Mahathir has announced that the highly controversial and super expensive HSR (high-speed rail) project is being “postponed”, not “cancelled”. Whether that was a U-turn from a 93-year-old man or was a clever strategy remains to be seen. Assuming it is just a postponement, will Singapore insist of having the new Malaysian government pay for the RM500 million penalty (*grin*)?
It’s not hard to understand why the Singapore government of Lee Hsien Loong was furious at newly crowned Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir. After Mahathir’s earlier announcement that the RM110 billion HSR project was scrapped, Malaysia had (deliberately) refused to issue an official response to Singapore, despite repetitive request to clarify the status.
In fact, Singapore Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan was so mad that on June 1, he openly threatened Malaysia – vowing to make Malaysia pay for expenses in addition to the contracted compensation clause of US$125 million. He complained to local news media saying that his Singapore government is “incurring costs” on the High Speed Rail link project.
PM Lee Hsien Loong had never thought his best friend ex-PM Najib Razak could lose the 14th general election. Therefore, his government had chosen to count the chickens before they hatched – pouring tons of money and resources to create an ambitious second Central Business District (CBD) at the western suburb region of Jurong, also known as Jurong Lake District.
In anticipation of the HSR development in Jurong, Singapore has actually removed the Tanjong Pagar Terminal port and relocated it to Tuas. Heck, the government had even paid tens of billions acquiring over 12 hectares of land from a golf club and several residential developments. Investors had also poured millions in property and commercial investments.
National University of Singapore transport lecturer Lee Der Horng said – “There are other development plans for the area, but the HSR terminus would have been the jewel in the crown of the area.” Now that the HSR has changed from “scrapped” to “postponed”, it only adds fuel to the confusion and frustration among Singaporean investors and the government.
Straits Times, arguably the mouthpiece of Singapore, the same way Global Times is to Beijing, has been running some articles which appear to be against the new government of Malaysia. The relationship between Mahathir Mohamad and Lee Hsien Loong has since taken a few notches down after the junior Lee was given only 30-minute slot during his visit to Mahathir’s office on May 19th.
That was despite PM Lee wearing “Malaysian Batik”, probably trying to impress upon the world’s oldest prime minister. After taking more than 8 hours of travel preparations, it was an insult to cut short the meeting to 30 minutes between two close neighbours. When grilled, Mr. Lee claimed that his meeting was “only a courtesy call.” Of course, that was not true.
An hour after the meeting between both leaders, Mahathir deliberately told all and sundry that all bilateral agreements with Singapore will be reviewed, including the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail – obviously an embarrassment to Lee. Adding insult to the injury, Mahathir later said the decision by Malaysian voters to vote out Barisan Nasional on May 9 could inspire Singaporeans.
In his interview with Financial Times, Mahathir cheekily said that the people of Singapore, like the people in Malaysia, must be tired of having the same government, the same party since independence. It was perhaps the most provocative statement from a Malaysian leader who suggested that Singaporeans should topple their government when the time comes.
Hit by postponement of HSR and “seditious remarks” from Mahathir, the Straits Times’ latest article suggests that the defeated Barisan Nasional coalition government could rise again and make a political comeback. It acknowledges that as compared to 85% Chinese support in the 2013 general election, the May 9th general election saw an increase 95% support from Chinese voters.
However, Straits Times argue that only between 25%-30% of ethnic-Malay voted for the new Pakatan Harapan coalition government. Using figures from Merdeka Center, the Singapore mouthpiece said 35%-40% of Malays voted for Barisan Nasional (BN) while 30-33% supported PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party). That’s laughably a very simplistic analysis, not to mention idiotic.
Perhaps the news media didn’t receive the memo. The so-called research firm Merdeka Center’s reputation has hit rock bottom ever since the humiliating defeat of Barisan Nasional under the leadership of Najib Razak. In fact, Barisan Nasional has disintegrated since four Sarawak parties unanimously quit the coalition two days ago.
Did Straits Times realize that just hours before the voting process starts, the same Merdeka Center has predicted that Najib’s Barisan Nasional is set to return to power? According to the top brains from the research firm, Barisan Nasional was expected to garner 37.3% of the popular vote, while the opposition pact was 43.4% and UMNO-friendly PAS at just 19.3%.
The survey had also estimated that there were 100 safe seats for BN, 83 for the opposition coalition and just two for PAS, with 37 marginal seats. In the end, the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan won 121 seats (a gain of 53 seats) while BN only managed 79 seats (a loss of 54 seats) and PAS grabbed 18 seats (a loss of 3 seats). Clearly, the poll sucks!
In terms of vote swing, Pakatan Harapan (PH) and friendly Sabah Warisan won 48.31% of the popular vote, an improvement of 11.21%. On the contrary, Barisan Nasional (BN) won only 33.8%, a plunge of 13.58%. On the other hand, Islamic party PAS secured 16.99%, a slight improvement of 2.21%. Again, you don’t need a rocket scientist to tell that BN’s loss was PH’s gain.
In 2013 general election, Barisan Nasional retained its power, garnering 5,237,699 popular votes. This round, the BN secured only 4,080,797 votes – losing an eye-popping 1,156,902 or 22% of its traditional votes. Pakatan Harapan, despite losing PAS support, has actually increased its votebank – from 5,623,984 votes (2013) to 5,781,600 (2018).
Yes, the same Merdeka Center had predicted a swing of 7.9% max in Malay votes to the opposition. Yet, in reality, BN saw 22% of its supporters jumped ships. While it’s true that some of BN supporters had swung to PAS, a huge portion of them had actually casted their votes for Pakatan Harapan. That explains why PAS only won decisively in Kelantan and Terengganu.
It was wrong from the beginning for Straits Times to use statistic from Merdeka Center and says that because the Malays are split equally among the BN (20%-30%), PH (35-40%) and PAS (30-33%), the new government is at risk and the corrupted BN could make a comeback. They conveniently ignore the fact that UMNO on its own had only won 2.5-million votes or 21% of popular votes.
On its own, UMNO’s 2.5-million popular votes translate to only 20.7% of total votes of 12,299,514 turnouts (82.32% turnout). Similarly, PAS’ 2.1-million popular vote constitute just 16.6% of the total voter turnout. That’s why PAS can only captured Kelantan and Terengganu and UMNO pathetically lost 6 more states and only rules Pahang and Perlis, after losing Sarawak through defection 2 days ago.
Straits Times also agreed with Merdeka Center’s research that although traditional BN supporters were unhappy with ex-PM Najib Razak and his GST (goods and services tax), they did not trust Pakatan Harapan coalition. Using the same logic, why should the same supporters vote back BN and risk having the regime re-introduce the tax again, now that GST has been scrapped?
Merdeka Center and Straits Times appear to be stuck at ancient time – arguing that UMNO and PAS would try to win over the Malays using the familiar baits of race, religion and royalties. They spoke as if UMNO’s ex-president Najib and PAS president Hadi Awang hadn’t sleep together and beat the drums of extremism and racism before the 14th general election.
They also foolishly assume that if both UMNO and PAS parties work together, Pakatan Harapan would be doomed. If they hadn’t figured it out already, both UMNO and PAS were working together for years since Najib bribed Hadi with RM90 million to split the Malay votes. And see what had that little brilliant plan gotten UMNO into.
Perhaps Straits Times thinks Malays are a bunch of stupid people. They thought majority of the Malays would still blindly worship monarchies and PAS’ extremism and fake Islam, so much so that they won’t care about putting food on the table. After scrapping GST, the next stage would be re-introducing subsidies for certain necessities so that cost of living can be contained.
At the end of the day, it’s all about bread and butter. If the magic wand of 3R (racial, religious and royalty) could not do its magic tricks on May 9th, how could it now? It was the Malay Najib Razak who had stolen billions from national coffers, and it was the Malay rulers who didn’t care to stop Najib from plundering the Malays’ treasure. And it was the Islamic party PAS that had supported Najib to steal more.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- Zahid Meets Mahathir – An Arrogant UMNO Warlord Made To Bend Over & Kow-Tow To An Old Man
- Apandi Fired, Thomas Hired! – Proof That UMNO-Malays Were Fake Defender Of Malays & Islam
- Rejecting A “Clean” Tommy Thomas As Attorney General – Mahathir’s Bait For The Monarchies
- New Government Practices Transparency – And Foreign Analysts & Agencies Aren’t Happy
- Mahathir Is Moving For The Kill – Scraps RM110 Billion HSR Project, And There’s Nothing Singapore Can Do
- This Chart Shows How Najib Drove The Country To RM1 Trillion In Debt
- Why The Hell Didn’t Crooks Najib And Rosmah Flee Instantly After They Lost The Election?
- This Chart Shows How US-DOJ Links Auntie Rosie To A $27-Million Pink Diamond
- Swiss A.G. – Najib’s 1MDB Scammed At Least $800 Million Using “Ponzi Scheme”
- One Big Family Of Crooks? Najib’s In-Law Took Hermes Bags Without Paying
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June 14th, 2018 by financetwitter
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As I’m writing this it’s barely a month of a miraculous peaceful overthrowing of our previous kleptocratic government by the grace of God and the will of the people. With barely any violence we the people spoke in unity to throw the scumbags out into the street and usher in a new era of governance lead by a 93 year old that we used to revile along with his Coalition to steer this country back to prosperity.
I’ve also just learned that Anthony Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room in an apparent suicide, Donald Trump is at the G7 meeting breaking all kinds of protocol and diplomacy, and Kim Jong Un will be meeting the US President in Singapore for what will be the most historic summit of these sworn enemies.
Indeed these are truly interesting times that I’m living in. But alas….forces with sinister intentions are lurking in the shadows waiting for any opportunity to revert this country back to division with the ever familiar 3R’s, race, religion, royalty. And the new administration is openly bickering about non essential issues and looks to be easily distracted from the things that matters most to us the ordinary folks.
And in this hodge podge of confusion the main perpetrators that has blatantly and literally robbed this nations coffers are still enjoying freedom from persecution and actually adding to the chaos with their rhetoric even as their crimes are laid bare for all to see.
In this crucial time for reforms and payback it infuriates me that there are still a segment of the people that without any shame or remorse that is still supporting the very people that has brought this nation almost to it’s knee financially.
And there those within the ruling administration that seems to be WORKING AGAINST the duly elected government at every turn. The overwhelming ‘voice’ of the people that voted for some of these individuals seems to be forgotten by them. We are just pawns and the old system looks to be alive and well still?
How could this be? Each day we are learning of the transgressions of the previous government with revelations of corruption, misconduct, breach of trust, and yet some of the very people involved are still in their positions!!
The new administration speaks of the Rule Of Law but no action seems to be forthcoming. Where is the action? Where is the charges and indictments to bring those guilty into a court of law? The longer they remain free the more the administration loses the trust and goodwill of the people and the easier it will be for those sinister forces to disrupt and divide to conquer and bring this nation back to as it was!
And then we have Anwar Ibrahim. The wild card so to speak in the larger scheme of things. Not once since his release has he shown any sincerity nor gratitude to the masses that allowed him to be pardoned by the Agong in the first place. Instead his first mission it seemed was to pander to the Royalties when those same Royalties were selfishly allowing the very fabric of this nation to be torn asunder with rise to extremism, corruption and blatant disregard to the Laws and as the people suffered these Royals were silent witout a peep of discontent and yet they seem to be Anwar’s priority. He speaks eloquently sure but eloquence is no substitute for substance. A Prime Minister in waiting? Indeed!!
The opposition is regrouping and pouncing on every perceived missteps by the new administration that is still allowing extremists with hate and malice to be heard and sow discord and ruining the new beginning the people demanded.
The system IS broken and needs an overhaul. The time is NOW! Pussyfooting on every issue is not helping anyone. This is the time to unite not divide, this is the time for strength not weakness, this is the time for change not reminisce, this is the time to steer this nation and opposing voices be damned, this is the time for courage of conviction!!
The people expect and demand a better governance as they should. The politics of race or religion should be dumped into the dustbin of history IF we are to achieve our true glory as a country!!
The members of the press must buck up and abandon the old way of treating news as tabloid pieces with nothing of substance but fluffy pieces for idiots to consume. Where are the hard hitting questions? Why are you members of the press not grabbing this new sense of freedom to educate and shape and mold the people’s mind to accepting the new realities?
Or are you so stuck in your ways that you fail to see the forests for the trees? As the fourth estate that is unacceptable! Your job is to question and report only factual information and use that information and facts to inform and educate the people.
Let’s see if you are up to the challenge because failure for you to do so is a disservice to our nation and you have no business calling yourselves Journalists or Reporters. Have pride in your work and in your power of influence. How about it press??
We are at the threshold of a new beginning and as such are indeed vulnerable and the whole world is watching. This could be our moment in history to shine or to languish into the heap of a failed state with dire consequence for the people who rests their hopes and aspirations on your shoulders to be their voice, their collective conscience, their armada of accountability. Will you let them down??
And as to those in charge in Putrajaya please don’t take us all for granted. We are fed up and we’re still sore with what has been going on for the past decade of the stench and rot invading our systems and all the crap we had to endure. We rest our aspirations on all of you to do the right thing and if you can’t or won’t have the decency to get out of the way!!
Time is not on your side and speed is of the essence! The people have spoken and it bears repeating that WE HAVE SPOKEN!!! Dismiss our voices at your own peril!!!