Showing posts with label Columnist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Columnist. Show all posts

Friday, August 5, 2011

SPR, SPRM: Tiada lagi kepercayaan awam


Ahmad Lutfi Othman


Tidak mudah untuk menganalisis perkembangan politik tanahair mutakhir ini. Namun, untuk membiarkannya berlalu begitu sahaja, tambah membebankan. Wartawan harus terus mencatat,'kan? Kita berada di ambang perubahan dan bakal merakam sejarah yang lebih manis daripada tsunami politik 2008.

Ramai boleh bersetuju bahawa demam pilihan raya sudah berjangkit ke Malaysia. Lawatan Pengerusi BN, Najib Razak ke seluruh negara berkempen mencemuh pembangkang, dengan menggunakan kedudukannya sebagai Perdana Menteri, semakin rancak. Timbalannya, Muhyiddin Yassin turut memperlengkap misi; kedudukan BN kian goyah, namun difahamkan budaya cah keting di peringkat tertinggi Umno terus merebak.

Najib pasti mahu mengelak daripada menjadi PM terakhir daripada Umno, dengan menggunakan apa juga kaedah, memperkakaskan apa jua kemudahan, tanpa mempedulikan kos yang bakal dihanguskan. Sentuhannya kerap tidak menjadi, malah bermacam-macam slogan muluk ciptaannya memakan diri.

"Tiada beza antara Najib dan pendahulunya, Abdullah Badawi. Masing-masing hanya ghairah bercakap hal yang besar-besar dan menabur berjanji, tetapi hasilnya kosong," kata seorang pembaca Harakah kepada saya. "Kalau ada pun yang berbeza, mungkin cakap Najib nampak lebih berisi, namun natijah akhirnya sama, kosong."

Semasa parti-parti komponen BN, terutama MCA, Gerakan dan MIC, masih gagal memperbaiki imej, hubungan Umno dengan rakyat nampak semakin longgar. Sokongan akar umbi, termasuk di desa dan kampung-kampung dilihat merosot. Kenaikan harga barangan keperluan asas begitu menjerut leher golongan terbanyak. Jurang maklumat yang menguntungkan BN selama ini berjaya didekatkan.

Projek-projek mega yang diumumkan Najib menaikkan lagi kemarahan orang ramai, apatah lagi dengan kisah sensasi isterinya Rosmah Mansor; terkini dengan cincin berlian RM24.4 juta dan sebelumnya dengan cerita penguasaan melampau Rosmah ke atas pentadbiran kerajaan. (Derita Abdullah yang pernah tertekan dengan isu hampir sama -- berkaitan menantu dan kroninya -- bakal menyeksa Najib). Rosmah umpama duri dalam daging yang paling sukar ditangani PM!

Kehidupan majoriti rakyat kian terhimpit, tidak kira di pedalaman mahupun kota besar. Soalnya, apakah mereka yakin Pakatan Rakyat mampu menawarkan formula penyelesaian? Tawaran Buku Jingga diperkatakan di mana-mana tetapi tentunya kepercayaan rakyat tidak sekadar pembentangan dokumen ringkas itu. Sekali lagi isu kepercayaan awam menjadi perdebatan.

Apa pun, tanpa meremehkan persiapan pilihan raya di bandar-bandar besar, yang membabitkan kelas menengah Melayu dan masyarakat Tionghua, tumpuan gerakerja Pakatan tidak dapat lari daripada mendekati dengan lebih jujur dan akrab komuniti kampung-kampung tradisi. Sensitiviti dan aspirasi mereka mungkin berbeza. Kesedaran berpolitik masih menjadi isu besar.

Ada pandangan popular Parlimen akan dibubarkan pada Oktober depan. Sekurang-kurangnya untuk mengesan kelemahan jentera pilihan raya Pakatan, elok tarikh itu disandarkan bagi menilai keberkesanan persiapan. Dengan jangkaan tempoh kempen akan disingkatkan (ingat tuntutan Bersih agar 21 hari diberikan), fokus patut diberikan di kawasan yang memerlukan masa lebih lama untuk menemui pengundi.

Kepada Harakah, ada yang mengingatkan saya: "Tempoh tiga bulan terakhir ini cukup kritikal. Harakah harus ada perancangan strategik. Usah bazirkan ruang akhbar yang terbatas itu. Bekalkan pembaca dengan informasi dan pendedahan berguna. Isu mesti disokong fakta dan data lengkap, dengan persembahan grafik yang menarik."

Dalam pada itu, saya bersetuju dengan pandangan Saifuddin Abdullah, Timbalan Menteri Pengajian Tinggi bahawa isu sebenar berkaitan himpunan Bersih 2.0 dan riuh-rendah serangan terhadap Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya (SPR) adalah kepercayaan rakyat. Saya sering membangkitkan peruntukan Perkara 114(2) Perlembagaan yang mengkehendaki Yang di-Pertuan Agong membantu SPR yang mendapat KEPERCAYAAN AWAM.


"Itulah sebabnya yang sebenar, bukan soal dakwat kekal atau biometrik. Isunya adalah kepercayaan kepada SPR," kata Saifuddin. Jika SPR menggunakan teknologi apa sekalipun, tambahnya, selagi masalah kepercayaan terhadap suruhanjaya itu belum diatasi, ia tetap tidak akan dipercayai.

Lebih memburukkan imej SPR apabila Timbalan Pengerusinya, Wan Ahmad Wan Omar dikatakan antara orang paling dipercayai Najib, yang diamanah menjalankan "misi sulit", dengan sokongan pelbagai kemudahan, bagi memenangkan BN dalam PRU13. Tindak-tanduk Wan Ahmad menguatkan lagi syak itu.

Kepercayaan awam kepada SPR, apatah lagi bagi parti-parti pembangkang, yang sedia tercalar, kini hampir musnah. Saya masih mengharapkan Agong dapat menggunakan kuasa yang diperuntukkan Perlembagaan untuk menjernihkan keadaan. Keanggotaan SPR mesti dirombak dan dibarisi tokoh-tokoh yang diyakini rakyat.

Secara peribadi, saya lebih suka membayangkan Pakatan dalam "kedudukan terburuk" agar penambahbaikan dapat dilakukan sebelum terlambat. Saya turut perhatikan selama ini pemimpin DAP jarang melahirkan optimisme mereka menjelang pilihan raya. Ternyata mereka begitu berhati-hati sekali.

Namun, pendirian terbaru Lim Kit Siang cukup menarik: "... saya akan katakan buat pertama kali, mengambil-alih kuasa kerajaan pusat, bukan lagi mustahil, ia boleh dicapai."

Dalam wawancara dengan Malaysiakini, beliau yang aktif berpolitik sejak 1969 menekankan: "Nampaknya PM dan kerajaan sekarang gagal melihat dan menyelami kehendak rakyat... Makin hari mereka makin terpisah, (kerajaan pula) mengambil tindakan yang memutuskan mereka daripada sokongan akar umbi."

Selain isu kos hidup yang terus meningkat, juga keberanian rakyat dalam himpunan Bersih 9 Julai, dan gelagat "Wanita Pertama" Rosmah yang memburukkan lagi persepsi terhadap Najib, saya perhatikan kematian Teoh Beng Hock tetap menjadi isu besar dalam kempen PRU13 nanti.

Malah, jika diteliti laporan Suruhanjaya Siasatan Diraja (SSD), jelas sekali imej Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM) berada pada kedudukan hampir sama dengan SPR. Sekadar membelek sambil lalu laporan tersebut, saya kira sudah dapat merumuskan bahawa banyak sekali penyelewengan dan salahguna kuasa pegawai SPRM yang terbabit.

SPR dan SPRM, dalam aspek tertentu, tidak lebih daripada satu lagi perkakas Umno-BN untuk mengekalkan kuasa. Personaliti keji Timbalan Pengarah SPRM Selangor, Hishamuddin Hashim bersama dua lagi pegawainya yang terbabit secara langsung dalam siasatan terhadap Beng Hock membayangkan hubungan istimewa mereka dengan aktor-aktor politik, sekali gus menguatkan lagi dakwaan bahawa ia selari dengan usaha BN merampas Selangor.

Memetik perenggan 176, laporan SSD itu: "Kami mendapat bahawa dia (Hishamuddin) seorang yang angkuh, bercakap bohong, tidak jujur dan tidak akan bertolak ansur ..." Tentulah ada sesuatu yang menarik untuk dibongkar apabila beliau dilihat mempunyai imuniti dan kuasa tidak terbatas.

Insya-Allah saya cuba menganalisis laporan SSD itu pada tulisan akan datang.


http://bm.harakahdaily.net/index.php/columnist/editor-harakah/4671-spr-sprm-tiada-lagi-kepercayaan-awam

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

THE GHOSTS OF MAHATHIRISM

POSTED BY ADMIN ON JULY 27TH, 2011

Stanley Koh

Is Mahathirism back with a vengeance?Recent events do make it seem like the Najib regime has decided to adopt the former prime minister’s authoritarian style in saving its flagging political fortunes. It has resorted to using draconian laws and shameless propaganda in the face of an awakening electorate and increasing exposures of its misdeeds.

The government seems to have ignored the strong signal given by the 2008 election result that Malaysians want more democratic space. And what was Bersih 2.0’s July 9 rally if not a reaffirmation of that demand?

But instead of using the occasion to promote his much-vaunted liberalist image, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak seemed to have done what Dr Mahathir Mohamad would have done—crush them and damn what the world says.

After May 13, 1969, Mahathir ominously proclaimed: “There is not going to be a democracy in Malaysia. There never was and there never will be.” He was speaking then as a critic of the government, but during his 22-year tenure as prime minister, he seemed to have applied himself to ensuring that his prediction would be realised.

Khoo Boo Teik, in his Paradoxes of Mahathirism, wrote: “Certainly Mahathir did not balk at using authoritarian means to restore his control over mass dissent in October 1987. Then he professed to lament the irresponsibility of misfits who had abused his liberalism, not unlike how, after May 13, 1969, he spoke of the immaturity of the people as an obstacle to the full practice of democracy.”

The Mahathir era witnessed the full exploitation of repressive laws, notably the Internal Security Act and the Police Act. The latter law requires police permits for public gatherings. This condition was stringently enforced against opposition groups but ignored for government parties. Things have not changed.

Mahathir’s government amended the Societies Act in 1981 and the Official Secrets Act in 1986 to constrict further the arena of public debate. It also consistently exploited its two-thirds majority in Parliament to make constitutional amendments aimed at strengthening its political position.

Money politics

It was also during the Mahathir era that the Malaysian judiciary lost its independence and respectability. Mahathir tried to keep whittling away at that independence even in the last years of his tenure. In 1999, he was quoted as suggesting that the judiciary needed further reform because judges “tend to favour” the opposition.

The practice of “money politics” deepened its roots during the Mahathirism era. Scholars Graham K Brown, Siti Hawa Ali and Wan Manan Muda wrote in their research paper on Policy Levers in Malaysia: “Initially, under the guise of the 1971 promulgated New Economic Policy, the regime developed a fearsome machinery for dispensing patronage to supporters of the government. This money politics involves both state and private funds the BN parties control between them, a massive corporate empire that operates on the individual, corporate and even state level. The abuse of public funds is often unabashed.”

Another defining feature of Mahathir rule was electoral gerrymandering. A Commonwealth observer group invited to oversee the 1990 general election concluded that the conduct of the elections in the country was free but not fair.

Academician Lim Hong Hai, who conducted research on the delineation of electoral constituencies, said regular constitutional re-delineation exercises carried out by the “nominally independent” elections committees invariably favoured the ruling regime.

In the 1999 general election, the BN regime won more than three quarters of the electoral seats on a popular vote of barely 56%. There were allegations of actual fraud during the election, but these have always been difficult to substantiate with proof.

In October 2003, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeded Mahathir, inheriting a governing structure and a political system centralised in the hands of the prime minister. But he promised reforms and, largely on the strength of those promises, helped BN win a landslide victory in the 2004 general election.

But the ghosts of Mahathirism got the better of Abdullah. Vested interests in BN, particularly Umno, prevented him from delivering on those promises. And so he met his Waterloo in 2008.

Leadership blunders

Will Najib repeat the same mistakes? Before Bersih 2.0, many used to argue that Najib, born a snake according to the Chinese horoscope, was unlikely to commit the same leadership blunders, despite the limited success of his 1Malaysia campaign and widespread criticism surrounding his “transformation from within” rhetoric.

However, his handling of the Bersih issue has changed that perception somewhat. In the age of the social media, it is indeed a major mistake to resurrect the ghosts of Mahathirism, which thrived on government propaganda aimed at an electorate that had little access to alternative information.

The glossary of words used in Internet discussions about the anti-Bersih operation are telling: “demonise, discredit, doublespeak, double standards, draconian detention”.

Najib has failed in the leadership test, principally because of his failure to exorcise the ghosts Mahathirism.

Should we allow our nation to be made the laughing stock of the 2st century by our dependence on the communist bogey to silence dissent and by our use of black ink to censor articles widely available on the Internet?

Ironically, the one way we can escape ridicule is by following an advice given by Mahathir himself. In a press interview in 1995, he said the only form of censure he found acceptable for an elected government was its replacement through an election. “Hence, if they prefer another government, they are welcome to it.”

The choice is yours, Malaysians.

Stanley Koh is a former head of MCA’s research unit. He is also an FMT columnist.


http://www.kl-today.com/2011/07/the-ghosts-of-mahathirism/

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