It is the optimism and the seemingly boundless energy of the beautiful youth of this nation that is going to make the difference.
As the Election Commission drags its feet in making any reaL effort to get to and register the as yet unregistered 5 million unregistered voters most of whom are aged 30 and below, some extraordinary young people intent on impacting the community have committed themselves to go to the ground and register 2 million voters over the next twelve months.
Herculean task?
Not for those who ask in faith, and then match that faith with selfless work.
The Voice For Choice initiative launches on the 3rd & 4th of April, 2010 at the following three venues :
Subang Parade
Amcorp Mall
Cineleisure, Kota Damansara.
The organisers inform me that whilst the launch, like the initiative as a whole, is intended to be fun-filled, the business of the day is still getting people registered so that they can do their civic duty of voiceing their choice of government through the ballot come the next General Election.
Voter registration booths will be open at all three venues abovementioned on both dates, from 10 am – 10 pm.
For more details, click on the badge below.
Reproduced below is an explanatory note of the organisers of this awesome initiative.
______________________________________________
First things first, to clear all doubts and suspicion, neither EPIC for UNITY or Voice your Choice are tools of any political party. We are strictly non-partisan and not affiliated with any political parties. We have found out that many people cannot comprehend this but YES, we are SINCERELY doing this because we realize as youths we need to take up our responsibility to make our nation something we can all be proud of. Nation development is rather tricky and even though we youths are anxious to make a difference we dare not say we can do it without the wiser more experienced generation. Therefore, all who have asked if there is an age limit or if you are TOO OLD? The answer is NO there is no age limit to dreams.
Voice you Choice is created by youths for ALL Malaysians
This is what it is all about…
This is not about PR or BN or any political parties
This is not about overthrowing the government
This is where corporate and political rivals can work together to meet a common need
This is where our faiths unite regardless of religion
This is about uniting all Malaysians for Malaysia
This is where we obtain the peace that comes from within and is not driven by our environment or circumstance. Peace is with those who can wake up every morning knowing they have done everything to the best of their abilities in making this country a better place.
This is about conquering ourselves, finding our voice and believing that it counts, only then can we know that this government, nation and world will be cured of the diseases that plague it.
This is about using a new yard stick to measure another fellow human, not by his race, status, and profession or academic achievement, but by the same believe that we want a better future and Equality for all.
The marker of success will be met when we successfully organize ourselves as one people, as organizations, and individuals. When we hit the 2 million mark, only then do we know that we have conquered our past and became one Rakyat.
We learn from our past but are never haunted by it. We are dedicated and committed to using our present to shape our future. Join us!
Read more about EPIC at:
www.dosomethingepictoday.blogspot.com
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The 3rd Vote and Radical Reform
Both Penang and Selangor have written to the EC for Local Government Elections. The EC appears to have discussed this in length and will make an announcement soon.
“We have completed our in-depth discussions into the matter. Wait for our decision that we will announce tomorrow,” EC deputy chairman Datuk Wira Wan Ahmad Wan Omar told The Malaysian Insider last night.
Whilst an elected local government is what Pakatan has promised in their manifesto; on hindsight and having seen first hand how the Local Government function, it believe that an elected local governemnt may not be the solution that rate-payers want.
Even as it is now, with a fully PR friendly elected council, things are not moving as fast and as efficiently as it should. So imagine if there is an elected council, there will definitely be a larger mix of ideologies in the council. The councillors will be spending more time politicking instead of getting things done.
At the Local Council level, all the rate-payer wants is transparency and accounctability, that rate payer's money is not wasted. More importantly, rate-payers want to see street lights that work, drains that flow and roads that are free of pot-holes, enough parking spaces, recreational spaces and free flow of traffic in commercial areas and most of all, a safe community.
Politics with all its good intent, cannot provide this because it is the nature of politicians to object to their opponents views and suggestions even if it is a good suggestion.
Therefore, i am of the opinion that the 3rd vote may not be the solution. I fully agree with the views of PAS:
“We are considering many possibilities, perhaps 60 per cent are elected and 40 per cent get nominated. If that is the case, then the groups that are under-represented after the election can get representation,” he added.
read more:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/57170-third-vote-must-represent-all-races-say-pas
The state governemnt reserves the right to appoint members to the council to maintain executive control and ensure a fair balance of representation.
Of the present 24 councillors, I propose 8 to be elected, 8 appointed from amongst political parties with the balance made up of NGOs and professional bodies. I further propose that all 8 elected councillors be made FULL TIME councillors, being paid a salary equivalent to their scope of responsibilities (as compared to the public sector)
“We have completed our in-depth discussions into the matter. Wait for our decision that we will announce tomorrow,” EC deputy chairman Datuk Wira Wan Ahmad Wan Omar told The Malaysian Insider last night.
Whilst an elected local government is what Pakatan has promised in their manifesto; on hindsight and having seen first hand how the Local Government function, it believe that an elected local governemnt may not be the solution that rate-payers want.
Even as it is now, with a fully PR friendly elected council, things are not moving as fast and as efficiently as it should. So imagine if there is an elected council, there will definitely be a larger mix of ideologies in the council. The councillors will be spending more time politicking instead of getting things done.
At the Local Council level, all the rate-payer wants is transparency and accounctability, that rate payer's money is not wasted. More importantly, rate-payers want to see street lights that work, drains that flow and roads that are free of pot-holes, enough parking spaces, recreational spaces and free flow of traffic in commercial areas and most of all, a safe community.
Politics with all its good intent, cannot provide this because it is the nature of politicians to object to their opponents views and suggestions even if it is a good suggestion.
Therefore, i am of the opinion that the 3rd vote may not be the solution. I fully agree with the views of PAS:
“We are considering many possibilities, perhaps 60 per cent are elected and 40 per cent get nominated. If that is the case, then the groups that are under-represented after the election can get representation,” he added.
read more:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/57170-third-vote-must-represent-all-races-say-pas
The state governemnt reserves the right to appoint members to the council to maintain executive control and ensure a fair balance of representation.
Of the present 24 councillors, I propose 8 to be elected, 8 appointed from amongst political parties with the balance made up of NGOs and professional bodies. I further propose that all 8 elected councillors be made FULL TIME councillors, being paid a salary equivalent to their scope of responsibilities (as compared to the public sector)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
When the Going gets Tough, the tough gets going
PKR has the burden of history, it’s Umno’s true nemesis and suffers for that reputation.
Despite all the desertions and dissertations, PKR is the only party due to its ideology and membership make-up — in look and feel — which has the value proposition to compete with Umno.
The other Pakatan Rakyat parties?
DAP wants to shed its Chinese-only perception, and PAS is actively on the way to becoming a fully-integrated Islamic-principled party.
They need time to force some paradigm shifts and stay intact through that process to become what they desire.
But for now, it is PKR which fills that void, due to its history and development.
You have to move back in time to retrace this story, the story of PKR and to know what it was and is, what it always promises to become — and come short — and the common malaises which haunts it.
Somewhere in the vaults of the major media companies — from a time before Internet portals — various pictures of Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders celebrating their 1995 general election landslide victory sit. They are filed and stored, but not for reproduction in the present.
You will see a nervous but relieved Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The substantial losses of 1990 to the trio of Semangat 46-PAS-DAP and rebelling Parti Bersatu Sabah had died down. The economy was purring.
Nothing advertised the ‘times-are–a-changing’ better than having a Malay language graduate and Islamist firebrand rebranding himself as finance minister.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will be found in that picture holding up Dr M’s hands and they would be smiling from ear to ear. Not far would be Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, and all the usual characters from the Umno family.
Umno was in its zenith, it was impregnable. The landslide victory vindicating the thinking that a race party is the answer for Malaysia. Everyone was content.
It was postulated that only Umno could end its own dream. And the script went exactly that way.
The Anwar dismissal in 1998 and subsequent protests and trials were monumental but not decisive. It was the diaspora of Umno grassroot leaders and members into what was not an Umno-clone which was.
The creation of Parti Keadilan with the intention of seeking justice for all and political change was unprecedented. A large number of Umno members rejected Umno. Their reasons, their allegiance to Anwar and even naïve think that the move would result in immediate change did not affect the cumulative effect of it.
A sea was crossed, for a population afraid of drowning in a water bucket.
The colossal loss of Malay votes in Election 1999 meant PAS was the biggest parliamentary winner after BN. It was important for the Umno strategists that Parti Keadilan ended up third behind the religionists and DAP.
Let’s get this out of the way. Keadilan as a party is not the fear for Umno. Keadilan as a concept is. There was never a practically multiracial party with a Malay spine since the days of Datuk Onn Jaafar. And that was enough to scare the pants off Umno.
Which is why Election 2004 — despite the landslide win — remained somewhat unsatisfying to Umno for it did not bury Keadilan — which was now PKR following its marriage with Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM).
Everywhere PKR — especially the ex-PRM candidates — was falling like bowling pins and the defeated crew quickly licked their wounds and turned their eyes to events in Permatang Pauh.
Party president Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was being run very close for what was to be their single parliamentary seat.
After several recounts, Azizah kept her seat in Dewan Rakyat.
PKR was to have a heart-beat until the next election.
In the 10 years of existence leading to Election 2008 PKR was plagued by problems. Of its Malayness isolating non-Malay issues.
Of leaders — who left the lap of luxury inside Umno and expecting a short spell in the desert — growing disappointed with a leadership which was struggling with its own teething problems.
Of its inspiration — Anwar — imprisoned for most of that time.
However, the ex-Umno faction gave the party reach to places like Dengkil and Bukit Semanggol and not just in Petaling Jaya and Johor Baharu. They were more than just the sentimental choice of unionists and NGOs — which PRM was unfortunately and unfairly stereotyped before merging with the less chic Keadilan dudes.
The party despite its lack of political wins was operating nationwide.
But the active political observer has to recollect that leading up to Election 2008 PKR had only one closely-won parliamentary seat to show, and lost the assembly contest in the Ijok by-election to a newbie candidate.
That is why the critique that PKR should have recruited better candidates for Election 2008 is hubristic if you have been rooting for change in Malaysia prior to 2008.
The idea of contesting with little financial support from a party with six wins in two general elections was not enticing enough to capable candidates.
Names had to be put on the ballot for all the parliamentary and assembly seats PKR negotiated with PAS and DAP, keeping to the promise of one on one contests against BN nationwide.
And in the future there will be other surprises in the party. PKR suffers more than DAP and PAS, because the two latter parties have been in the game longer as opposition parties, lived without political pork-barrel which comes with winning and are not inundated with those previously with the enemy.
That is why it is tough for PKR, but I feel they escaped the bigger body blow in 2004.
The concept of a multiracial party with substantial Malay presence will grow as fewer and fewer leaders in it would be ex-Umno men with living memories of a better life; joined by a generation of local graduates with less caution than their parents seeking a party to back their multicultural aspirations.
The challenge for PKR is to keep its general momentum through that transition.
They can’t counter the mainstream media attacks, costly branding exercises and the financial incentives BN relies on, but they have to sustain the broad belief in a multicultural Malaysia built on effective leadership not race leadership.
If PKR passes the present low-point then all roads will lead to Putrajaya eventually as mixed race-seats in the country hits past the critical mass line.
But politics is all year round even if elections are not. And as PKR deals with adolescence, trying to balance between better candidates and realpolitik maybe a few more people have to step forward.
They say in politics, half of it is in showing up.
Above article by Praba Ganesa;
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/praba-ganesan/55180-pkr-will-go-on
Praba Ganesan is a Hulu Langat boy with a penchant for durians and debate. He is part of balairakyat, an NGO promoting ideas exchange
Despite all the desertions and dissertations, PKR is the only party due to its ideology and membership make-up — in look and feel — which has the value proposition to compete with Umno.
The other Pakatan Rakyat parties?
DAP wants to shed its Chinese-only perception, and PAS is actively on the way to becoming a fully-integrated Islamic-principled party.
They need time to force some paradigm shifts and stay intact through that process to become what they desire.
But for now, it is PKR which fills that void, due to its history and development.
You have to move back in time to retrace this story, the story of PKR and to know what it was and is, what it always promises to become — and come short — and the common malaises which haunts it.
Somewhere in the vaults of the major media companies — from a time before Internet portals — various pictures of Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders celebrating their 1995 general election landslide victory sit. They are filed and stored, but not for reproduction in the present.
You will see a nervous but relieved Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The substantial losses of 1990 to the trio of Semangat 46-PAS-DAP and rebelling Parti Bersatu Sabah had died down. The economy was purring.
Nothing advertised the ‘times-are–a-changing’ better than having a Malay language graduate and Islamist firebrand rebranding himself as finance minister.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will be found in that picture holding up Dr M’s hands and they would be smiling from ear to ear. Not far would be Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, and all the usual characters from the Umno family.
Umno was in its zenith, it was impregnable. The landslide victory vindicating the thinking that a race party is the answer for Malaysia. Everyone was content.
It was postulated that only Umno could end its own dream. And the script went exactly that way.
The Anwar dismissal in 1998 and subsequent protests and trials were monumental but not decisive. It was the diaspora of Umno grassroot leaders and members into what was not an Umno-clone which was.
The creation of Parti Keadilan with the intention of seeking justice for all and political change was unprecedented. A large number of Umno members rejected Umno. Their reasons, their allegiance to Anwar and even naïve think that the move would result in immediate change did not affect the cumulative effect of it.
A sea was crossed, for a population afraid of drowning in a water bucket.
The colossal loss of Malay votes in Election 1999 meant PAS was the biggest parliamentary winner after BN. It was important for the Umno strategists that Parti Keadilan ended up third behind the religionists and DAP.
Let’s get this out of the way. Keadilan as a party is not the fear for Umno. Keadilan as a concept is. There was never a practically multiracial party with a Malay spine since the days of Datuk Onn Jaafar. And that was enough to scare the pants off Umno.
Which is why Election 2004 — despite the landslide win — remained somewhat unsatisfying to Umno for it did not bury Keadilan — which was now PKR following its marriage with Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM).
Everywhere PKR — especially the ex-PRM candidates — was falling like bowling pins and the defeated crew quickly licked their wounds and turned their eyes to events in Permatang Pauh.
Party president Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was being run very close for what was to be their single parliamentary seat.
After several recounts, Azizah kept her seat in Dewan Rakyat.
PKR was to have a heart-beat until the next election.
In the 10 years of existence leading to Election 2008 PKR was plagued by problems. Of its Malayness isolating non-Malay issues.
Of leaders — who left the lap of luxury inside Umno and expecting a short spell in the desert — growing disappointed with a leadership which was struggling with its own teething problems.
Of its inspiration — Anwar — imprisoned for most of that time.
However, the ex-Umno faction gave the party reach to places like Dengkil and Bukit Semanggol and not just in Petaling Jaya and Johor Baharu. They were more than just the sentimental choice of unionists and NGOs — which PRM was unfortunately and unfairly stereotyped before merging with the less chic Keadilan dudes.
The party despite its lack of political wins was operating nationwide.
But the active political observer has to recollect that leading up to Election 2008 PKR had only one closely-won parliamentary seat to show, and lost the assembly contest in the Ijok by-election to a newbie candidate.
That is why the critique that PKR should have recruited better candidates for Election 2008 is hubristic if you have been rooting for change in Malaysia prior to 2008.
The idea of contesting with little financial support from a party with six wins in two general elections was not enticing enough to capable candidates.
Names had to be put on the ballot for all the parliamentary and assembly seats PKR negotiated with PAS and DAP, keeping to the promise of one on one contests against BN nationwide.
And in the future there will be other surprises in the party. PKR suffers more than DAP and PAS, because the two latter parties have been in the game longer as opposition parties, lived without political pork-barrel which comes with winning and are not inundated with those previously with the enemy.
That is why it is tough for PKR, but I feel they escaped the bigger body blow in 2004.
The concept of a multiracial party with substantial Malay presence will grow as fewer and fewer leaders in it would be ex-Umno men with living memories of a better life; joined by a generation of local graduates with less caution than their parents seeking a party to back their multicultural aspirations.
The challenge for PKR is to keep its general momentum through that transition.
They can’t counter the mainstream media attacks, costly branding exercises and the financial incentives BN relies on, but they have to sustain the broad belief in a multicultural Malaysia built on effective leadership not race leadership.
If PKR passes the present low-point then all roads will lead to Putrajaya eventually as mixed race-seats in the country hits past the critical mass line.
But politics is all year round even if elections are not. And as PKR deals with adolescence, trying to balance between better candidates and realpolitik maybe a few more people have to step forward.
They say in politics, half of it is in showing up.
Above article by Praba Ganesa;
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/praba-ganesan/55180-pkr-will-go-on
Praba Ganesan is a Hulu Langat boy with a penchant for durians and debate. He is part of balairakyat, an NGO promoting ideas exchange
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