While switching on the TV awhile ago, I was shocked to find out that famous blogger, Raja Petra will appear live on RTM1 tomorrow night, Sunday 27th April. I just feel that he should just stick to his Malaysia-Today blog. To me it is just a waste of air time to watch him on tv.
Frankly speaking, if we look at the trend of what is happening now, Pak Lah's so-called reform agenda is actually paving the way for the opposition to win the next general election. The trend is already there. Sadly, this is a government with no clear sense of direction. More than a month have passed on since the disastrous election result for Barisan Nasional and yet I still don't know where Pak Lah is heading. It's as if business as usual for him. It has now come to the point that even when Pak Lah does something good, the people just don't have faith anymore in him. I hope that he won't be re-elected at this year's UMNO party election.
Pak Lah's so-called reform agenda reminds me to an article by Isham Rais in his 'Dari Jelebu' column in Malaysia-Today, '
Dolah dan Gorby – Perestroika dan Glasnot'.
..Seperti Gorby, Abdullah Badawi merasakan telah sampai masanya ruang demokrasi dibuka dan satu penstrukturan baru wajib dilakukan. Abdullah sedang melihat jalan buntu di hadapan Putrajaya. Apa yang sedang kita lihat hari ini adalah hasil empat tahun dasar perestroika dan glasnot Abdullah Badawi..
Hishamuddin Rais has made a good comparison of Pak Lah's so-called democratisation, openness and reform agenda with former Russian USSR President, Mikhail Gorbachev. As an overview to this issue, in the 1980s, Gorbachev has launched a series of reform in terms of governance, social freedom, media and economy (
Glosnost and Perestroika). Some of the effects of this reform were that, the Communist government relaxed its censorship on the media and soon after, the media took the opportunity to expose social and economic problems by the Soviet government. Gorbachev's economic reform by introducing an 'open market' system too has not really gone down well with the public. It was dogged down with many problems. This has caused the public to lose faith in the Soviet government.
Gorbachev's original goal to reform the Soviet Union has finally proved to be a failure when later in 1991 the Soviet Union was dissolved. If we look back at the Soviet's history in the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet Union has actually began in 1985, the moment Gorbachev introduced the
Glosnost and
Perestroika policy.
So basically, my view is that if UMNO does not listen to the calls for Pak Lah to resign or clearly spell out the transition plan immediately, I believe this is what is going to happen in the next 4 or 5 years (or maybe by end of this year if what Anwar's claim is true). A clear reform is needed not only by UMNO but the BN as a whole. History has shown that many dominant political parties who ruled for decades had lost. A few examples would be the Kuomintang in Taiwan, Indian Congress Party and the latest being the Colorado Party in Paraguay which lost the election to the Patriotic Alliance for Change coalition after ruling Paraguay for 61 years.
Isham Rais concluded his article by saying;
Saya yakin rakyat akan mempertahankan glasnot dan perestroika untuk memunculkan Vladimir Putin dengan parti barunya. Pilihan rakyat ini akan membuka era pencerahan di Malaysia.
While he seems to acknowledge and suggest that Pak Lah's openness policy (which I see it as Pak Lah's weaknesses) will subseqently benefit the opposition parties, I just hope that the 8 March election results is not the end of a new beginning.
Related article
'The Age of the Sledgehammer' by Karim Raslan
Umno leaders should learn from Asia's other once dominant parties who lost office but were able to reinvent themselves and regain power..Labels: Abdullah Badawi, Anwar Ibrahim, election, Hishamuddin Rais, Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir
