Can MCA Party revive

Can MCA party leaders able to revitalize the party satisfactorily and regain some position in the coming 14^th.General Election? Can MCA able to find opportunity under the present confusing state of event to regain support from the people especially the Malaysian Chinese community in the coming 14^th.General Election? The coming 14^th.General Election is just a few years ahead and not too long to wait. My answer is yes, provided its leaders play the right card.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. The present confusing state of events happening to our beloved country started with the disappearance of MH370. Tedious and expensive investigations were conducted and until now there is no satisfactory conclusion.

Then the disaster of MH17 came. MH17 was shot down while flying over Ukraine air space. The Ukraine government or the Russian backed rebels who are presently at war with each other, category denied responsibility for this act and our government has no headway to the investigation.

The political upheaval created in Selangor. The Mentri Besar of Selangor who is a member of PKR was sacked from membership by his own party for failing to abide to party instruction. Even though lost of PKR membership he refused to step down abruptly and to vacate the post of Mentri Besar until a proper replacement is being accepted by the HRH the Sultan of Selangor. At present the replacement is yet to be agreed by the component parties especially party PAS. 

The impending break-up of PR is hot in the air. PAS being a partner to PR refused to abide to the decision of PKR of replacing the current Mentri Besar. The refusal if not reversed, may lead to the break-up leaving PKR and DAP to carryon in the PR.

The impending implementation of the unpopular Goods and Services Tax (GST) The implementation of this tax next year 2015 will create many job opportunity to the young graduates but it will be very unpopular to the public and the small business establishments at large. The public believe the extra 6% tax escalated at least three times for goods and services is too high and the need of the small business establishments to employ the extra hand to cater for the maintenance of the account of this tax will eventually cause hardship to them. 

With all these happenings I believe if one really pays attention to them, and able to solve their adverse impact then it would change the fortune of the party. This is the time MCA must show they can perform and deliver not empty talks

Y.B. Chew Mei Fun direct approach with NGOs ( Wanita )

BRAVO to YB Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun, the current Assistant Minister of Women Welfare.

BRAVO to her new direct approach in rallying the support of the women folks in Penang state and getting first hand information from them with the view to understand their needs and expectations.

Direct approach, by way of meeting face to face with the targeted group rather than getting feedbacks from proxies or third parties is something new. In my opinion this course of action is praise worthy. Those who have the chance of meeting her face to face and a chance to hear directly from her can evaluate for themselves how sincere and how good she is. This could be the best approach for her to gain support for herself in the coming 14^th.General Election.

She, on 26 July, 2014 did a direct approach dialog with the women representatives from quite a number of NGOs in Penang at Eastin Hotel Bayan Baru. The dialog session was very impressive. She enlightened the women folks with the latest information on how best her ministry had been trying to assist those in need of help but unfortunately the head way was slow and ineffective. He threw open to any progressive, sincere women leader to take up the challenge to initiate meaningful programs to help the needy and she will approve fund for such projects. Any women leader can at any time approach her 3 recently appointed secretaries for help. She also informed the participants that in the future she will inform those who had registered themselves earlier and especially those who were present in this dialog session, directly of any future activities that they should know and not through any so called leaders who often failed to pass the message onwards.

Although the number of representative was not much, approximately about 100persons from about 24 NGOs yet it had created a good impact. In my opinion if such meaningful dialog can be conducted regularly I am sure there will be more participants.

Dr. Chan 26.07.14

Result of the Bukit Gelugor By-election

Result of the Bukit Gelugor By-election held on 25.05.14 has more to tell

The result of the By-election was announced by the Chairman of the Election Commission at 9.05 pm after the closing of the voting at5.00pm.

Candidate Ramkarpal of the DAP won the Bukit Gelugor Parliamentary seat. He scored 41,242 votes which was approximately 88% of the total 46,999 votes casted. He obtained the majority of 37,659 votes. This showed the constituents preferred him to the others.

The rest of the contestants (1) Huan from Party Cinta managed to gather 3,583 votes. (2) Mohd Nabi, the independent managed to receive 799 votes and (3) Abu Backer another independent managed to receive 225 votes. All of them could not even gather 1/8% of the total votes. All their deposits given to secure a place to contest were confiscated by the Election Commission.

The turnout of voters was surprisingly low, only about 56.4 %. The Election Commission expected a 70% turnout. Those who turnout were mainly from the older generation whereas those who failed to turnout were from the young generation. According to the Election Commission, it was estimated that 37% of the total 82,431 registered voters between 21 years and 39 years had not voted.

This is rather surprising. At campaigning sessions we observed scores of youngsters rather than the elders were around listening to the speakers but they absented themselves on the day of voting. What could have been the cause? This low turnout phenomenon needs to be looked into seriously. Just to dismiss this matter believing they took it easy because they had already known who the winner was may not be entirely right.    

Dr. Chan          

Malaysians are in a Dilemma

Malaysians are in a ‘Dilemma’

Of late, Malaysia seemed to be plagued by the burning issue of attempting to replace the long standing penal law with the Islamic penal law, the Hudud. Majority of the population non-Muslim and Muslim alike feared that eventually, beginning from the state of Kelantan, other states sooner or later will follow suit and eventually the whole country will adopt the Hudud. With that Malaysia will be noted as an Islamic state. By the by the Democratic system will be automatically unimportant. The Federal Constitution guaranteeing the secular status Malaysia is no more. The question is, with the Islamic state status what will the future of the country be? Of course, no one can say for sure what will Malaysia be but we can still predict the out-come by looking at what had happened to the Middle East countries and of our neighbor Brunei. Brunei has very recently, about a week ago, declared the implementation of Hudud for the country. It shocked the world. The world reaction to this could be said was unfavorable. A certain group of people, formally the supporters of Sultan, withdrew their support and in addition advocated a boycott to all his businesses. In fact, the economy of the Sultan is the economy of the country. To what extend the economy of Brunei will be affected it is left to be seen.

What actually is Hudud? Yes, it is Islamic penal law. But why is it feared? My understanding is that the uneven implementation of punishment is the cause of the fear.

Offences classified as criminal offenses are: (1) Absence from Friday prayer services

                                                                               (2) Becoming pregnant out of wedlock

                                                                               (3) Wearing indecent clothing and for women refusal to         wear a hijab

                                                                               (4) Employing a non-Muslim babysitter

                                                                               (5) The use of the word “Allah” by Christians and the discussion of faith by any non-Muslims

                                                                               (6) Publicly eating and drinking during Ramadan

                                                                               (7) Theft

                                                                               (8) Homosexuality and

                                                                               (9) Adultery

Punishment is imposed to the offender according to his station in life. The same offence committed punishment can be at different levels.  The range of punishment can be from the lightest, this is a fine and to the heaviest, that is stoning to death. In between, there are jail sentence, amputation of limbs and public flogging, all depending who you are or whom you know. 

Judging from the above criminal offences and punishments for them may I ask, can the present modern society whether Muslims or non-Muslims agree and accept them?

Again you may question, where are the Muslim intellectuals? Why are they silent about this issue?

Dr. Chan    15.05.2014

Food for thoughts

My afterthought after reading the comment of Professor James Chin and the comment of Khoo Kay Peng on the decision of MCA not to take part in the coming 25^th.May 2014 Bukit Gelugor By-election.

Professor James Chin saw the decision of MCA not participating in the By-election was the correct move. To him it would be a waste of resources and sacrifice of good leader knowing full-well it would be a lost contest. Could it be said he was prudent?

Whereas Khoo Kay Peng saw it as a lost of a good opportunity to grill DAP on the issue of Huddud (Islamic penal law) regardless of the outcome of the By-election. Could it be said he was fool-hardy?

 Ong Kar Chuan, the Secretary-General of MCA came out with the reason that the Party is concentrating in opposing the issue of impending implementation of Huddud (Islamic penal law) and the party could not be bothered with the Bukit Gelugor By-Election. Could this be a good reason?

From the comments of these intellects it would appear to me our Malaysian Chinese intellects are lacking far behind in wise thinking. They may be literate and having a style but without actual substance.

Dr. Chan

Bukit Gelugor By-Election

The late YB Karpal Singh was a lawyer by profession, Chairman of a political party, DAP and also a member of Malaysian Parliament.

In the early hour of Thursday the 17^th.April, 2014 while on his way back from Kuala Lumpur to Penang on the North/South Express way his chauffer driven car collided with a moving lorry at the stretch near Gua Tempurong, in the state of Perak. It was a nasty fatal accident He died on the spot.

The Election Commission on April 24^th. 2014 announced that a By-election had been decided to replace the late YB Karpal.  It was decided that nomination date will be on May 12^th. 2014 and polling day will be on May 25^th. 2014. The early voting date will be on May 21^st. 2014.

Statically, Bukit Gelugor Parliamentary constituency has 82,431 registered voters. 74.5% are Chinese, At the last General election, May 2013, the late YB Karpal scored 41,778 Majority over Teh Beng Yeam from the MCA.

DAP now needs to carefully select one suitable person to replace him in the coming By-election, even though it is a foregone conclusion that any person picked to contest from the DAP ticket will surely win. This conclusion is mainly based on the past election statistic and as well as from the sentiment of the people who showed up at the funeral of the late YB Karpal.

A wrong selection of candidate will bring a bad image to the party and may even jeopardize future elections.

If you care to reflect on the present situation, a situation from the time the DAP took power till now it would appear visible incompetency of the government to govern properly is showing. Incompetency has shown up here and there.

For examples, street lights at important stretch of roads were not on at the right time. It appeared no one to supervise the correct timing of switching on the street lights. That was why traffic accidents were on the rise. Open drains at Taman were not swept properly. It seemed there was no supervisor to see the workers did their duties properly. Workers after reported their attendance, took up their tools, carried out their duties half-heartedly for a short period of time and then they grouped together to chit chat until the time was up and they left calling it a day. The clog-up drains could be the cause for the increase of dengue case. Health Department had reported that already about 30,000 cases of dengue cases treated and it had caused 60 deaths.  Public lavatories and public wash basins especially at public markets were filthy and water either leaking from taps or taps not workable. What had happened to the market inspectors? All these appeared to be small matters but they created an impression of incompetency to govern.

Strangely, out of nowhere the hurriedly formed Penang Action Party (PAP) which is yet to be registered with the Registrar of Societies came into picture.

The Chairman of the PAP, Dato Go Chui Tiong (believed to be a member of the MCA) through his spokesman Saw Chong Tatt, he declared the party is Barisan Nassional friendly. He further declared the party has 2000 members. It has the support of 44 Chinese NGOs from Penang. The objective of the party is to ensure Penang state is to be governed by local Penang born and not outsiders. Let us see how this fly by night party will fair. I believe it will fade out soon after the By-election.

MCA has learned a lesson by entering the Kajang By-election and lost. Refraining from competing in this BY-election is a right move.

Dr. Chan      

Analysis of Kajang By-election

A rough analysis of Kajang By-election on 23.3.14 :

It was a fight between the PR and BN only, and it was represented by Dr. Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismail of the Keadilan and Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun of the MCA. The result was Dr. Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismail of the Keadilan won.

On the basis of Party, in my opinion, it was obvious PR had slightly improved its popularity, making inroad into the BN strong- hold and had also improved the overall popularity vote by 1.6 % since the previous election (58.0% to 59.6%)

The gaining of a few extra votes, in BN traditional held areas no doubt looked insignificant in comparing with the previous election yet it showed the popularity of the PR had gained ground.

The reduction of majority vote of the PR as popularized by the presses cannot be considered as accurate as there was correspondingly decrease of voters who came out to vote. This reduction was expected. We had only 72% of the voters who came out to vote whereas previously in May 5, 2013, we had 88% of the voters who came out to vote. (Total turnout 28314 and represented 72% and 34290 represented 88%)

The missing voters could be classified under the following categories:

(a)           Those who work out-station and found it difficult to return to vote. Majority of these could be long distance out-station workers and could not get leave.

(b)           Those who think an extra vote was not necessary as it was a foregone conclusion PR would win. Under this category it could be from any group.

(c)             Those on polling day had left the country for holidays or in business. Under this category it could be from the business group.

(d)           Those for some unknown reason, refused to vote. This was an insignificant group, but it did add up to the figure of absentee.

 

Detail are: PKR netted 16,741 votes

                           BN netted 11362 votes

                           Majority 5379 votes

                       PKR 59.5% of the votes

The overall result of the By- election showed that BN had slightly lost in the Malay area. That indicated the strategy applied did not suit them. On the other hand BN had made some gain in the Chinese area. Maybe the strategy applied might have some impact on them.

My opinion: A total new strategy that could be accepted by the voters is needed for the next contest in order to win. With the present strategy I am afraid it may not work out well.

Dr. Chan