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REPORTINGS AT OTHER NEWSPAPERS OF THE SEPTEMBER 23 DEMO ……..
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Star 2010-09-25

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Harian Tamil Malaysia Nanban 2010-09-24

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Sinar Harian 2010-09-24

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China Press 2010-09-24

CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO: Lobbying for a torture-free Malaysia

The Selangor State Government celebrated the Merdeka Day at I-City in Shah Alam on the eve of that day.

The ‘Malaysians for Beng Hock’, a support group was also holding a silent protest in its campaign for a torture-free Malaysia.

Teoh Lee Lan, 30, the younger sister of the Late Teoh Beng Hock was leading the protest.

One of the coordinators of the group, Chong Kok Siong said the group will continue to rally the masses to pressure the Malaysian government over Beng Hock’s case and of the other tortured victims.

The group had joined the others at the I-City to sing the national anthem after the countdown.

Video by R. Vijay Kumar, Citizen Journalist

The impasse and political maneuvering in Perak, the attempts in Selangor, and the quitting one’s own party and becoming ‘friendly’ with their once opposition party has reintroduced the question whether the government is going to pass the “Anti-Party-Hopping Act”.

Shortly after the March 2008 General Election, the 12th Malaysian General Election, two Perak State Assemblymen of Pakatan Rakyat alliance (PR) were indicted for a felony. They appeared in court to face the corruption charges and the court trials were scheduled to commence in midst February 2009. In end January 2009, these two men were reported missing. The assembly deputy speaker was also reported missing. In early February, the three state assemblymen re-appeared and declared themselves as independents and ‘friendly’ to Barisan Nasional coalition (BN). This sparked off a power struggle in the state. BN now claiming it has the simple majority to form the new government.

Meanwhile, an assemblyman from BN defects to PR, only to flip-flop back to BN within the week. In the aftermath, it appears that BN had sent a ‘Trojan horse’ to fake a defection.

Were the corruption charges deployed to force the defections? Were they under coercion to party-hop? Were they intimidated through threats and money inducement?

Are the political parties geared towards merely capturing and recapturing more seats to be or to stay in power or are they to focus on the nation-building programmes and to champion our constitutional rights and needs?

Isn’t democracy the people’s choice? The electorate, in the general elections, voted in their respective Members of Parliament (MP) and State Assemblymen. They voted mainly based on the political party to which the representatives belong, and less so on their individual ability, track record, merits and family background. Generally, the delegates in a party election look for such attributes when selecting their party leaders.
The electorate expects that the party leadership to be more stringent in the selection of their candidates. These candidates use their party’s money and platform to campaign.

Once elected, these representatives are now answerable to the people. The Federal and state government formed thereafter is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. So the government should therefore take the people into its interest and confidence.

‘Party-hopping’ among these elected representatives will tantamount to cheating the party and the people. It is unethical and immoral too. The people now demand that there be a robust public debate on whether we need a legislation to outlaw ‘party-hopping’.

The elected representative who defects could have solid reasons to justify his/her switching of parties, such as major differences with his/her own party on policy issues that affect his/her constituents. It could also highly likely be on a matter of principle. The law should provide for this defector to resign his/her seat, and re-contest the seat. This allows the defector to obtain fresh mandate from the constituents.

With the current Federal Constitution, ‘party-hopping’ is not unlawful. However, it does not allow the incumbent to stand for re-election within five years.

In 1988, Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad, the Johor Baru MP from UMNO, resigned from his seat and stood in a by-election as an independent, and won. So in 1990, the Federal Constitution was amended to incorporate Article 48(6). This means that the elected representative is banned from standing in elections for five years upon his/her resignation from a state assembly or Parliament.

Article 10(1)(c) of the Federal Constitution expressly states that all citizens have the right to form associations, that is, to join, not to join and leave any association, but Parliament may by law impose such restrictions as it deems necessary in the interest of the security of Malaysia or any part thereof, public order, morality, labour or education.

In 1992, the Supreme Court (now Federal Court) had the opportunity to decide in the case of Dewan Undangan Negeri Kelantan v Nordin Salleh 1992 whether an amendment to the Kelantan state constitution which prohibits party-hopping is inconsistent with Article 10(1)(c). Article XXXIA of Part I of the Kelantan constitution provides that if any member of the Legislative Assembly who is a member of a political party resigns or is expelled from, or for any reasons whatsoever, ceases to be a member of such political party, he shall cease to be a member of the Legislative Assembly and his seat shall become vacant.

The Supreme Court declared that such a law was invalid because the restriction imposed by the Kelantan Constitution could not be a restriction imposed under clauses 2(c) and (3) of Article 10 as it was a law passed by a state legislature and not the Federal Parliament.

In 1986, after forming the Sabah state government, Datuk Seri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, the president of Parti Bersatu Sabah enacted an ‘anti-party-hopping’ law. In 1992, the High Court declared that such a law ‘ultra vies’ Article 10(1)(c) of the Federal Constitution as it restrained one’s freedom of association. His party, then in the opposition, could not stop several assemblymen who had crossed over to BN. After he lost the state government, and ever since then Datuk Pairin has been calling for a law against defection but no one has taken him seriously.

After March 8, 2008 general election, there was a change in the political landscape in the country. BN domination had eroded, and PR was elected to govern several states. There were threats and allegations of mass defections by some BN parliamentarians to PR. This was creating political instability at the Federal level.

When Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi reshuffled his Cabinet after the general election, he appointed Datuk Zaid Ibrahim as the Minister in the Prime Minister Department to oversee legal affairs and judicial reform. On March 23, 2008, at a thanksgiving feast to mark his appointment, Datuk Zaid said that a law to ban ‘party-hopping’ would be among the first actions that he would initiate. However, the Cabinet did not sanction it.

On September 15, 2008, Datuk Zaid resigned from the Cabinet. This was after he had criticise the arrests of three prominent individuals, an MP, a blogger and a newspaper journalist, under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Ironically, with the defection of Datuk Nasruddin Hashim, UMNO’s assemblyman in Perak to Parti Keadilan Rakyat in January 2009, there were renewed calls from Datuk Seri Joseph Pairin Kitingan and several other prominent leaders from BN component parties, stating that the time was ripe to amend the Federal and state constitutions to include an ‘anti-party-hopping’ law. The leaders who shared this calling includes UMNO vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, UMNO supreme council member Datuk Seri Rais Yatim, PBRS president Tan Sri Joseph Kurup, and the new de factor Law Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz.

Once again, both the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) have also voiced their support for an ‘anti-party-hopping’ law. Since BN did not secure a two-thirds majority to be able to make amendments to the Federal Constitution, both DAP and PAS are willing to support, but they have a caveat. They want the Article 48(6), which does not allow the incumbent to stand for re-election within five years, to be removed. This will satisfy both a representative’s freedom to associate and the people’s right to choose. The representative will now be able to go back to the people again who will decide whether they want him in this or that party.

Both DAP and PAS want the motion to be raised in the Parliament meeting in February 2009.

However, when February 2009 came, the BN government had a different agenda, and the ‘anti-party-hopping’ law never saw its fruition.

Since then, the Rakyat had seen many more of their elected representatives quitting the Pakatan Rakyat fold to become Barisan Nasional-friendly. This action was apparently to be able to have more funds to support their constituents.

Why did Datuk Zaid Ibrahim fail in his bid to establish an ‘anti-party-hopping’ law? Why did he not get the support of the cabinet? Why did BN not establish an ‘anti-party-hopping’ law when it was enjoying more than a two-thirds majority in Parliament? Was it to BN’s advantage not to do so? Is BN still encouraging ‘political crossovers’ or will it follow the winds of change?

Is it possible that Malaysians can see this desired changes after the 13th Malaysian General Election, due latest by 2013? Then we can all start off on a clean slate, and the emphasis is on the word ‘clean’.

How Citizen Journalism is different from Traditional Journalism.

Journalism is the search and presentation of truth for the public to make informed decision. Jay Rosen, known as a supporter and advocate of citizen journalism defines Citizen Journalism as “When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their hands to inform one another”.

Citizen journalism is when a “non-professional” journalist (i.e. a person without professional journalism training) collect, analyze, report and disseminate news and information. The intent is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires. They may write in their own blog or an online forum.

Citizen journalism should not be confused with community journalism or civic journalism, which is practiced by professional journalists, normally working with the mainstream media. Citizen journalism is a specific form of citizen media as well as user generated content.

The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about an event of public-interest on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your neighbourhood and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube or Vimeo.

Thus, every ordinary citizen is a journalist. The traditional journalism is the media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees, and a few firms compete to ‘speak’ very loudly while the rest of the population listened.

September 2, 2010
Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur

Nurul Izzah Anwar takes inter-racial warmth to a new level. Nurul, the Lembah Pantai MP, joins the devotees to celebrate Lord Krishna’s birthday or Sri Krishna Jeyanthi (also known as Shree Krishna Janmashtmi to the Northern Indian community) at the Sri Krishna Temple in Brickfields.

View the video to appreciate the values and beliefs of this young and upcoming people’s leader from Pakatan Rakyat, the People’s Pact.

Now she is what I would call a True Malaysian Leader.

Video by R. Vijay Kumar, Citizen Journalist