VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE ON THE PM

All eyes are on the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), one of the 14 component parties of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition when the lower house of Parliament - Dewan Rakyat- begins its new sitting today till 15 July 2008.

It has only two MPs. Will SAPP carry out its plan to table a motion of no confidence against the leader of the ruling bench, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi? And how would they do it?

This is going to be historic, hot and humorous. Historic because, it’s never been done. No one dared. While a No Confidence motion is a legitimate parliamentary device to topple an elected government, the numbers would not allow it. Although the ruling Barisan Nasional has just lost its two-third majority grip of the Dewan Rakyat for the first time in Malaysian electoral history at the recent 8 March general elections, it nonetheless retains a comfortable simple majority. It has 140 seats against 82 held by the newly formed Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition made up of DAP, PKR and PAS.

When Yong Teck Lee, SAPP’s supremo, declared Wednesday (18 June) his party has lost confidence in the PM and will move a no confidence vote against him Parliament, room temperature shot up immediately. And it’s getting hotter by the hour. The BN supreme council hastily called an emergency meeting but did not make any move against SAPP or Yong. It looked like a checkmate. Yong got rapped, of course, by all and sundry with Negri Sembilan Menteri Besar Mohamad Hasan condemning the move as “biadap”, the most uncouth thing to call anyone in the Malaya language.

Abdullah has told reporters after the BN supreme council meeting that Yong had acted on his own and was hoping that SAPP would disown him.

The following all 33 supreme council members of SAPP (two were overseas) met in at its headquarters Kota Kinabalu for a good six hours and then dropped the bombshell. They endorsed Yong’s action and reiterated that the no confidence motion would be go ahead as planned.

The next moment things took a humorous twist when Yong went on to say his party will not leave BN which is led by Abdullah which it says it has no more confidence in. Then as if a comic relief, he said BN does not exist anymore in Sabah anyway, at least in spirit.

To rub salt into the wound, Yong, who is a former chief minister of Sabah, acknowledged the plot was hatched together with Anwar Ibrahim, PKR’s de facto leader. Anwar’s mantra, of course, is that come 16 Sept (the date of Sabah and Sarawak joining Malaysia in 1963), at least 30 BN lawmakers will crossover to his side, thus giving him enough numbers to ask Abdullah to move aside.

As if this was not enough Sarawak DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen, who is also and an MP, is offering Dayak BN lawmakers the chief minister’s post if they would crossover and topple the state government led by Taib Mahmud. However, the CM post would be rotated among the Dayaks Chinese and Malays.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Agency has suddenly shown interest in Yong Teck Lee but he has instead accused the PM of “political bribery.” Abdullah had said he cannot satisfy Yong’s greed despite offering him a senatorship and appointment as special envoy to the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines-East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).

Yong said he was offered both posts through a letter from the Cabinet Division of the Prime Minister's Department on Tuesday, a day before he declared that the party had lost confidence in the leadership of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

He regarded the offer as "political bribery" to stop him from voicing out issues related to Sabah.

As it has turned out, SAPP need not even have to table the no confidence motion. It has inflicted too much co-lateral damage.

POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK

MIC deputy president G. Palanivel Friday (20 June) blasted Dr Mahathir Mohamad for calling party boss S. Samy Vellu a racist and reminded the former prime minister to remember his (Indian) roots. But Samy Vellu just laughed it off.

Trouble started when Dr Mahathir accused the former works minister for “exposing his deep racist sentiments” for sympathising with Hindraf (the Hindu Rights Action Front) in his blog Wednesday (18 June).

Mahathir is angry not only at Samy not only but also DAP lawmaker and chairman Karpal Singh and lawyer Param Cumaraswamy and accused all three of tarring him as a racist.

“Now Dato Seri S. Samy Vellu has joined Karpal Singh and Param Cumaraswamy in calling me racist,” he blogged.

“These three characters want the Government to free the Hindraf leaders from detention under the Internal Security Act”.

“They must know that Hindraf represents Tamil racists who still look to their old masters, the British, to protect them. They don’t believe in Malaysian institutions,” Mahathir blogged.

“And they speak not just of Indians but of Tamils as a separate race. They and their apologists are racist to the core”.

Hindraf orchestrated a massive protest against the government for its alleged mistreatment of Indians and is widely credited for turning the tide against the ruling coalition which lost heavily in the 8 March general elections. Both Samy Vellu and Palanivel and many Barisan Nasional leaders suffered shock defeats.

Palanivel said Mahathir is wrong when he says Hindraf leaders only represent Tamil racists. He said Mahathir should not simply make statements that would further fan racial sentiments and hatred.

The former Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development went on to say: “He should remember his own roots,” alluding to Mahathir’s part Indian parentage as his father is widely known to be a school teacher of Indian origin having migrated from the southern state of Kerala, while his mother was a Malay.

Meanwhile in Kota Baharu on the same day, Samy Vellu just laughed off the matter when to comment by reporters after the opened the Kelantan MIC meeting Friday.

“Who am I, only dust. I don’t want to say anything that may spoil his (Mahathir’s) name,” he said.

"He was my boss previously, he provided a strong leadership that brought about much development to the country, so I don’t want to say much.”

“When I read Tun’s blog, I just laugh. What can I do about it?” the former works minister said.

CHIN PENG CAN’T COME HOME

Former Communist Party of Malaya leader Chin Peng's has again lost his bid to come back and live the rest of his life in Malaysia when the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya Friday (20 June) upheld a lower court's decision compelling him to prove that he is a Malaysian citizen before he could pursue his legal action. Justice Abdul Malik Ishak said two documents were important to ascertain Chin Peng's status since the National Registration Department could not find any record of his (Chin Peng's) birth.

A three-man panel led by Justice Low Hop Bing unanimously held that the High Court was correct to compel the 84-year old Chin Peng to furnish his birth certificate and citizenship to prove that he was a Malaysian citizen before allowing him to proceed with his application seeking declaration that he and other Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) members could reside here.

Chin Peng, whose real name is Ong Boon Hua and currently living in Thailand, claimed that he could not produce his identification documents because those documents was seized by the police when he placed them in the pocket of his suit and abandoned the clothes at the Tong Ching bungalow, outside Kampar on the evening of June 16, 1948 when he narrowly escaped capture by a British police raid on that residence. Chin Peng claimed that he was entitled to come back to Malaysia because he was of Malaysian origin since he was born on Oct 20, 1923, in Sitiawan, Dinding, Perak and grew up in Malaysia. He claimed that his birth was registered and that he had once possessed a formal copy of the certificate.

Other communist leaders like former chairman of the now disbanded CPM, Musa Ahmad, have been granted permission to live the rest of their days in the country that they were born in.

KL BOURSE 3-MONTH LOW

Share prices on Bursa Malaysia closed lower Thursday (19 June) with the key index falling to a near three-month low due to persistent selling in select heavyweights.

Dealers said a sharp fall in the regional markets, extended overnight losses on Wall Street and growing concern over political developments in the country dampened market sentiment.

At 5pm, the benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) fell 16.20 points or 1.34% to close at 1,196.39, off its intraday low of 1,188.50. It opened 5.41 points lower at 1,207.18.

According to one of the dealers, the Sabah Progressive Party's plan to table a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi spurred the persistent selling in the market.

"Investors continued to trim their positions amid concerns about the political development and rising inflation in the country," he said.

KU LI T ASK PM TO STEP

Gua Musang Member of Parliament Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah says it again that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi must step down as prime minister. He also reiterated his intention to challenge Abdullah for Umno’s presidency and should he win, he will be the next prime minister.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Umno leaders from the Federal Territory in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday night (18 June), Tengku Razaleigh said, “From my understanding, the best way out now is for the Prime Minister to step down so that a more suitable candidate can take over and regain the people's confidence in Umno and the BN.

He said this when asked to comment on the announcement by Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Yong Teck Lee that his party had lost confidence in the leadership of the Prime Minister.

Ku Li, as he is popularly known, also said that there were Umno divisions in the peninsula that were dissatisfied with the Prime Minister's leadership.

"At a closed-door Umno meeting (of the party’s leadership) in Glenmarie, Shah Alam, recently there was also no unanimous decision reached whether to retain Abdullah in his current position," he said.

MALAYSIA NOT TREATING REFUGEES WELL

The UNHCR refugee agency released a survey Friday (20 June) showing up Malaysia badly by lumping the country in the same category of bad guys like the country in the bracket as China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh, in the treatment of refugees.

But deputy prime minister Najib was quick to dismiss the findings. He said Malaysia has been “quite cooperative in terms of some refugees who make their way to Malaysia" seeking shelter.

"We already have problems of illegal immigrants in Sabah. This is already a major concern for some. How much more open do you want Malaysia to be?

But NGOs concerned with refugee treatment disagreed with him. The Migration Working Group (MWG) wants the government to meet its international obligations to protect and assist them.

Making the call on behalf of MWG, Women's Aid Organisation (WAO) executive director Ivy Josiah said Malaysia had yet to enact laws that recognise, protect and assist asylum seekers.

As a result, they were treated as non-documented migrants and subjected to arrest, detention, whipping, imprisonment and deportation, she said at the World Refugee Day 2008 celebration in Kuala Lumpur Friday (20 June).

"We must be very clear that refugees are not here because they wanted to but because they have no choice and every refugee that I have spoken to have shared with us their deep desire to go home," she said.

Josiah said there were numerous accounts in which individuals from Myanmar were handed over to human traffickers who demanded payment for their release at the Malaysia-Thai border and those who failed to do so were sold for sex or as bonded labourers.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Everybody is talking about what everybody already knows (the world crises are about). But there is no political will to do anything.” Sime Darby chairman and former deputy prime minister Musa Hitam speaking at the World Economic Forum (of the Davos fame) on East Asia in Kuala Lumpur Monday (16 June). (By BOB TEOH/ MySinchew)