Posted by Raja Petra
Monday, 10 March 2008
So remember who put you where you are today. Remember who gave you
your job. The rakyat can hire and the rakyat can fire. We, the
rakyat, made you and we, the rakyat, can break you. Just remember
that and with God as our witness we shall not fail to do that if you
fail to do what you promised to do.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Since yesterday I have been receiving a lot of phone calls from
people who keep asking me what position I am going to hold in the
government. I also have tons of e-mails in my in-box which I have
either not read yet or have not replied to thus far. Firstly, can you
please stop phoning so that I can get down to writing my article
(anyway, I have switched off my phone so that I can complete this
article). We can 'chat' about what the opposition needs to do later
plus I will reply to all your e-mails once the dust settles.
Now, with regards to my 'position' in the government. No, no and no!
I do not wish to hold any position in the government. I know some of
you have threatened to 'protest' in front of the party headquarters
if I am not offered at least a Senator's post. Hey, I do not want to
be a Senator or Wakil Rakyat or anything at all for that matter. I
just want to continue being plain Raja Petra Kamarudin, Editor and
Webmaster of Malaysia Today -- so please drop all this talk of me
'holding a position in the government'.
Secondly, Malaysia Today is going to continue playing the role of
watchdog and the conscience of the nation. We must continue to be the
eyes, ears and voice of the rakyat and this must be done with me
outside the government. Malaysia Today, which is already a nightmare
for the ruling party, is going to now also be the nightmare of the
five opposition-led state governments. And we are going to monitor
these five states even closer than we watch the federal government.
Now, with regards to the talk floating around that Tok Guru Haji
Abdul Hadi Awang has announced that Kedah is going to introduce Hudud
laws; this is not true. Tok Guru confirmed he never made such an
announcement. The trouble is, many of you wear these 'boycott the
mainstream media' T-shirts yet you still read and believe what the
mainstream media spins. Would you become terrible offended if I shout
'Bodoh punya orang!'? I really don't know what else to shout under
these circumstances.
Let me repeat what I have said many, many times in the past. PAS does
not have 150 seats in Parliament. In fact, PAS, DAP and PKR combined
do not have 150 seats in Parliament. Read my lips. "PAS NEEDS 150
SEATS IN PARLIAMENT TO CHANGE THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY OR OF THE
STATES!"
Anyway, 150 seats or no 150 seats, PAS does not intend to introduce
Islamic laws, PERIOD.
Okay, can we now get down to some serious work? Our first task in
hand is to set up an Ombudsman committee that will monitor all the
five state governments of Kelantan, Kedah, Penang, Perak and
Selangor. A man such as Tun Salleh Abas or anyone of his calibre must
head the Ombudsman committee which will comprise of men and women of
standing and with squeaky-clean reputations. They must be people like
Gandhi and Mother Theresa both rolled into one. Yes, Malaysia does
have plenty of such people.
The Ombudsman must be above the Chief Minister and Menteri Besar. It
must have the power and authority to summon even the highest man in
the state to come before the committee for questioning on anything at
all that may be perceived as wrongdoing, transgressions, deviations,
etc. And the Ombudsman must have the power and authority to recommend
the removal of any public servant or politician who may have
committed a breach of discipline, even if he is the Chief Minister/
Menteri Besar.
This Ombudsman shall be responsible to the rakyat. The meetings and
official inquiries it conducts must not be behind closed doors but
shall be open inquiries where members of the public who may be
interested in the goings-on can attend and witness the proceedings.
Everything must be transparent and open to public scrutiny. There
shall be no secrets. Public servants and elected officials work for
the rakyat. The rakyat are the boss. So the 'boss' must be allowed to
witness any public inquiry and proceedings convened to look into the
conduct of their 'employees'. There must be no compromise on this issue.
The government must not be race-based, and certainly not religion-
based. People chosen to head the agencies in any of the five states
must be based on capabilities and not because that person is Malay,
Chinese or Indian. Granted, the Federal Constitution of Malaysia may
state who can be Menteri Besar while the election promise was, if the
opposition wins Penang, then a Chinese shall be the Chief Minister.
But that must be as far as race considerations prevail. For thereon
no positions should be filled because we want more Malays or more
Chinese or more Indians in the government.
If qualifications and capabilities become the criteria, then Malays,
Chinese and Indians would automatically be represented at all levels
of government. Just give him or her the job because he or her is the
best person for the job and the racial balance would automatically
happen. You do not even need to try too hard.
All ongoing projects must be reviewed. Those that have not taken off
yet and which are clearly white elephants, projek mewah, above the
recommended cost, etc., should be aborted. Of course, those that have
contractual obligations will have to go on lest the state becomes
embroiled in legal tangles. But they must be aborted not for the sake
of aborting them or because they have been awarded to cronies of 'the
other side'. This would smack of political persecution and witch-
hunting, something the opposition has accused the government of
perpetuating and something we should not do as well.
Take note that the federal government will certainly squeeze the
states of funds so money will be very tight. The states will have to
engage a high-powered team of financial consultants to advice them on
how to run a state government and still develop the state with no
money. Kelantan has done it for 18 years. They inherited a colossal
amount of debt when they took over Kelantan in 1990 and yet still
managed to pay off all the debts plus carry the cost of running the
state in spite of no money.
The local councils are more corrupted than the infamous Royal
Malaysian Police. This needs to be immediately addressed and many
heads should be on the chopping block. The state governments must be
ruthless with no quarters asked nor any given. Let there be a
'bloodbath' if necessary. And send the files of all these crooks to
the Anti-Corruption Agency and demand that they be hung from the
highest tree. The rakyat will gladly pay for the cost of the tree.
The Malays should stop talking about 'percentage of Malay
representation', as should the Chinese and Indians as well. We
certainly want a meritocracy rather than a race-quota-based system.
Nevertheless, no race or community must be left out of the
government. So a delicate balancing act between meritocracy, yet
taking into consideration racial representation, has to be the game
plan here.
Remember, the opposition won these five states plus denied Barisan
Nasional its two-thirds majority in Parliament through promises and
rhetoric. The consideration of the voters the next election will no
longer be based on promises and rhetoric but on performance and
delivery. Many promises were made this election. Now is the time to
deliver them. Then, come the next election, the voters will either
continue electing this same government into office or opt to change
back to Barisan Nasional depending on how well or how bad the five
state governments have performed.
If you think that winning these five states and denying Barisan
Nasional its two-thirds majority in Parliament was difficult, then
you do not know what difficult is. Winning five states and denying
Barisan Nasional its two-thirds majority in Parliament was the easy
part. The difficult part is going to be in maintaining the confidence
and support of the voters. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi won 92% of the seats
in 2004 based on promises and four years later got massacred when he
did not deliver. The same thing can and will happen to the opposition
as well come the 13th General Election if it does not perform and/or
deliver its election promise.
Malaysia Today is watching. And we shall whack the daylights out of
anyone and everyone who misbehaves or forgets his or her promise. The
opposition won the five states and 82 seats in Parliament with the
support of Malays, Chinese and Indians. It needed all the races to
cross the finishing line. Just two races would not have achieved
that. One race would have been even more impossible.
So remember who put you where you are today. Remember who gave you
your job. The rakyat can hire and the rakyat can fire. We, the
rakyat, made you and we, the rakyat, can break you. Just remember
that and with God as our witness we shall not fail to do that if you
fail to do what you promised to do.
*************************
P.S. Sorry that since 11.00pm Saturday night Malaysia Today has been
very sluggish. Even I can't get in to update the site. Our traffic is
three times the normal traffic and we have added extra servers,
doubled the bandwidth, and even shut off the comments section to
reduce the load on the servers. Yet, the site is still sluggish. It
would help if you log off after reading the news and log back on
later when you want to read it again. I am pouring as much as I can
into improving our service but there is just so much I can afford, so
please bear with us.
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