Election Watch by YL CHONG: Key Issues

Nomination day: Feb 24, Sunday
Polling day: March 8, Saturday
March 15: Desiderata-YL chong'sbirthdae:)

BTW, the NST fronpaged today that Marh 8 is also Samy Vellu's birthday.
And International Women's Day

From today until April 15, 2008 Desi shalt try, Godwilling/InsyaAllah, to do at least one commentary on the 12th General Elections for the Malaysian Parliament. THE ELECTION WATCH SERIES starts by examining what I believe are the KEY ISSUES the voters should stdy before entering the Polling booth on March 8 to make a decisionof national importance and import. If you do not follow Desi's ways, I promise I shalt export you to Timbuktu or Timbuckt'ree, your choice, as I do indeed practise Democracy.:)


From the outset, I declare I have been through some three decades of political activism been an Opposition supporter AND i DON'T *AP FOR IT.

*AP IS NOT OF THE RM20K-GENERATING KIND AS I HAVE BEEN +TEA-SING MY ESTEEMEDREADERS ALL ALONG. YES, if you are lucky and put Desi in the goode mood, i may just serve thee PU-ERH TEA:). When I am in a fowl mood, I giveth tehtarik laced wit' ARSE...:(

From today for the next month or so I try to pen as a Journalist under my byline I have been using all along ie YL Chong. So I will strive to be as factual as can be and anchor my rationales on reasoning,maybe a li'l mousey most times, and hopefully, augment with researched and lucid arguments sometimes. Anyway, I always strive to practise the best tradition of discourse as promoted by my mentor VOLTAIRE via his oft quoted ethos: I amy disagree with what you say but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it.


Broadly, I have identified the folowing areas for consideration, and I hope my ER will feedback to this tiring writer some issues to fill in the gaps, as I welcome you as GUEST BLOGGERS (I already have one in the Q: SH TAN from a concerned Malaysian, I believe he hails from Penang where the Opposition is focusing on to perhaps win a breakthrough by forming a government alternative to Gerakan-led coalition, much coveted not so quietly by UMNO, and not so silently by MCA either.


(1) The Four Estates Plus One Emerging

(2) Bread and Butter Issues

(3) The Options

(4) Know thy History to Craft the Present and the Future

(5) The Candidacy and WHO'S WHO WHO MATTER.






Inter:lude

THE FOUR ESTATES PLUS ONE

As a Journalist, YL belongs to what is referred popularly to as the Fourth Estate, also commonly termed the Press. For backgrounding, I extract from a Google reference what I believe is a good summary of the other Estates which have all undergone much transformation to the modern times, as individual countries developed their own systems of government, some improved, most bastardised.

Extract starts here:

The Mass Media as Fourth Estate

The mass media are often attacked by left-wing critics: from within the broadly Marxist vein of critical theory they are criticized for reproducing the dominant bourgeois culture; from within the 'political economy' vein of research, they are attacked for representing the interests of those who own them (see, for example, Chomsky's 'propaganda model').

Carlyle's definition of the fourth estate

However, from the perspective of those researchers who see the media as situated within the model of a pluralist liberal democracy, the mass media are often seen as fulfilling the vitally important rôle of fourth estate, the guardians of democracy, defenders of the public interest.

The term fourth estate is frequently attributed to the nineteenth century historian Carlyle, though he himself seems to have attributed it to Edmund Burke:


Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, .... Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. ..... Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite.
Carlyle (1905) pp.349-350

Carlyle here was describing the newly found power of the man of letters, and, by extension, the newspaper reporter. In his account, it seems that the press are a new fourth estate added to the three existing estates (as they were conceived of at the time) running the country: priesthood, aristocracy and commons. Other modern commentators seem to interpret the term fourth estate as meaning the fourth 'power' which checks and counterbalances the three state 'powers' of executive, legislature and judiciary. ~~ Extract ends.

YL would like to state, in summary, that the modern equivalents of the other Three Estates as relevant for Malaysia, since we adopted the Westminster model after gaining Independence 50 years ago from Britain, applying here are:

Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. respectively referred to as the First, Second and Third Estates.

(a) The Executive

Consists of the Prime Minister and his appointed Cabinet after the political party or coalition of parties (as is the Barisan Nasional) which commands the majority of seats in the Lower House of Parilament we call the Dewan Rakyat. The Upper House, as Dewan Negara, is merely a rubber stamp and hence deserves just this one-liner here.

The incumbent Government from the first Partiament -- under the Alliance, then later evolved into the Barisan Nasional, dominated by UMNO as always and always will be -- till the just-dissolved 11th Parliament had always commanded more than two-thirds majority in Parlaiment. This has made the Executive overly dominant, which to my mind, is not healthy for a growing democracy like Malaysia's. With this situation, the ruling coalition had had been able to steamroll many amendments to the Constitution, including the much-hyped Constitutio Bill 2007 amendment recently to extend the Election Commissioners' key office-bearers' retiring age by JUST ONE YEAR, from 65 to 66, to take care of one ..... (You use your fave swear word, OK, no Four letter words like l...! emitting from asre...s like Bung ...somethin' and stupid Somethin' ...din!. Please fill in the blanks, I am pretty democratic hear!:)

Because of the dominance by the BN in Parliament, controlling 90 percent of the seats despite garnering only about 60% (I stand corrected on this...) mainly due to the CONSITUENCY GERRYMANDER, the Parliament is subservient to the Executive, especially for 22 years when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the prime minister. Dr Mahathir's less authoritarian successor, however, was reluctant to introduce any substantive changes, enjoying the benefits of a powerful system handed him on a gold platter made platinum by conniving lapdogs and inherited robber-barons and borrowing mGf maveric sm's words, "UMNOPUTRA OLIGARCHS"!

I therefore would focus my piece on an Estate I have deep interest -- self-interest too, but that's not necessarily bad, is it? -- so here goes my rumination on: The Fourth Estate and an Emergent One called Blogosphere.

______________________ Second Inter:lude for tehtraik @3.35pm:) ______________

WritHing resumed @4.30pm. Reenergised after tea-break at Men Kee where the men are genteel unlike that Bung and Din act! and women are fine...and show much ....sse:)

Since Desi also started Blogging on the Ides of March 2005, he's also a member of the emerging Fifth Estate, which essentially consists of those reporting and practising Citizen Journalism via Blogging,just slightly more than 10 years old, hence also called the New Media, compared with the Press of the Fourth Estate called the Old Media.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the local MSM will become the government's propaganda machine, doing lots of spinning. Just to recall recent events, let me put in context with an examination of Media Ethics and frequent breaches among the country's English newspapers (I won't comment on newspapers in Malay, Chinese and Tamil as I don't spend much time monitoring them. Minta Maaf, ia. Dui Pu Chi. ...:(

Media Ethics and Spinning

With the dawn of the Internet slightly more than a decade ago, a new form of journalism referred by many as “citizen journalism” has taken off in increasing frequency and popularity, in both developed and developing countries. It only occasionally involves the writer reporting "news breaks", but mainly the journalism includes some form of add-on features to the original news breaks sighted first in the print media (or its online edition available mostly free of charge). An important add-on feature are the Blogger's Opinions/Commentaries/Analysis, and it is in this field when the “clash” between the traditional and new media often takes place, especially in third world nations where the traditional media are held on a tight leash by the government in power.

My writing today confines itself to a category of Bloggers who are self-claimed as Socio-Political (Sopo) writers, and they have become a challenge to what is traditionally referred to as the Fourth Estate by offering most times contrarian views and perspectives. In the United States, Bloggers belong to what is now termed the Fifth Estate. Citizen journalists, or Sopo Bloggers, in Malaysia, did not play any significant role to have an impact in Malaysia during the last General Elections (GE) held in March 2004. However, this Fifth Estate is emerging to become a force to be reckoned with, and the first defamation suit filed against the owners of rockybru.blogspot.com and jeffooi.com a year ago has automatically raised by a few notches of the power of bloggers -- real or imagined -- in Malaysian politics. This growing influence of blogs is also evidenced by several criticisms by Ministers against several more established Bloggers.

At present, most people still depend on the daily newspapers or print media for their daily diet of coverage of current events or national or international developments, and in a society where Internet access is still negligible in the rural areas (kampong) and villages, often readers are not critical in their reading. Most of them are what I term "passive" readers. A monitor of the Letters to the Editor pages would reveal there are several names who appear so regularly one wonders if they were not better off filing as "columnists" -- at least one earns some income for the effort!

The advantage of Blogging is that it offers "interactive" participation by the readers via the Comments section, and the popular or more dedicated Bloggers will always find time to "chat" with their readers. This extends the "feeling of ownership" to the readers if the Blog owners care to cultivate their audience.

However, it is only in the urban areas where Internet penetration has taken substantial roots, especially in the capital cities like Kuala Lumpur and Georgetown and Johor Bharu. Hence, it is the more educated citizens who take to alternative online news sources such as pay-to-view Malaysiakini.com -- promoted as an independent web newspaper -- and to Sopo websites such as malaysia-today.net, run by Raja Petra Kamarudin, and screenshots, by Jeff Ooi, commonly acknowledged by the Sopo blogosphere as "taiko" or Big Brothers.

As the majority of Malaysians still rely on the print media for information and commentaries, it is then incumbent -- in my humble opinion as a journalist who has embraced also weblogging for three years -- that the Fourth Estate must practise responsible and ethical journalism. Of course, the same standards are expected of the emergent Fifth Estate, but being an infant by comparison with its traditional media members, the duties and ethics applicable on Bloggers are still evolving.

But the reality is that the ideal state for the practice of responsible journalism is that it is only possible if the mainstream media organizations are not owned or aligned to any political parties or individual shareholders who are aligned to any political parties. This, we know for a fact, is not the situation in our country. We all know that the New Straits Times Group's stable of newspapers are mainly aligned to UMNO, and the Star and several Chinese newspapers,including Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Jit Poh, though owned by listed companies, are aligned with another Barisan Nasional component party, MCA.

And that's the root of the main problem I believe the Malaysian Fourth Estate suffers from -- having to be guided by their Master's Voice. The readers are often fed stories which are subject to much "spinning". That translates into news treatment and angling to favour the owners and political masters who "call the shots", especially in political news coverage, and it is the rare editor, or reporter, who tries to push the envelope – at the price of putting one’s career to personal peril.

This “biased” reportage becomes markedly transparent and obvious whenever a General Elections (GE) draws near,and blatantly one-sided during any GE, with often news pertaining to the ruling parties given prominence and positive coverage; if any Opposition news is carried, it focuses on negative developments or controversies in the Opposition.

Two examples of unethical breaches are cited here of recent coverage by The Star, but it does not mean other dailies are not guilty of similar “breaches” of what I term “journalism ethics”.

Case 1:

The largest-circulating daily in its edition dated Monday December 17, 2007 featured on page the following report, with the first five paragraphs reproduced here:

__________________________

‘No’ to street protests
Majority support use of laws to preserve harmony


PETALING JAYA: A large majority of Malaysians are against street protests and have backed the government’s decision to use the laws to stop anyone from threatening racial peace and harmony.

This was revealed in a survey conducted by the Merdeka Centre from Dec 17 to 21.

Eight hundred and sixty one respondents from
throughout the country, who were randomly selected along the lines of state of residence, ethnicity, gender and age (21 and above) were interviewed over the telephone for the survey.

To a question on whether the Government should use all the legal means it has to stop individuals and groups from threatening racial peace and harmony, 73% agreed
to such a tough stance.

However, 15% of those surveyed disagreed with such
actions.

The survey also showed that 52% of Malaysians supported the Prime Minister in the strong action taken against the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf)
while 25% disagreed.
_______________________________

The “point” to note here is that the survey period was from Dec 17 to 21 (second paragraph refers), but the news report was already out on Dec 21 when the survey would still be in progress! Just sharing an “insider view”, the news report was written by the Reporter, processed and approved by several levels of editors (Desk, Asst News, Chief News, and finally the Group Editor-In-Chief (GEIC) the day before, i.e. Dec 16, to appear the following day (Dec 17). Readers could not be blamed for thinking that the Star was guilty of “manufacturing news”, or that the Merdeka Centre was acting in cahoots with the newspaper in concocting “results” even before the survey was completed.

In a society truly practising news ethics, the journalists involved, from Reporter up to the GEIC, would have a case to answer, and the main culprit should be given a “Show-cause” letter.

As a Blogger, I wrote to the Merdeka Centre for its charification, as I stated that “The news report has serious implication on your
esteemed organisation …”, and to its credit, it responded within 48 hours, and among the contents of its reply from Ibrahim Suffian, Director – Programs, Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, were:

* Thank you for writing to us about this matter and your concern over the quality of reporting by our mainstream media - something that we too share.

* I wish to clarify that The Star made an error while reporting about the survey results. The survey was actually carried out between 7 and 12 December 2007 and not, 17 and 21 December 2007 as contained in the
report.

* We have since written to them requesting that a statement be placed in the newspaper to state the correct dates that the survey was
conducted.”


Up to date, the Star had not published, to my knowledge, any “Errata” or tendered any apologies to the Merdeka Centre or the public (as I believe the Merdeka Centre would have duly informed me if there had been any follow-up development).

Case 2:

A news report datelined Penang, Feb 10, 2008, again in the Star, headlined 'Malaysians are better off than four years ago’, and the first three paragraphs follow:

‘Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop said the country’s per capita income had risen by 40% between 2004 and 2007, from RM15,819 (US$4,163) to RM22,345 (US$6,452).

“If we compare in terms of US dollar, the per capita income has risen by 55% during the period due to the depreciation of the dollar against the ringgit.

“The Barisan Nasional Government is confident that we will get the people’s mandate again, based on the improved economic resilience.
____________________________

It’s small wonder that one blogger who runs mindful mariner at promptus.blogspot.com ran a Photo that read "Smells Like Bullshit".My take is that with the GE widely speculated to take place in less than two months, the newspaper was inclined to “spin” economic news to paint a “rosy” picture to help the incumbent Government coalition parties, including the MCA which essentially holds the master’s hand in the paper’s political news coverage.
But as any informed reader would know, Malaysia’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth in recent years was running at 5.0 to 6.0 percent a year, so simple arithmetic would tell you a reasonable estimate for the four-year period would be about 20-24 percent i.e. multiplying by 4 times the annual GDP numbers. It’s just “improbable” to claim the average Malaysian’s “per capita income has risen by 55% during the period”. Yes, I believe some oligarchs and the top 10 percent of the “privileged” class are indeed better off now than four years ago!

Jeff Ooi, in a commentary also reported an economist by training, Tony Pua, as saying that:

“Nor Mohamed Yakcop must either be completely out of his mind, or can no longer perform simple Mathematics or worse, attempting to insult the intelligence of ordinary Malaysians.

Malaysia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 5.0%, 5.9% and an estimated 6.0% in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively according to the Government's official statistics.
Based on the above growth rates over the past 3 years, Malaysia's GDP grew by approximately 17.9% from 2004 to 2007.

Income or GDP per capita is calculated by dividing the GDP with the total population. Therefore, it is completely inconceivable that our per capita income increased by 40% when our GDP grew by only 17.9%. Unless of course, the honourable Minister believes that our population shrunk by some 16%!”


In closing, let me reprise the quote often used by critics of leaders, especially politicians, in misleading their audience with ‘official numbers’ – “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

The quote is attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, but was popularized by Mark Twain in the US, in "Chapters from My Autobiography," published in the North American Review, No. DCXVIII., July 5, 1907. "Figures often beguile me," Twain wrote, "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"

DESIDERATA: In order to check an over-powering Executive and an almost one-party Parliament, the CITIZENS must rise up to the occasion in the 12th Parliamentary General Elections to make every vote count.

"V"ote for Change!
"V"ote Opposition!
"V"OTE PKR-DAP-PAS:)