Entry tags:

politics

Leadership by example

Over the past few months, I have been following Malaysian politics very closely due to a lot of issues that has popped up recently. It kicked off with the infamous Lingam Tapes. The Lingam Tapes are a collection of short video clips featuring a telephone conversation between a senior lawyer and the chief judge of Malaya talking about 'fixing' their own men in top judiciary posts in the country. When faced with the video tape, the star of the tapes denied everything by saying these (in)famous words: He looks like me, he sounds like me, but he isn't me. *boggles*

Why are the Lingam Tapes so influencial? In the past, there have been whispers of miscarriage of justice due to political influences. The Lingam Tapes were solid proof of judge-fixing in the system. In a nutshell: provided you know the correct people, you can 'make things go away'.

That opened a huge can of worms. One thing led to another:

• the BERSIH rally - calling for electoral fairness, allegedly on the phantom voters issue in past elections.
  
• the HINDRAF rally - whereby 20,000 of the country's Indian ethnic minority took to the streets to protest on racial discrimination. Up to this date, five of the organisers are still detained under the Internal Security Act which the original intent is to detain people deemed dangerous to the nation's security - i.e. terrorists. One of the organisers was even voted into the Parliment while under detention!
  
• The Lina Joy case - if you are born a Muslim, you are forever a Muslim in this country, regardless of whether you want to leave the religion or not. Last year, a Malay Muslim lady converted to Christianity. In Malaysia, you have to apply for apostasy through the Syariah court, and this lady was fighting to get the label 'Islam' removed from her identity card. She failed. This raised the question of religious freedom in Malaysia.
  
• The Keris issue - the leader of the UMNO (ruling Malay-based party) youth organisation repeatedly took a keris (a Malay dagger) to the UMNO assembly, waved it around and kissed it to show 'Malay pride'. More like arrogance, if you ask me. Although he apologised eventually after the ruling coalition suffered a humiliating defeat in the recent elections, it was a half-baked and insincere apology.

There are loads of other issues like the Terengganu oil money dispute, the Altantuya murder case, corruption, etc. That resulted in a political tsunami in the March 2008 General Elections whereby the ruling BN coalition lost its 2/3rds majority for the first time ever since 1969. Five states in East Malaysia (my home state included) fell into Opposition hands.

Today, I came across this article talking about how humble and reluctant the Chief Minister of Penang is to spend the people's money for his own leisure - http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/6972/1/. He has no private jet, and he refuses to travel in Business/First Class while attending to his duties as a Chief Minister. Instead, he took the Economy Class. And no, he didn't get a group of reporters to cover his trip on the Ecomony Class cabin. He was spotted by a member of the public and the photo snapped on an amateur digital camera.

In the past, there has been reports of YAB Lim Guan Eng refusing to spend RM100,000 of the people's money to renovate his official residence, and he was still living in his father's old humble house. I was a little skeptical of this 'I wanna stay in my dad's old house because I don't wanna spend the people's money on my personal comfort', but a picture speaks a thousand words.

A politician like him earns my respect. Most other Malaysians would be left the country after being thrown into jail for apparent libel against an ex-Chief Minister in his old constituency. If they haven't left the country, they would have grown tired of the monkey business going around and quit politics. His love for Malaysia was so deep that he put up with the bullshit, made his way from a convict to the Chief Minister post and still lived humbly after he reached the top.

There is hope after all.