HRP aims to be third political platform

/* August 13th, 2010 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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I can’t say much of the “dreaming of numbers” as it sounds melodramatic, but hey, great things start with one man’s dream, don’t they? Only time will tell how HRP’s ambitions will turn out.

The one problem I envision, with targeting Indian majority seats is that it will most likely be a direct assault on other Indian candidates from either BN or PR. I agree that PR will be most affected as compared to BN if HRP does enter the fray.

Anyway, for long term success, HRP should extend their manifesto beyond Indian community uplifting. They should insert issues that benefit everyone such as housing for the poor, equal education.

Good luck to HRP! Unggal vottu, Uthayavukku?

In the next general election, the Human Rights Party Malaysia (HRP) is aiming to become the third political platform to uplift the socio-economic status of the Indian community in the country.

The party is planning to go for 15 out of the total of 222 parliamentary seats in the nation and 38 out of the total of 576 state seats in the country.

Party pro-tem secretary-general P Uthayakumar (left) said. “I dreamt of the magical number ‘1538’ while I was in detention under ISA in the Kamunting Detention Camp in Taiping and we hope to realise this dream in the coming general election. This will give us the political power to voice out the concerns of the Indian community both in the state assemblies and in Parliament.”

The Indian community had first put their faith in the Umno-BN government but he was disappointed to note that it had denied the Indian community their basic rights to a better socio-economic environment for the past 53 years.

“Then the community opted for the Pakatan Rakyat as a second platform during the last general election, hoping for a change in the political climate of the country.

“They (Pakatan) sailed through the elections by taking four states by politicising our ‘Makkal Sakthi’ theme and benefiting from our labour and even imprisonment,” said the former ISA detainee.

According to him, Pakatan did not measure up to the Indian community’s expectations in solving their economic woes and improving their standard of living.

Pakatan Indian politicians who were elected in constituencies with a large Indian presence failed to highlight the plight of the community both in the state assemblies and in Parliament he charged.

Uthayakumar claimed they were not action-oriented but only gave media statements and lip service and did not bother to go the ground to solve the woes of the marginalised community.

“These elected representatives only played second fiddle to their masters and did not want to offend the Chinese and Malay voters by aggressively campaigning for the rights of their community,” he alleged.

So, HRP has decided to go on the warpath against Pakatan and BN by forming the third platform and this move may put the spanner in the works of Pakatan’s ambition to take over Putrajaya in the next general election.

He accused both BN and Pakatan of harping on Malay and Chinese issues and problems but conveniently forgetting the Indian community.

When asked about allegations that he was attacking Pakatan publicly with the aim of getting his party registered by the Registrar of Societies (ROS), an angry Uthyakumar said, “Our enemy is Umno-BN who had taken away our rights as citizens of this country.”

As the ROS has not approved the application to register HRP, the party will field its candidates as independents under the banner heading of Uthayakumar.

When asked if HRP would work with Pakatan in the coming general election, he said it was possible but with the condition that Pakatan must surrender some of its state and parliamentary seats for HRP.

“We are not going to give a blank cheque to Pakatan but expect seats in return,” said Uthayakumar.

At the moment, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) wants DAP to cede the Jelapang state seat to it or else their candidate will stand as an independent.

Uthayakumar said HRP will also take the same stand if its demand for some of the state and parliamentary seats from Pakatan is unsuccessful.

When told that HRP is seen by some as a racist party, Uthayakumar said the it was formed to help the marginalised Indian community uplift their socio-economic status in the country.

But he quickly added that the spin-off from helping the Indian community would help make all Malaysians equal partners in the economic cake.

HRP has started their preparation for the next general election by targeting the Buntong state seat, which has the highest proportion of Indian voters in the country at 46 percent, and next the parliamentary seat of Ipoh Barat which has 22 percent Indian voters.

The party leader hopes to increase the number of Indian voters in Buntong from 46 percent to 54 percent to make possible a win for HRP.

Then it will go into constituencies with a large Indian presence and increase the Indian voter populations to ensure that they win their seats.

HRP is now highlighting several social problems in the Indian community, including conversion cases involving Indian women, Malaysian born Indians being denied birth certificates and identity cards and the increase in Indian youths turning to crime.

The party also wants Tamil schools, Hindu temples and Hindu cemeteries to be given permanent state land titles and gazetted accordingly.

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I expect more than free wifi, RM1000 and saman ekor cancellation!

/* August 13th, 2010 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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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.

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Chinese community not helping census

/* August 12th, 2010 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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My housing area is 90% Chinese populated. I talked to the boy who came to conduct the census in my area, and he had difficulties too. Residents not believing him, even after showing the ID and so on. I had to email and/or SMS the residents to inform that census is taking place to ensure more cooperation. The questions were not much, covering on occupants, education level, income level, types of electrical/electronic items in the house and such. I filled up the relevant answers myself, numbering about 25 questions. Pity the boy who had to come at night and go house by house. I think he was here for about 2 weeks.

I don’t accept the reason that language is a problem, especially of you are already in mid thirties or forties with school going kids. Maybe just an excuse.

As for how the census data will be used, well that’s anyone’s guess.

Attitude problem among the public, especially the Chinese community, is the main challenge faced by the enumerators in the
ongoing Population and Housing Census of Malaysia 2010, chief statistician and census commissioner Wan Ramlah Wan Abd Raof said today.

She said some of the Chinese residents even claimed that they only spoke Mandarin and not Malay or English language.

“That should not happen because as Malaysians living in Malaysia which had been an independent country for almost 53 years now, they must at least know one of the languages,” she told Bernama.

The census questionnaires which comprised 51 questions in four segments were made available in Malay and English language.

The national census has now entered the third and final phase which began on Aug 7 and will end on Aug 22.

The first phase of the census was conducted from July 6 to July 22, while the second phase took place from July 23 to Aug 6.

During the first phase, Wan Ramlah said about 70 per cent of non-response participants were from the Chinese community.

“We’re not being racist in exposing this issue. Even the prime minister (Najib Abdul Razak) said that the 1Malaysia concept means benefits for all irrespective of ethnic and race groups.

“If we want to implement the concept to everyone, it should follow the statistics by race, by ethnic group,” she explained.

Personally faced ‘attitude’ problem 

Wan Ramlah said she could not believe how the Chinese community could say that they did not understand the census questions because most of them were living in major towns and had every access to education.

“We are afraid that if they did not respond to our census, the community population in the area will be under-counted and the development could not be accurately planned and implemented for the area. 

“It goes to the other states as well. If the states did not respond, they are the ones who will be at a loss,” she said.

Wan Ramlah said she had personally faced the “attitude” problem during one of her visits to a particular residential area where a resident purposely released her dogs to chase them away.

She said if the department wanted to take legal action to such an uncooperative residents, they could simply do so as stipulated in the sub-section 17 of the Census Act 1960.

“Most people don’t know about the action that we can take against the uncooperative residents. We can do so if we want to. Legally, we have the right,” she said.

Under the sub-section 17, a resident who purposely gives incorrect information or take out the yellow census list card from his or her residence within a year, could be fined with RM100 or jailed for a month. 

– Bernama

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Storm in Sitiawan over land acquisition?

/* August 11th, 2010 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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The article from Malaysiakini is at the end, but before that, I’m not clear on why the land was not properly developed for last 80 years. Minus the labratory built in 1964, there should be plenty of space to develop the place. Maybe Sitiawan was a sleepy town all this while, and only now things are picking up. Maybe.

According to the news, the land is partially occupied by the SK Simpang Empat (aka Gandhi school) established in 1934, the school’s field and the DR VRN Menon labratory(built 1964), and the Dindings Indian Association (DIA) club house (according to MP Kula’s website). You can see some pics here. The school has its own website at http://www.skses.edu.my/

Secondly, if the acquisition is for building a school, isn’t the place already partially occupied by a school now? So, maybe its an extension of the school? Then its for a good reason right? Its not like they are going to build a supermarket or highrise condominium there. However, if its to build another school, what’s going to happen to the existing school and the Gandhi Hall, and its history?

Having historical value is a good reason. But having historical and economical contribution to the community is even better reason. Maybe they can work something out. No point owning a piece of land, but not utilising it properly. Build a temple or give land to Tamil school or set up a community hall (get return via rentals), plenty of things can be done.

For 80 years, the Dindings Indian Association in Sitiawan, Perak, has been the steward of a two-hectare plot of land originally purchased with the contributions of rubber tappers.

Last week, the federal government issued notice that it will acquire the land to build a school – the formal hearing of acquisition is to be held on Aug 25 at the Manjung Land Office. 

The Perak DAP has now pitched in with an accusation that there is an ulterior motive behind the move.

State deputy chief M Kulasegaran said the site, located in the heart of town, is worth at least RM20 million now, and that it is the pride of the Indian Malaysian community which makes up 15 percent of the local population.

“Is it true as speculated that part of the prime land will be given to cronies of the people in power for commercial development?” he asked.

He said the plot was bought “with the blood, sweat and tears of the first generation of Indian settlers” who had cleared the jungle for rubber planting.

“Indian rubber-tappers from the 35 estates in Sitiawan had contributed two Straits Settlement dollars each per month for 18 months to purchase this piece of land,” he said.

“The idea of purchasing the land at the time was to build a school for the children of rubber tappers to study English in the afternoon, after attending Tamil school in the morning.”

Part of the site is now occupied the SK Simpang Empat (formerly the Simpang Empat English School), the school field and the VR Menon science laboratory built in 1964.

“There is no logical reason or justification for the government to acquire this piece of land. We are adamant that it should at all times remain in the hands of the Indian community,” Kulasegaran said.

He said that a large number of people will gather at the Manjung Land Office on Aug 25 to object to the proposal. 

Questions that arise

Kulasegaran, who is also Ipoh Barat MP, called on the Perak and federal governments to organise a roundtable conference to discuss the proposed acquisition and arrive at a win-win solution.

It is understood that both governments had carried out a feasability study a year ago, in preparation to acquire the site.

Kulasegaran said the Perak government’s Indian Affairs adviser S Veerasingam (left) had reportedly said that “a settlement will be reached” after discussion with Mentri Besar Zamry Abd Kadir, who is currently abroad. 

He demanded answers from Veerasingam on these questions:

1. Was he aware of the feasibility study? Was the Perak government consulted before the decision on acquisition was made? 

2. Why was there no prior consultation with the local Indian community? 

3. Why did he say a settlement would be reached after the notice of acquisition was issued? 

4. What are the details of the settlement formula? 

Kulasegaran, who was born in Sitiawan, said the Indian community is angered because the move is “most insensitive, unfair and unjustifiable”. 

The community also cannot understand the need for this plot when there is vacant land in many other areas where a new school can be built, he added.

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Wise words from Ramon

/* August 11th, 2010 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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Wise words from Ramon Navaratnam. Pity he isn’t/wasn’t the PM! Unfortunately, can’t say the same about the ex-PM. Must be the age catching up.

Former top civil servant and anti-graft fighter Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam said Malaysians should be able to exercise their right to vote for progressive politics and any party that best serves the public.

Navaratnam told The Malaysian Insider that the electorate should not be held hostage by politicians and their personal political interests.

“Malaysian have now become more mature, and will know how to exercise their rights to vote at the ballot box and don’t need to be told what to do by politicians who need not [necessarily] have the public and national interests at heart,” said the former transport secretary-general during Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s premiership.

He was commenting on Dr Mahathir’s latest blog post, where the ex-premier accused PAS of wooing the Chinese just for votes to gain power and added that “hypocrisy is very much alive in Malaysian politics”.

Yesterday, Navaratnam added that the public are not driven by political parties but progressive politics.

“The Chinese, Indian or any community including those Bumiputeras from Sabah and Sarawak will vote for any party or individuals who promote politics that enhance national unity.

“If PAS can promise and deliver peace, unity and progress, why not vote for PAS? What is wrong in voting for parties and individuals, politicians who are sincere in promoting national unity?” he asked.

Dr Mahathir also wrote that Barisan Nasional (BN) must not give more political power to the Chinese community until the Malays expand their economic stake in the country.

This call, however, drew Navaratnam’s criticism of the country’s longest serving prime minister for mongering racial politics.

“It is a pity that our former prime minister who had international status should now resort to divisive and even racial politics. The power of the people is more important than parochial and provincial attitude.

“If the government of the day is fair to all Malaysians and especially the poor as promoted by the 1 Malaysia policy then we can all live in peace, stability and with greater national unity,” he said.

He added that Dr Mahathir should help Malaysians realise Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1 Malaysia instead of undermining the concept.

“However racial and divisive remarks will not help the 1 Malaysia policy and I hope that Tun Dr Mahathir will use his position of power and influence for public good and the future unity and progress of Malaysia rather than to undermine our prospect for a better Malaysia,” he said.

The country’s fourth prime minister had recently said Malaysians did not understand 1 Malaysia, a concept to unite all races behind the government in the aftermath of BN’s dismal electoral outing in 2008.

Navaratnam then urged young Malaysians to register as voters before the next general election in order to shed the yoke divisive politics and politicians.

“That is why it so important that the nearly five million Malaysians who have not yet registered to vote, should quickly apply register to vote in the next election and show the will and power of the people. Rather than tender to the personal power instinct of individuals,” he said.

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