Malaysiaku, Negaraku

          An independent candidate with Gerak Independent sent me a Whatsapp message soliciting for funds to contest in the next general election.          He claimed that he wants to " collaborate and work with PH in GE 15," but the seat that he is contesting in is currently held by a PH candidate.            The seat P105 which used to be PJ Utara and now renamed Damansara is held by Tony Pua. P106 is held by Maria Chin Abdullah.          Pua has already indicated that he will not be contesting. Although the PH coalition has not even announced its candidate for the coming general election, this gentleman already announced that he will "collaborate and work with PH."           How can he collaborate and work with PH if he does not even know who will be replacing Pua, or whether Maria Chin will remain as the candidate? To me, Maria Chin has don...

    By Stephen Ng   Comment: Universiti Utara Malaysia professor Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani may be right in that PAS is good only to spoil votes, but in a three-corner fight between Umno and Pakatan Harapan, I think Umno will lose. To qualify my statement, it depends on whether former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad can do a good job in reaching out to the rural Malays. He and former Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yasin should just focus on reaching the rural Malays, not the urban voters who have already made up their minds. Most rural Malays prefer peace to aggressive behaviours that they see in Umno, especially when it comes to the way Umno members react to the presence for Dr Mahathir in their villages. Changing Landscape The game plan has changed. The rural Malays, where both Umno and PAS had a strong grip in the past, now have to decide between Umno, PAS and Pakatan Harapan. Malay votes are split to three. Even with PAS entering into the Barisan ...

By Stephen Ng            Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in an interview with Noel Lim of BFM, said that he did not care to leave behind a legacy.          I beg to differ with the former prime minister. His is a legacy of dictatorship during his first 22 years as premier and of betrayal, during his tenure as prime minister a second time.          When he joined Pakatan Harapan, he needed the coalition more than the coalition needed him. Against all analyses done, I think PH won mainly because of the shift in the voting pattern of East Malaysians.          We all knew that if not because of the seats won in both Sabah and Sarawak, PH would not have enough seats to form the federal government.          Dr Mahathir has forgotten that it is the people who voted for PH, not him. His own party, Bersat...

  Welcome to the city of Venice!          Ooops, for some reason, I forgot that this is indeed the city of Kuala Lumpur where I have grown up as a child, and now, mourn over its gradual demise as a liveable city.           Here, skyscrapers rise to the sky to fulfill the ambitions of politicians who want to leave a legacy for themselves (in the process the cronies have their pockets filled with cash), but the city has become another eyesore to the world.           Tourists would not want to visit Malaysia during the monsoon season. When tourists do not turn up at our doorsteps, businesses will suffer.           We know that there is only one thing certain whenever it rains: we have to get ready our gondolas and manouvre our way through the rivers of Venice.            Knowing Malaysians with their driving habits, there will be massiv...

  I sent this video to a Malay friend of mine and surprisingly, his response was: "No BN. Enough is enough."           My response to him was:  " We want Malays who are progressive so that we can progress as a nation and (together, with out combined skills and talents) compete with the rest of the world. Someone like Syed Saddiq gets the thumbs up because he represents the progressive Malays.  "In the past, Umno used to equate the Chinese with DAP, babi or communists. Now the narrative no longer works. Even May 13 has not been successful as we all know now who were the gang of three who created the tragedy and why they did that to achieve their own political agenda." Just to recap some of the things you may have heard or read in the past: (1) In the past, a number of narratives have been pitched against DAP and the Chinese. None of these narratives are being played up again, especially after the Malays begin to realise that it was nothing but...

  Malaysia is in danger of a backlash by the return of the Decepticons.           But the question is: Can we afford the return of Umno and its current batch of leaders?           What if they were just the red herrings -- Najib Abdul Razak or Zahid Hamidi will after not become the Prime Minister; instead, another Umno leader such as former Menteri Besar of Negeri Sembilan, Mohamad Hasan or former Minister of Higher Education, Mustapha Mohamad?          Well, the question is: would they survive? Or would they end up being slaughtered just like Abdullah A. Badawi? After all, the good moderate politicians can hardly survive in Umno politics, where the warlords are many.          The country is already going through a tough time. In March this year, Finance Minister, Tengku Zafrul Aziz said that the country still needs  another RM17 billionto repay 1MDB’s total outst...

GE15, who will win the general election?           I have been saying time again that the state elections are not a gauge of the upcoming GE15.           That's why I never even bothered to follow the state elections, but of course, BN cybertroopers ---- and there are now many planted in all social media -- used it to try to swing back PH supporters back to BN.           This was what the big boss of a newspaper told me before GE14: that the Chinese and Indian votes have swung back to BN. I laughed.           GE15 cannot be gauged by the results in the state elections. In the midst of the pandemic, most "ordinary" voters like me would not bother to go all out, either to return from oveerseas or even Singapore to vote.          The Johor election, for example, was carried out during the pandemic. If I recall correctly, the borders were still clo...