BN, opposition hit by fallout from Wong scandal

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 19 — The storm over the semi-naked photographs of an opposition assemblywoman may have started as a private matter, but it has now become a complicated political mess for both sides.

Bullets have been fired at the Barisan Nasional for using it as a political weapon. But the opposition Pakatan Rakyat is also grappling with the difficulties of defending its assemblywoman without alienating the conservatives in its midst.

The BN took the first hit after the photographs of Elizabeth Wong began circulating. Some even called it a BN conspiracy, despite the lack of evidence.

“This is a nasty, humiliating personal attack on her and we have seen this pattern of attack in Perak, Kedah and now, in Selangor,” opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was quoted as saying in The Star daily yesterday.

Asked for proof that the BN was responsible, he reportedly said several blogs had made the link.

Deputy Premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday denied that the BN was behind the scandal, and told the opposition to stop making baseless accusations.

“Where is the proof? Who did it? I don't know anything about it and suddenly the issue exploded in the papers. If they want to accuse us, please show proof,” he said.

There seems to be widespread belief in a conspiracy. This is not surprising as the BN is carrying the heavy burden of a loss of public confidence.

The timing of the photographs comes close to the toppling of the opposition government in Perak, and the resignation of an opposition assemblyman in Kedah. V. Arumugam resigned abruptly after being accused of marrying another woman without divorcing his first wife.

“He was targeted, and it turned into a morality issue,” said political analyst Khoo Kay Peng.

In fact, many BN leaders, including MCA women's chief Datuk Chew Mei Fun and Gerakan women's chief Tan Lian Hoe, have been sympathetic to Wong.

They were swift to support her when the photographs of her asleep, partially naked, surfaced.

Wong, 37, who tendered her resignation on Tuesday, did not say who took the photographs, but police are looking to question her former boyfriend Hilmi Malek, 32.

But what caught attention was Umno Youth chief aspirant Datuk Seri Dr Khir Toyo's call for Wong's resignation. “She is a single person. How can she allow a man into her room when they are not married?” he was quoted as saying.

There is vast sympathy for Wong from the public, and Dr Khir was slammed by many for his remarks.

But the opposition is also aware that there is a segment of Malaysian society who thinks like him, and views premarital sex as a sin.

“Wong the politician understands that there are people who do mind, and some could be in her constituency, hence her offer to resign,” columnist Zainul Arifin wrote in the New Straits Times.

Wong had said she wanted to resign because she believed the attacks by the BN would continue with greater intensity.

But even within her coalition, there appears to be difficulties.

The conservative Pas has not spoken with one voice. While its women's chief Nuridah Salleh supported Wong, its Selangor leadership has been ambivalent.

“If investigations reveal any moral transgression on the part of Wong, we feel that appropriate action must be taken against her to safeguard the integrity and good name of Pakatan Rakyat and the Selangor government,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The issue is complicated by the fact that Wong's former boyfriend is Muslim, and is subject to Islamic laws on morality, such as those on close proximity.

“The matter could take on a new dimension,” said an MCA politician.

As Khoo noted, the political twist in this private matter has merely reinforced the belief that sex scandals are the most potent tool to destroy political rivals in Malaysia. — The Straits Times

Malaysia opposition seeks to prove it can govern

Despite the prospect of Malaysia's economic growth slowing to just 1.5 percent in 2009, according to leading local investment bank RHB, from an expected 5.4 percent this year, Penang has seen a rise in foreign investment.

By Julie Goh, Reuters

PENANG - Malaysia's manufacturing state of Penang believes it can introduce controversial economic reforms and win investment despite a global economic slowdown and the challenge of being an opposition-run state.

The opposition alliance's triumph in Penang, the third largest state in terms of economic output in Malaysia, was one of the biggest shocks in March's historic elections that brought the opposition to power in five of the country's 13 states.

How well it can now govern those states could determine whether the alliance can sustain an unprecedented challenge to the Barisan Nasional government, which has ruled this southeast Asian country of 27 million people for 51 years.

"Yes, the economic slowdown has affected Penang. I'm not going to run away from admitting it," Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng told Reuters in an interview last week.

"That's why, we are adopting an expansionary budget next year, one that is pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-poor," he said.

Despite the prospect of Malaysia's economic growth slowing to just 1.5 percent in 2009, according to leading local investment bank RHB, from an expected 5.4 percent this year, Penang has seen a rise in foreign investment.

The state has received $1.69 billion worth of investment in the first seven months of 2008 against $1.30 billion for the whole of last year, Lim said.

U.S. firm National Instruments (NATI.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said this month it would spend $80 million to set up a plant, while Honeywell (HON.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said it would shift some operations to the island.

FROM INMATE TO CHIEF

The island, lying strategically at the head of the Malacca Strait and a free port until 1969, built up one the largest electronics manufacturing bases in Asia from the 1970s offering good infrastructure and a bilingual workforce.

"Investors feel that because there is a new government, and they feel that because this new leadership is in tune to their concerns, this is one of the added advantages that they want to invest in Penang," the 48-year-old Lim said.

Even so, he is looking to the federal government to provide 500 million ringgit ($138.1 million) to retrain workers who lose their jobs in the current downturn.

Heading such a powerful state is a big change for Lim.

He was detained under a harsh security law from 1987-1989 along with his father, Lim Kit Siang, who leads the Democratic Action Party, part of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim's opposition alliance.

The younger Lim is one of the most vocal and powerful critics of the government and has been accused of stoking racial tensions over a range of issues, from dual language road signs to demands that a system of affirmative action for ethnic Malays be ended.

Any mention of race in this country where nearly 60 percent of the population is ethnic Malay and where there are large ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian minorities is met with a forceful response by the Malay-dominated government.

Lim, an ethnic Chinese, says the 37-year old programme designed to lift Malays out of poverty has enriched only those with political connections and has also entrenched corruption.

Malaysia's ranking in Transparency International's corruption perception index has fallen to 43rd from 37th since 2003.

The government insists it is doing all it can to stamp out what it coyly labels "money politics" but Lim and the opposition say no real action has been taken.

Since winning power, Lim has initiated a system of governance he calls CAT -- competency, accountability and transparency -- a move he said has endeared him to foreign investors and now he plans to replace closed tenders with open tenders.

"It has been challenging in the sense that there are so many things to dismantle, all the past excesses," he said.

So far, Penang voters appear to be willing to give Lim the benefit of the doubt.

"We voted the opposition into power. We should give them some time to implement changes," said Ong Swee Aik, who sells shoes in the 65-storey Komtar building, which also houses the state government office. :If they do a good job, we will vote for them again in the next election."

Malaysia opposition seeks to prove it can govern

Despite the prospect of Malaysia's economic growth slowing to just 1.5 percent in 2009, according to leading local investment bank RHB, from an expected 5.4 percent this year, Penang has seen a rise in foreign investment.

By Julie Goh, Reuters

PENANG - Malaysia's manufacturing state of Penang believes it can introduce controversial economic reforms and win investment despite a global economic slowdown and the challenge of being an opposition-run state.

The opposition alliance's triumph in Penang, the third largest state in terms of economic output in Malaysia, was one of the biggest shocks in March's historic elections that brought the opposition to power in five of the country's 13 states.

How well it can now govern those states could determine whether the alliance can sustain an unprecedented challenge to the Barisan Nasional government, which has ruled this southeast Asian country of 27 million people for 51 years.

"Yes, the economic slowdown has affected Penang. I'm not going to run away from admitting it," Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng told Reuters in an interview last week.

"That's why, we are adopting an expansionary budget next year, one that is pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-poor," he said.

Despite the prospect of Malaysia's economic growth slowing to just 1.5 percent in 2009, according to leading local investment bank RHB, from an expected 5.4 percent this year, Penang has seen a rise in foreign investment.

The state has received $1.69 billion worth of investment in the first seven months of 2008 against $1.30 billion for the whole of last year, Lim said.

U.S. firm National Instruments (NATI.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said this month it would spend $80 million to set up a plant, while Honeywell (HON.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said it would shift some operations to the island.

FROM INMATE TO CHIEF

The island, lying strategically at the head of the Malacca Strait and a free port until 1969, built up one the largest electronics manufacturing bases in Asia from the 1970s offering good infrastructure and a bilingual workforce.

"Investors feel that because there is a new government, and they feel that because this new leadership is in tune to their concerns, this is one of the added advantages that they want to invest in Penang," the 48-year-old Lim said.

Even so, he is looking to the federal government to provide 500 million ringgit ($138.1 million) to retrain workers who lose their jobs in the current downturn.

Heading such a powerful state is a big change for Lim.

He was detained under a harsh security law from 1987-1989 along with his father, Lim Kit Siang, who leads the Democratic Action Party, part of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim's opposition alliance.

The younger Lim is one of the most vocal and powerful critics of the government and has been accused of stoking racial tensions over a range of issues, from dual language road signs to demands that a system of affirmative action for ethnic Malays be ended.

Any mention of race in this country where nearly 60 percent of the population is ethnic Malay and where there are large ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian minorities is met with a forceful response by the Malay-dominated government.

Lim, an ethnic Chinese, says the 37-year old programme designed to lift Malays out of poverty has enriched only those with political connections and has also entrenched corruption.

Malaysia's ranking in Transparency International's corruption perception index has fallen to 43rd from 37th since 2003.

The government insists it is doing all it can to stamp out what it coyly labels "money politics" but Lim and the opposition say no real action has been taken.

Since winning power, Lim has initiated a system of governance he calls CAT -- competency, accountability and transparency -- a move he said has endeared him to foreign investors and now he plans to replace closed tenders with open tenders.

"It has been challenging in the sense that there are so many things to dismantle, all the past excesses," he said.

So far, Penang voters appear to be willing to give Lim the benefit of the doubt.

"We voted the opposition into power. We should give them some time to implement changes," said Ong Swee Aik, who sells shoes in the 65-storey Komtar building, which also houses the state government office. :If they do a good job, we will vote for them again in the next election."

Opposition MPs cry foul over DNA Bill

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 26 The remaining opposition MPs left in the House accused Home Minister Datuk Syed Hamid Albar of sneaking in the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Identification Bill 2008 whilst the bulk of the opposition was campaigning in Permatang Pauh.

The DAP"s Batu Gajah MP Fong Po Kuan questioned the haste with which the government was tabling the Bill for second reading.

-Why are we being asked to debate this Bill when we have not had time to read and prepare for the debate?- she asked in Dewan Rakyat today where only 10 opposition MPs were in attendance.

"I think there is an ulterior motive in speeding up the tabling of this Bill," she said, referring to the opposition's suspicion that the Bill is targeted at de facto opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial.

Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz Omar, who is also Pas information chief, said that the opposition had not been briefed about the Bill but claimed that the government backbenchers "have been briefed by the police during a special briefing. We were not invited for this."

Pas's Kubang Kerian MP Salahuddin Ayob also claimed that since the government had tabled the Universities and Universities Colleges (Amendment) Bill 2008 at the end of the last session, the opposition had been focusing their "homework" on it and were left blindsided by the DNA Bill.

However, deputy speaker Ronald Kiandee overruled them by declaring that the government had the right to give priority to any Bill it felt was important and "they do not have to give a reason."

Syed Hamid told reporters in the Parliament lobby that there was no "sinister motive" to the timing of the Bill's debate.

"The Bill was supposed to be tabled after the National Kenaf and Tobacco Board Bill, but I was unwell so I asked for it to be moved down the order paper and be tabled later," he said after tabling the Bill for its second reading.

Syed Hamid insisted that the Bill was not aimed at any particular person.

"A person is not charged because of this act, but due to police investigations when they are satisfied there is a prima facie case and then it is up to the courts to decide. We are not going to use this to make a person chargeable, that is not the purpose of the Bill," he said, rebutting Fong's allusion to Anwar's case.

The Bill was to have been tabled during the 11th sitting of Parliament but was delayed. Apart from providing for compulsory extraction of DNA, the Bill seeks to provide for the establishment of a forensic DNA data bank and the use of forensic DNA analysis on DNA profiles.

The Bill also provides for punitive measures on those who refuse to give a "non-intimate sample" such as samples taken from a nail or under a nail, a swab from a non-private part and saliva in the form of a fine not exceeding RM10,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or both.

Meanwhile, lawyers from the Human Rights Committee of the Bar Council called for the Bill to be withdrawn from debate until there was proper public consultation with experts such as chemists, criminologists and lawyers.

"We are not against the setting up of a DNA data bank but it must be set up with adequate safeguards," said committee member Edward Bon, adding that a parliamentary select committee should be set up to undertake research and make further amendments to the Bill, add privacy rights, adopt a data protection regime and ratify the international covenant of civil and political rights.