the Pakatan coalition.

Anwar knew that any changes to the party structure and organisation that cut across the interests of his core supporters would have to be held in check because some of these supporters had already become ‘professionals’ – the party had become their whole life and vocation, and the protection of its already-in-place bureaucratic structures was more important to them than the interests of the party, or for that matter, the people it represented.
In other words, he knew the soft underbelly of the party and that he had to bide time before he could do anything about it. This was increasingly intolerable to the ‘make haste’ crowd of would-be party reformers.

Tomorrow: Part 2 – Puzzles multiply as frustration rises and dislike turns to animosity

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.

Umno-BN Sudah Putus Pertalian Dengan Rakyat

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 05:05 PM PST

Dari Suara Keadilan

Setelah 53 tahun memerintah Malaysia, Barisan Nasional yang ditunjangi oleh Umno kini telah terputus ikatan dengan rakyat sehingga melaksanakan dasar yang bertentangan dengan kepentingan negara dan kehendak sebenar rakyat bawahan tetapi sebaliknya mengayakan segelintir kecil kelompok yang rapat dengan pimpinan elit.

Ketua Umum Parti Keadilan Rakyat (KEADILAN), Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim berkata hasil daripada terpisahnya Umno-BN daripada realiti penderitaan rakyat, maka timbulkan pemikiran seperti pembinaan menara 100 tingkat  yang hanya mengenyangkan kroni dan kaum kerabat pemimpin mereka.

“Umno-BN dah terputus atau ‘disconnected’ daripada dunia kenyataan. Mereka masih tidak faham bahawa kekalahan teruk dalam pilihan raya umum 2008 bermakna rakyat sudah menolak mereka. Sebab itulah mereka masih boleh berfikir untuk membina bangunan 100 tingkat tanpa memikirkan apakah ini boleh mengangkat rakyat daripada keperitan hidup dan kesengsaraan mereka.

“Kalau kita baca Hansard Parlimen dan melihat kepada hujah ahli-ahli parlimen Umno-BN mereka tidak lagi mampu mempertahankan segala dakwaan rasuah, salah guna kuasa, penyelewengan tetapi mereka sekarang cakap, ‘Pakatan Rakyat pun rasuah juga’, kalau kita cakap pasal isu pasir, ‘hang pa pun curi juga’. Kalau kita hentam SPR (Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya), mereka jawab ‘SPR kamu (JPP) pun tipu juga’.

“Mereka sudah tidak boleh berhujah untuk menyangkal segala dakwaan kepada mereka. Umno-BN sudah sampai ke tahap sebegitu rendah keana mereka tahu rakyat tidak lagi dipihak mereka,” kata Anwar pada perhimpunan ‘Rapat KEADILAN: Anwar Pengemudi Zaman’ di sini Jumaat lalu.

Ahli Parlimen Permatang Pauh itu berkata rakyat tidak lagi mempercayai slogan Umno-BN hinggakan konsep 1Malaysia yang dicanang oleh Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak diperolok-olokkan.

“Mereka sudah habis ikhtiar untuk memperbaiki imej bobrok mereka. Kalau mereka bawa isu 1Malaysia, rakyat akan kata, ’10 untuk Najib dan Rosmah, 1 untuk rakyat’, sebut sahaja pasal isu Beng Hock, SPRM kena hentam, jadi Umno-BN sekarang tidak boleh elak lagi dan banyak persoalan tidak terjawab,” tegas Anwar lagi.

Fitnah Anwar, Siasat APCO

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 04:55 PM PST

Dari TV Selangor

Angkatan Muda keadilan mahukan syarikat perunding APCO disiasat bersabit satu lagi cubaan menfitnah Ketua Pembangkang Anwar Ibrahim menerusi artikel pembohongan .

APCO ialah syarikat perunding yang diupah oleh kerajaan pimpinan Najib Razak dengan kos lebih RM70 juta bagi memulihkan imej beliau di dalam dan luar negara.

Ketua AMK Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin berkata tulisan Rachel Motte dalam blog New Ledger diberikan liputan meluas oleh Bernama, Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia dan media lain namun fakta yang disembunyikan ialah tuduhan yang mengaitkan penulis itu kepada APCO.

Dalam artikel terbarunya, Motte berbohong apabila memberi gambaran kononnya Anwar membandingkan diri beliau dengan pemimpin pro demoraksi Aung San Sun Kyi.

“Antara strategi APCO adalah untuk menyerang Anwar semaksima mungkin dan apa sahaja tindakan Anwar, pandangan beliau tentang isu-isu dasar luar seperti pembebasan Aung San Suu Kyi dan juga berkaitan perkara-perkara yang diucapkan oleh beliau di luar negara seperti di Australia, diulas sendiri oleh Datuk Seri Najib, dan ada dikalangan yang direncanakan atau digerakkan untuk menyerang Anwar dari segi aspek itu,” kata Shamsul.

Anwar tidak pernah membandingkan dirinya dengan pengorbanan yang dilalui oleh ikon Myanmar itu.

Justeru tulisan Motte adalah fitnah dan kemungkinan beliau mempunyai hubung kait dengan APCO tidak boleh diketepikan.

Ketika melawat Australia, Anwar hanya menegaskan bahawa dalam mengecam kekejaman di Myanmar, kerajaan-kerajaan seperti Australia juga harus peka terhadap keadaan sebenar di Malaysia, di mana pencabulan asas- asas demokrasi dan hak asasi rakyat berlaku saban kali.

Contoh-contoh ketara adalah kes Teoh Beng Hock, kematian ratusan orang dalam lokap polis, sistem kehakiman yang tidak berwibawa dan rampasan kuasa di Perak yang dihalalkan oleh mahkamah.

Ini bukan kali pertama Motte mengecam Anwar atau memuji kerajaan pimpinan Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, malah itulah agendanya sebelum ini menerusi artikel seperti the reversal of Anwar Ibrahim.

“Ini satu strategi yang kohesif, strategi yang tersusun dan kemas dalam usaha untuk menunujukkan bahawa Anwar Ibrahim ini tak layak untuk memimpin, dan komen-komennya adalah komen-komen yang tidak memberikan impak kepada masyarakat dalam dan luar negara. Sebab itu, serangan itu bertumpu kepada beliau (Anwar) sekarang ini,” kata Samsul.

Winter Time In PKR

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 09:37 AM PST

From Malaysian Insider
By Muaz Omar

As Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak contemplates whether to call for a snap election, much of the focus is being centred on the fulcrum of the opposition coalition.

PKR, the biggest opposition party up until three of its MPs quit the party, has taken heavy body blows in the media recently.

Mainstream and alternative, print and electronic media have accorded massive coverage on the historic direct elections which give the right to each member to choose their leaders from the division right up to the central leadership.

The overwhelming media interest about the goings-on within the party soon zoomed in on the hotly-contested deputy president's post vacated by veteran politician Dr Syed Husin Ali.

This extensive coverage of the party election is being fuelled by the fact that PKR is often viewed as the glue that binds the Pakatan Rakyat component parties.

When the opposition coalition dented BN's two-thirds majority and captured five state governments (prior to BN recapturing Perak) in the 2008 general election, there was a real possibility that BN's almost unchallenged political dominance may actually fall.

Hence, PKR's leadership transition is of great importance to national politics as Pakatan Rakyat's prime minister nominee originates from the party in the form of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

With Anwar's sodomy trial entering its mature phase, the deputy president will ultimately hold the reins of the party should the courts decide against Anwar.

Anything concerning Anwar, personal or political, is bound to create extraordinary buzz in the domestic and international media.

It is also coupled by the fact that this is the political platform that Anwar hopes would enable him in partnership with Pakatan Rakyat's allies to topple BN.The other factor is the personalities vying for the deputy presidency.

PKR vice-president Azmin Ali and the party's former Federal Territories chief Datuk Zaid Ibrahim are considered political giants in one of the youngest political parties in the country with a meagre membership numbering some 500,000 people.

When Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin took on Datuk Seri Ali Rustam (until he was barred due to money politics) for Umno's deputy presidency, it created a contest that political pundits, columnists and journalists hotly observed.

However, Azmin Ali vs Zaid Ibrahim is far juicier and, frankly, both of them have far more quality than the Umno contestants.

However, as it turns out the deputy presidency contest has not been as friendly as many party leaders had hoped for.

Azmin, the reserved but charismatic and well-known grassroots leader, went about building consensus and alliances among party leaders at the central, state and divisional leadership.

On the other hand, the effervescent but erratic and outspoken Zaid went on a media blitz using his liberal background to maximum effect in his efforts to charm party members.

One would think that the liberal Malays, NGO-oriented and non-Malays within the party would have an affinity for Zaid, and on the other hand grassroots Malays, who form the bulk of the party members, would associate themselves with Azmin.

As the campaign went on, Zaid used every opportunity to be on the front pages of the print and web media to highlight his take on issues concerning the party but his strong words only enabled him to create enemies within the party rather than build alliances.

He has poured scorn publicly on Azmin, Syed Husin, president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and finally Anwar himself.

nevitably, that was the straw that broke the camel's back; Zaid was immediately viewed as a persona non grata within the party.

He has also managed to turn off those initially backing him — the NGO-aligned leaders and also influential grassroots Indian as well as Chinese leaders in the party.

Azmin, on the other hand, cranked up his meetings with state and divisional leaders as well as members throughout the country.

As a senior member of the party, it has been a whirlwind tour of sorts but something that isn't new to him for the last 12 years ever since the Reformasi period.

At the same time, he has kept a low profile when it came to the media, opting not to counter Zaid's accusations publicly but preferring to address the issues directly with party members.

As someone who can be an elite bourgeois and a grassroots man depending on the necessity, Azmin has played his cards almost to perfection.

Zaid's first-day lead on the back of votes from his home state of Kelantan soon dwindled as the election period went on.

It also served to switch Azmin's campaign machinery into overdrive and Zaid's well-funded machinery found it hard going and by the first weekend, the lead had turned into a deficit for Zaid.

Zaid was banking heavily on Sabah to deliver him the votes but as the results rolled in, it was evident that Azmin's week-long campaign for the Batu Sapi by-election followed by extensive groundwork had caused a breach in Zaid's so-called fixed deposit.

When the numbers were turning out against him, Zaid went on another round of media blitzkrieg using pseudo-liberal bloggers and a particular web media to denounce the credibility of the party election.

Every single problem in the voting process — delays in the polls and vote counting — has been heaped on Anwar and Azmin.

After leaping over the party ranks in record time from supreme council, political bureau (which he then took six months' leave due to disagreement with the party leadership), Hulu Selangor by-election candidate and FT chief, Zaid topped it all of by offering himself for the deputy presidency.

Zaid would have become a big leader for PKR and Pakatan Rakyat in the immediate future but he has built himself up as if he is bigger than the party which turns out to be a major turn-off.

His personality and probably his loud mouth finally got the better of him.

He cracked and called it quits from the race and the party, citing Anwar and Azmin as the source of all the party's problem.

Party members were largely unhappy with the manner that Zaid and certain leaders handled the outcome of the party elections.

These gung-ho leaders instantly go to the media to voice their displeasure rather than go down to the ground to canvass for votes.

Party members have also been distracted with the writings of infamous bloggers like the Groucho-Marxist Hishamuddin Rais, self-proclaimed liberal Haris Ibrahim and demonstration activist Mat Saman Kati who have made it their personal vendetta to attack Anwar and Azmin.

Zaid's ill-advised action to quit the party and lead a "Third Force" with the backing of bloggers such as Haris will only be seen as an attempt to undermine PKR and Pakatan Rakyat.

Chandra Muzaffar, Ezam Mohd Nor, Lokman Noor Adam and many other turncoats have failed in this aspect and Zaid is no more important to PKR than those three prior to them leaving the party.

Those who have been long in the party know that the dynamics of the party is one that is open, progressive and fluid.

It is surreal how an ordinary member of the party can have a major say in the leadership of the party and the openness within the party on the right to dissent has given unnecessary advantage to its enemies in Umno and BN.

Even though the party is understaffed and ill-equipped to undertake this gargantuan task, the leadership was adamant that this democratic process had to go through for the long-term benefit of the party.

No party that opened itself up will be able to avoid being subjected to the most minute scrutiny to the extent that criticisms become very personal and emotional rather than objective in nature.

PKR was prepared to go through this and the valiant effort of the leadership and the secretariat must be commended.

It may be a cold and blustery winter at the moment but spring beckons around the corner for PKR, as will the general election.

Karpal: I Warned Anwar About Zaid

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 12:30 AM PST

From Malaysian Chronicle

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had been warned about accepting Datuk Zaid Ibrahim into PKR after the latter quit Umno, said DAP chairman Karpal Singh.

"I had already told Anwar from the very beginning that the man (Zaid) could not be trusted as he quit Umno under a dark cloud and Anwar was taking a big chance by accepting him.

"How can one just want to take over the leadership of a party overnight? And when that was denied, Zaid openly attacked the man who threw him a lifeline in politics.

"Anwar was trying to guide Zaid to lead gracefully but there is no grace in this man," he told a press conference here yesterday.

Zaid
Saying that he had known Zaid since he (Zaid) was a practising lawyer, Karpal claimed that everyone in the legal profession knew him well.

Karpal added that he did not intend to interfere in PKR's politics but was just looking after the interest of Pakatan Rakyat.

"He says he's a fighter, not a quitter, but he has been quitting political parties successively.

"I want to advise Zaid to search his soul if he has any and repent for the manner in which he is attacking Anwar," he said.

He added that Zaid could go ahead and form a new party if he could go that far.

"So far, no one from PKR has followed Zaid," Karpal said after visiting his constituency in Air Itam here yesterday.

Karpal later presented food aid to about 20 poor families in Gelugor who were affected by the recent floods.

On another matter, Karpal said as the ultimatum given to Chief Justice Tun Zaki Azmi to respond to allegations of corruption against him while he was in private practice had expired last Monday, he would take the matter to court. – Star

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Zaid Ibrahim: Clown Prince of M’sian politics?

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 12:27 AM PST

By Mansor Puteh

Is Zaid Ibrahim the new political clown prince of Malaysian politics? I think he is. And I am not saying this in a negative way, but most affectionately. Many in Malaysia would also agree.

So what’s new with him?

He is no politician. He is definitely no leader. He climbed up the ladder in national Malaysian politics on the premise that he was open and broad-minded.

He was immediately allowed into the inner sanctum of Umno and Barisan with an appointment as minister in the prime minister’s department. It turned out to be a place for him to feel displaced. So he opted out, not because he did not like those around him, but the fact that he could not be himself.

He did not aspire to rise any further in the Umno and Barisan hierarchy. So he got stuck. And he felt restless. And he had to find fault to allow him to get out of the sanctums he had placed himself in.

How could a person of his stature not know if the sanctums were good for him when he decided to accept the post in the prime minister’s department in the first place? Can we then say he had vision?

He didn’t realise being in the cabinet does not allow anyone to be open and broad-minded as one’s role in it has been chipped to fit into just a small part of the system. So one cannot claim the high horse to make one’s own pronouncements on anything.

Being in the cabinet therefore has its pitfalls and disadvantages, in that one loses oneself to one’s particular role that one has been assigned to. They do not brook duplication. So Zaid could not speak like he is the prime minister.

A minister in the cabinet can be akin to an advisor with the cabinet forming the team of advisors of all disciplines that the prime minister creates to allow him to get the best views and matters for him to formulate his grand plans. So a member of the cabinet’s views on anything is just one of the many views the prime minister has to take into account.

Zaid’s personal and official views on the law for instance had been taken into account, but they were all seen in the context of those that the prime minister then had, which caused Zaid’s own views to be discarded.

This is the game they play in Putrajaya. Only the greenhorns in the cabinet did not know this.

So this is what had created the Zaid Ibrahim that we now know. He is just someone who, so young, could distract the media and public.

He could not fit in Barisan. He thought he could serve the country better by joining PKR. In no time he felt restless.

He is not allowed to return to Umno and Barisan – unless he wins a state or parliament constituency as an independent and becomes ‘friendly’ towards Barisan, which can pave his way back to Umno. But alas Umno and Barisan cannot change simply to meet with his ‘high demands’ on openness, etc etc.

Zaid is therefore the new political clown prince of Malaysia; this is not an understatement. And it is a compliment as not many in Malaysia can achieve this. Anwar Ibrahim did it once before.

Personally I don’t think Zaid can be of any use to Umno, PKR or PAS. The problem with Zaid is he is a man unto himself; he does not know how to fit in. He gets into a fit if no one or any party does not toe his line of thinking and concept of democracy, etc, etc.

He is not a team player. He wants everybody to agree with him.

Well, in politics, one agrees with the majority. It’s the views of the majority that matter. So rarely do individuals take charge in the shaping of any group of political party’s struggle unless one wants to fashion oneself as a dictator.

Maybe Zaid is a dictator wannabe. If he cannot go with the flow, then the flow will hit back on him.

Zaid has nothing to lose; either way, he wins, with the media and the unofficial support from Umno and Barisan behind him since he has not become their ‘spokesman’. He has an advantage because he is an outsider who was an insider, so those in PKR and Pakatan know him well to try not to provoke him further.

This is Zaid. I am not enamoured with him. I heard his speech at a Suhakam seminar at the Rennaissance Hotel once and he did not impress me the least.

PKPIM Bidas Tawaran BN Untuk Terima NGO Jadi Ahli Gabungan

Posted: 20 Nov 2010 11:33 PM PST

Dari Malaysiakini

Keputusan BN menerima kumpulan NGO, pertubuhan dan persatuan sebagai ahli bergabung dengan parti itu diselar kumpulan NGO yang berpendapat tindakan itu “bertentangan dengan norma masyarakat demokratik”.

Menurut Presiden Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM) Muhammad Faisal Abdul Aziz, ini kerana selain kewujudan badan politik dan swasta, peranan NGO yang “tulen” sebagai “organ masyarakat sivil” tidak boleh dinafikan.

“Bagi PKPIM, tujuan utama ditubuhkan NGO sebagai wadah yang membawa suara marhaen sebagai (agen) semak dan imbang terhadap setiap satu dasar yang digubal pihak pemerintah bagi memastikan ia benar-benar memenuhi kepentingan masyarakat umum,” katanya.

Dalam satu kenyataan, Muhammad Faisal (kanan) mengumpamakan NGO sebagai “pusat roda yang dikelilingi parti politik”.

“Walau siapa yang berada di atas atau siapa yang berada di bawah, NGO tetap utuh sebagai pusat di tengah-tengah yang bertanggungjawab memastikan roda secara keseluruhannya bergerak dengan lancar,” katanya.

Sehubungan itu, beliau berpendapat, pendekatan tidak memihak dan "independent political force" (kuasa politik bebas) harus dijadikan prinsip asas NGO.

“Sebagai aktivis dan pimpinan NGO, kita seharusnya bebas dari keterikatan mana-mana parti politik dan ketaksuban politikus yang akhirnya akan mencengkam idealisme perjuangan NGO itu sendiri,” katanya lagi.

Dalam PKPIM sendiri, tambahnya, mereka adakalanya senada dengan parti pemerintah dan adakalanya bersama parti pembangkang dalam sesuatu isu berlandaskan kepentingan masyarakat umum.

“Namun, PKPIM menyambut baik sebarang usaha pihak BN untuk meraikan kepentingan NGO sebagai rakan pembangunan negara atau smart partnership building dengan sentiasa mendengar pandangan dan kritikan NGO, serta menghormati prinsip dan pendirian sesebuah NGO dalam sesuatu isu,” kata Muhammad Faisal.
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