how will you vote?

With the general elections just around the corner, it's hard not be caught up with the coffeshop talk sweeping across the nation. Suddenly everyone has an opinion on how to run the country, which is a refreshing change from the usual whatever-la attitude.

I asked every person I saw/spoke to this question: Government or Opposition? And the surprise is that the consensus is so extraordinary. People have made up their mind this early. Hmm.

So what gives?

Let's start with Abdullah Badawi, the fresh face after a long 22-year reign by Mahathir Mohamad. When Abdullah Badawi got elected as PM, he made a lot of promises. He promised to stamp out corruption and be more transparent, which are the biggest gripes I have under the former administration. For that, we gave him a clear majority but eh, what happened??

Dear Pak Lah, did you fell asleep for the last 4 years or so? Not only did nothing changed but I strongly believe things got worse! The economy has been mehh and all your visions, abandoned. There's talk that your son-in-law is da man behind the PM and he tends to make some remarkably stupid statements every time he opens his mouth, because y'know, he thinks he's all that. Bak kata pepatah, kerana setitik nila, rosak susu sebelanga. Mat Gemilang my ass.

You, Pak Lah, are getting senile. You deny one thing today but you do the opposite the next day. Case in point, when you denied rumours that you're getting hitched and when you denied the Parliament would be dissolved the following day. Could this be the reason why you forgot what you promised us?

Your politicians tell us, don't be so unhappy. At least we have racial harmony, we should be thankful for that. If hor, like what they say, racial unity is so important, why do we then have communal based parties? Why is there a need to identify my bangsa in various application forms? Just how real is this racial unity thingy you're selling us?

Got some more. Why are we not allowed to question the Dasar Ekonomi Baru (NEP)? Surely it is obsolete by now. The NEP has deviated so far from its goal of eradicating poverty irregardless of races. Read that again: IRREGARDLESS OF RACES. It now only benefit the Melayus and only a small section of elite Melayus for that matter.

Another sore point: UMNO. I'm sure many would agree UMNO is getting bloody cocky these days. UMNO is the base of Barisan and therefore the government. Everyone knows that. UMNO believes in upholding the special "birthrights" of Bumiputera. They call themselves a right-wing party. Then you have the live telecast of the UMNO general assembly, when the keris waving and kissing antics of a certain Hishammuddin Hussein Onn became legendary. In UMNO we also have politicians like Bocor MP Bung Mokhtar Radin and Close-One-Eye MP Mohd Said Yunus.

This next point, I'm very passionate about: Education. For someone like me, who's not a particularly brilliant student, my choices of studies in local universities would be somewhat limited. A non-Bumiputera can score 10As and yet be denied the field of study of his/her choice. How can things like this happen? Education should not be determined based on racial quotas. That's so wrong. I know I know, the quota system doesn't exist. Yeah right, at least not on paper. Let those who want learn get to learn what they want. And don't even get me started of the quality of local education. The sad state of the current education system is such that students can’t even think for themselves, much less string a proper sentence in English.

So now Pak Lah, do you see what I see? Do you understand why people are demanding for real changes? Why we have decided??

I love my country. And I love it enough to want it to change.

********

WHILE MALAYSIA FIDDLES, ITS OPPORTUNITIES ARE RUNNING DRY
Michael Backman

November 15, 2006

MALAYSIA'S been at it again, arguing about what proportion of the economy each of its two main races — the Malays and the Chinese — owns. It's an argument that's been running for 40 years. That wealth and race are not synonymous is important for national cohesion, but really it's time Malaysia grew up.

It's a tough world out there and there can be little sympathy for a country that prefers to argue about how to divide wealth rather than get on with the job of creating it.

The long-held aim is for 30 per cent of corporate equity to be in Malay hands, but the figure that the Government uses to justify handing over huge swathes of public companies to Malays but not to other races is absurd. It bases its figure on equity valued, not at market value, but at par value.

Many shares have a par value of say $1 but a market value of $12. And so the Government figure (18.9 per cent is the most recent figure) is a gross underestimate. Last month a paper by a researcher at a local think-tank came up with a figure of 45 per cent based on actual stock prices. All hell broke loose. The paper was withdrawn and the researcher resigned in protest. Part of the problem is that he is Chinese.

"Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia's national catch cry. It translates to "Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.

This all happens in the context of Malaysia's grossly inflated sense of its place in the world.

Most Malaysians are convinced that the eyes of the world are on their country and that their leaders are world figures. This is thanks to Malaysia's tame media and the bravado of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The truth is, few people on the streets of London or New York could point to Malaysia on a map much less name its prime minister or capital city.

As if to make this point, a recent episode of The Simpsons features a newsreader trying to announce that a tidal wave had hit some place called Kuala Lumpur. He couldn't pronounce the city's name and so made up one, as if no-one cared anyway. But the joke was on the script writers — Kuala Lumpur is inland.

Petronas, the national oil company is well run, particularly when compared to the disaster that passes for a national oil company in neighbouring Indonesia. But in some respects, this is Malaysia's problem. The very success of Petronas means that it is used to underwrite all manner of excess.

The KLCC development in central Kuala Lumpur is an example. It includes the Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world when they were built, which was their point.

It certainly wasn't that there was an office shortage in Kuala Lumpur — there wasn't.

Malaysians are very proud of these towers. Goodness knows why. They had little to do with them. The money for them came out of the ground and the engineering was contracted out to South Korean companies.

They don't even run the shopping centre that's beneath them. That's handled by Australia's Westfield.

Next year, a Malaysian astronaut will go into space aboard a Russian rocket — the first Malay in space. And the cost? $RM95 million ($A34.3 million), to be footed by Malaysian taxpayers. The Science and Technology Minister has said that a moon landing in 2020 is the next target, aboard a US flight. There's no indication of what the Americans will charge for this, assuming there's even a chance that they will consider it. But what is Malaysia getting by using the space programs of others as a taxi service? There are no obvious technical benefits, but no doubt Malaysians will be told once again, that they are "boleh". The trouble is, they're not. It's not their space program.

Back in July, the Government announced that it would spend $RM490 million on a sports complex near the London Olympics site so that Malaysian athletes can train there and "get used to cold weather".

But the summer Olympics are held in the summer.

So what is the complex's real purpose? The dozens of goodwill missions by ministers and bureaucrats to London to check on the centre's construction and then on the athletes while they train might provide a clue.

Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city — Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.

Why? Because Malaysia's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that's just five years away.

So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.

It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.

That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid).