What kind of promises are these? Call this election promise kah? Come on la, be more creative and come out with something useful. RM1000 for 12 months, is less than RM100 per month. By the time you come into power, I doubt the money will have any useful value.  If RM5,000 per person, then its more reasonable.

Free wifi or wireless broadband? Its possible or not to cover all the remote areas first? And please state the minimum speed so that not putar belit like our current providers. I expect 20MB all over Malaysia within the next 3 years.

And cancelling saman ekor? I’m sure there are better options like installing more CCTVs along highways and/or review of highway speed along with cancellation of such summons.

I fail to see how this can directly impact the economy or social standard of the community.  There’s so many other promises we can expect: review of laws, equal footing for schools, revamp of civil service, upgrading of transportation, removal of equity requirements, removal of monopolies in trade and business licenses, housing for poor and middle income families, improvement of education system, etc.

I expect much more than free wifi, RM1000 for senior citizens and abolishment of postal summons (saman ekor)!

The DAP has embarked on what appears to be a quest to boost its popularity ahead of the coming 13th general election, with three promises to the people should the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) capture Putrajaya.

The promises are — to abolish the saman ekor (postal summons) system, to provide annual payments of RM1,000 to each senior citizen aged above 60 and to provide free wi-fi or wireless broadband throughout Malaysia.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said that the party’s central executive committee had agreed yesterday to issue a blanket directive to all party leaders to work on publicising these three promises during all political functions.

“These are the three policy initiatives that will bring benefit to the people that we are confident will be carried out by the PR should we win Putrajaya.

“We do not just want to harp on the corrupt practices of the Barisan Nasional but we also want to talk about what we can do for the people,” he told a press conference at the party headquarters here.

Lim noted that the practice of blacklisting owners of vehicles was not only unfair but should also be declared illegal by the courts for it was in contrary to the principles of natural justice.

“We also want to provide this annual payments of RM1,000 to senior citizens as a sign of appreciation for their past contributions to the country,” he said.

He noted that the policy would merely cost the government RM2.1 billion annually.

“What is RM2.1 billion when the country squanders RM28 billion annually to corruption,” he pointed out.

The Penang chief minister also cited an article from the global weekly magazine The Economist, pointing out that even the internationally renowned magazine was agreeable to the concept of providing money for the poor.

“This is a number one capitalist economic magazine who does not believe in giving money. But it is true that if you help those in need, there is a multiplier effect. People will spend the money and this will in turn help to generate and liven up the economy,” he said.

Lim pointed out that such a policy was also implemented in Thailand.

“In Thailand, they believe that it is the responsibility of the government to give people money when they need it. They believe that if the government does not adhere to this, they should change the government,” he said.

On the third promise to provide free wi-fi to throughout the country, Lim noted that the country needed to change with the moving times.

“We must innovate and only when you do that, you are racing to the top. If not, you are racing to the bottom,” he said.

The DAP leader denied that the three promises were merely populist measures or a form of vote-buying.

“What vote-buying? We are not even having an election now. Why is it wrong to give money to the people? To the BN, giving money to themselves is not wrong but giving money to the people is,” he claimed.

He noted that Malaysia was behind for it does not adopt international practices such as attempting to empower the poor and the elderly.

Lim also claimed that the DAP’s policy suggestions had been accepted by all PR parties and would duly be implemented should the fledgling coalition wrest Putrajaya from the BN in the coming general election.

“I have spoken to the other parties and it is not a problem. In any case, it is not about objecting, only on how to implement these policies,” he said, adding that he had also spoken with PR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Lim also said that the DAP, in introducing such promises, was showing its strong denial that it was anti-Malay and a communist party.