Does financial or stock markets related to politic in one way or another? It’s no brainer that the answer is an obvious “Yes”. A government that is unstable, lack of transparency, policies that forever changes, weak and poor governance, bias and so on could only scare off potential investors (both foreign and local). Thomson Financial reported that Malaysia is getting bad publicity as a result of the recent street protests which could impact foreign interest in the Malaysian bourse.

Remember those days when former premier Mahathir bashed currency speculators especially George Soros for wiping out billions of dollars of market capitalization during 1997/1998 Asia Crisis? What about the CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) crisis that crippled the relationship between Malaysia and Singapore which affected almost RM16 billion worth of shares held by 172,000 individuals after Malaysia suddenly banned the CLOB trading? And to think the big boss of Malaysia Bourse has the cheek to ask why listed companies locally command so little premium compare to off-shore listing.

Not many countries have good leader let alone great governance. The nearest you can get might be the United States though I can’t force you to like President Bush. Before you tell me to go and migrate to the country if I don’t like it here, please let me tell you the component I like about US is their transparency especially their financial markets. They might not be 100% angel but the fact that companies are proud to have their corporations listed in either NYSE or Nasdaq speaks volume.

Long story short, it’s time Malaysia starts getting a true leader to lead the nation, although this short statement would remains a dream. It’s a top-bottom as far as the country’s management is concern. The quality of service reflects how the head of department is supervising them and in turns reflects how the the leader is driving the whole entity. So if you have a sleepy and weak Prime Minister, expect nothing more than a similar Ministerships throughout the Cabinet. It’s quite easy to choose a capable leader really. As a start put the candidates wishing for the position on open and public debates on how and what they plan to do for the country. Let the nation’s voters watch it live.

Guess what! With days before the 2007 is behind us, it appears Malaysia’s general election might be held on the same year as United States 2008 Election. And based on the polls, it seems the Americans are giving the wife of former President Clinton a comfortable 43% lead with Obama trailing behind with 25%. Yahoo has launched the Election 2008 Political Dashboard. It’s simple yet interesting to see the indicators for each candidate. Besides Polls, you have “Buzz” numbers which shows how much candidates are being searched for on Yahoo’s search engine.
The next mind-boggling indicator is the “Prediction Market” values that act similar to stock prices for political candidates. It allows investors to buy “shares” in candidates – meaning the higher the value the more bullish investors are that the stock (candidate) will rise (win). This prediction market data is provided by an Irish company. Cool huh? The last indicator and perhaps the most important (to Malaysia’s public at least) is the financial or the money raised for the candidates (I’m sure US couldn’t beat Malaysian ruling government on this item). .

What do you think the dashboard will looks like putting Malaysia’s political scenario into the same framework? Will it looks something like this?
Other Articles That May Interest You …

• ISA-Mania, can you smell what Badawi’s cooking?
• Rally, Racial and the Race towards the Election
• Malaysia’s Biggest Rallies since 1998 – KL under siege

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December 15th, 2007 by financetwitter

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