it is extremely important to save the Opposition from a BN rout

Q: As Malaysians approach the next general elections, the mainstream media is continually harping on an alleged "lack of issues".

A: This is combined with the implicit, if not explicit claim of the apparent failure of the Opposition to raise any issues, implying that everything has improved, with remaining problems of the Mahathir administration resolved after four and a half months of the new PM. Like the Hindu extremist BJP in India, the BN is counting on "the feel good" factor after the first 140 days of AAB, with the elections being presented as a referendum on AAB.

It is good to have a referendum on the PM, but that means providing people with some real basis for one. Instead, while there are a few much appreciated changes, so much more nonsense has not been touched. A few crumbs have been thrown our way, and we are expected to jump for joy and sign away our future. If they truly want a referendum, then they should have held off the elections for a few more months, so we can see how serious his reforms are. Mahathir started in mid-1981, and then called the election in April 1982, almost a year later.

Take the so-called anti-corruption drive, we all know the ACA has been sitting on many cases for a long time. So now we have a long overdue prosecution on a case which involves less than one per cent of the Perwaja losses, publicly acknowledged under Anwar's watch, i.e. almost a decade ago. The case largely involves people abroad, so do not be surprised, if it collapses or is withdrawn after the election.

Then the AG prosecutes a fellow Sabahan who became a minister for being one of the first to desert the PBS when it was in the opposition, i.e. a menteri katak, someone without any serious support in the party, while well-known and larger abuses involving many other serving ministers remain un-prosecuted. And almost none of them were touched during the January cabinet reshuffle!

Worse still, most of the cabinet has been re-nominated to stand in these elections, and are likely to be re-appointed to the next cabinet. Most people believe that most of the cabinet is crooked, but they have all been re-nominated except for the Sarawakians who wanted out anyway. Besides Shahril, some of the other old hands nominated this time round are, perhaps, even worse, including a few Mahathir never even dared to nominate because everyone knew how crooked they were. And we are supposed to believe that this administration is serious about fighting corruption. Come on.

Q: Okay, so corruption is still a problem, but what about cronyism and nepotism?

On abuse and nepotism, what is the difference with Mahathir's or Taib Mahmud's sons or Ling's son or Samy Vellu's? People are asking how does a condom salesman become one of the ten richest Malays in the country (according to Malaysian Business) in less than a decade?

Q: You mean Kamal Abdullah Badawi, who was in charge of selling male contraception for Sime Darby?

A: You said that, not me. Look at the Scomi scandal. First, denial, and even threats. Then, after claiming how technologically sophisticated the company is, they claim to be ignorant and blame it all on foreigners - Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Singaporeans.

Q: You talk about the three Cs: corruption, cronyism and crime. Why has crime become an issue?

A: There are many reasons including the emergence of a judicial system which cynics describe as the best money can buy. This became clear in some civil cases.

Meanwhile, business or commercial crime grew with a number of government reforms from the mid-1980s, and contributed to political private businesses and the expansion of money politics.

When Tan Koon Swan was building up his grassroots challenge to the MCA leadership in the early 1980s, this spread. He recruited grassroots Chinese community leaders, but after he was convicted, the new leadership increasingly used secret societies and other illicit arrangements, as acknowledged by the MCA Youth Leader.

Thus, the rise of Ong Ka Ting from when he was Deputy Home Affairs Minister and his relationship with people like 'Jackie Chan', who went back to Penang to a huge dinner welcome before Chinese New Year.

There were parallel developments involving the MIC, but the growing marginalization and alienation of the Indian community has also resulted in much worse indicators in terms of unemployment, lousy jobs, drug abuse, alcoholism, violence against women, criminal employment and police brutality.

Meanwhile, morale among the police has been going down, with more and more now opting to 'cari makan' on their own. All this has been well known for a long time, but was tolerated, even encouraged as long as the police bosses did the bidding of their political masters.

Now, look at the Royal Commission on the police, with the former IGP calling the shots as Deputy Chair. What can we expect? And when citizens' representatives tried to see the Commission, they get thrown into jail! This is just like Bush appointing a commission to investigate the failure of US intelligence on Iraq, which is only supposed to report next year, i.e. after the president election in November 2004.

Clearly, the spin-doctors are banking on the people not remembering the thousand and one issues around, big and small, from the economy to crime, from traffic woes to flash floods, from abuse of the EPF and the health care system to the computer labs fiascos and other jobs for the boys.

Q: But the economic situation is improving, is it not?

A: Yes, there is some improvement, but as in recent years, it is because of improving international circumstances, not the success of the policies adopted after 1998.

Foreign investment has fallen since 1997, especially in 2001. The only reason the figure grew in 2002 was for petroleum and the Dubai bauxite smelting investment, which has since been cancelled.

If KeADILan gets wiped out, this could well mean the end of KeADILan and will finish Anwar. This will mean a permanently polarized Opposition incapable of offering Malaysians an alternative.

We have run huge budget deficits since then, but besides jobs for the boys, there has been minimal effect on reviving the economy. But everyone knows that the US economic recovery has been engineered for the election year. Then what happens to us?

Meanwhile, unemployment is getting worse. The February 2004 employment figures clearly indicate things are getting worse.

According to the BN Manifesto, average monthly household income has almost tripled from RM1167 to RM3011! It looks as if we are going to achieve the Wawasan 2020 target ahead of time! But after you take account of inflation, the story is different. This means an average annual growth rate of 8.2 per cent, which may have been true for 1990-97, but surely was not the case after that. Remember the economy contracted badly in 1998 and was flat in 2001. The numbers just do not add up, and we are being asked to believe that household income rose faster than the economy. Malaysia boleh!

The other thing which has helped us is China, especially China's demand for palm oil and tourists from there and Muslim countries to Malaysia.

While we should be happy about the suspension of the over-priced double-tracking project, Bakun is still being built with few jobs created. And Bakun should be able to generate so much electricity, but Brunei and Indonesia do not want to buy it at such prices. That is also partly why Dubai Aluminium pulled out, so what do we do with all that electricity generated, which could have been generated at much less cost with the natural gas from Bintulu, etc.

Q: But the BN claims tremendous progress in education?

A: Since 1998, little has been done to support the promised transition to services and the knowledge economy. Instead, early this year, the government implemented cutbacks in the education and health budgets, without announcing them, perhaps until after the elections. This will only worsen the ICT mess in the schools and continue to undermine education. Instead of improving salary and work conditions for teachers, the classroom is being undermined by encouraging teachers and pupils to rely on after-class tuition. Such cuts in government spending are going to adversely affect the people as well as future development prospects. Cut wasteful government spending by all means, especially contracts for cronies, but not social spending for goodness sake.

How to "feel good" about the declining quality and standard of education? How to "feel good" when they continue to insist on politics regulating education, including of teaching and learning, of student activity and independence?

Q: The BN boasts about all these foreign universities coming here to set up branch campuses?

A: I would feel ashamed when Monash University opens a branch campus here since Monash is about the same age as UKM and USM. What good is it when the necessary resources to improve and expand educational access to all, especially higher education, are either being denied, or else squandered - the computer labs disaster, the cut-backs this year, etc.

How are parents supposed to "feel good" when Chinese primary schools - recognised in the Education Act, seen as part of the education system of the country - are, again, an election political football, instead of being, as it should, be a straightforward, rational, administrative matter: a school's catchment moves away, the rational thing is the school is allowed to relocate to reach its catchment - what's the big deal that it needs a minister to decide, a chief minister to give support, and all this just as elections approach.

Q: You seem to be very pessimistic about the elections.

A: Outside of Kelantan and Terengganu, where the political dynamics are different, and the BN has failed to offer a credible alternative leadership, the Opposition is in very serious trouble. This is clear in Sabah and Sarawak although there is a great deal of unhappiness there, especially among the non-Muslim Bumiputeras, and even among the Muslims and ordinary Chinese, especially in Sarawak. But the Peninsular based opposition parties have had limited success in winning their confidence in providing a credible alternative. It is clear that the BA, especially PAS, is simply not in a position to form an alternative government. In fact, there is little likelihood that the Opposition can break the BN's two-thirds majority, or even save its share of seats in the parliament.

There are the old 3M problems: The BN has so much more money, and the Elections Commission is not paying any attention to the candidates' spending limits and has never really checked if reported spending has any basis in reality.

Although it claims to be a clean government, the ruling BN has not shown any intention to stop abusing its misuse of government machinery and resources for electoral advantage. Also, with its financial and other resources, it generally has superior party electoral machineries. With the even shorter campaign period, this advantage has become decisive.

But most decisive is the BN's control of media. In recent years, MCA has secured direct control of Nanyang and China Press. So the BN control of the broadcast and daily print media is now complete. The Opposition only has its biweekly party papers, which cannot be sold to non-members.

The withdrawal of the DAP from the BA and the unnecessarily publicly acrimonious negotiations only made things worse. The BN controlled media have been quick to take advantage of the Opposition's own goals.

Q: So, why should we not support the PM by voting BN?

A: Let's be clear. The BN is going to win, and by all indications, they are going to win big, i.e. they are going to increase their majority in parliament. Some are even talking about whether their majority will be bigger than in 1995 when the DAP almost got wiped out and PAS almost lost Kelantan. That election basically meant the end of the Semangat 46 and drove them back into UMNO.

If KeADILan gets wiped out, this could well mean the end of KeADILan and will finish Anwar. This will mean a permanently polarized Opposition incapable of offering Malaysians an alternative. This will mean the end of parliamentary checks and balances, and will give the crooks hiding behind the PM blank cheques to do whatever they please to enhance their bank balances. Parliament was rendered increasingly irrelevant by Mahathir, with RTM no longer even bothering to broadcast daily parliamentary reports when the Dewan Rakyat sat.

Hence, it is extremely important to save the Opposition from a BN rout, to ensure a meaningful and effective Opposition parliamentary presence, even though it will be almost impossible to break the two-thirds majority. In this way, the pressure will be on the PM to do better, to be bolder in dealing with corruption, cronyism, crime and all the other BN abuses which have not gone away. Without effective Opposition pressure, forget it, the crooks will take over and rip off the country, the people. They have already been nominated, and are poised to take over.

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