Judgment Day - Akan Datang
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Saturday May 17, 2008
Cabinet wants Dr M and five others investigated
By SHAILA KOSHY and V.P. SUJATA
PUTRAJAYA: The Cabinet has agreed that investigations be conducted into all allegations against former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and five others identified in the Royal Commission of Inquiry report on the V.K. Lingam video clip.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim said the five others were lawyer Datuk V.K. Lingam, tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and former Chief Justices Tun Eusoff Chin and Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim.
Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail said he would go through the report before announcing whether he would be ordering a probe.
“I will study the recommendations in the report very carefully, after which I will issue a statement at the appropriate time.
“Please give us time to do our job properly,” he said.
Zaid said the six would be investigated for offences under the Sedition Act, Official Secrets Act and the Penal Code, which included obstruction of justice.
“All the recommendations in the report are advisory in nature so we have to have another investigation,” he said, adding that the Government had taken note of the recommendations for judicial reform and the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission.
“The Government is in the process of finalising the relevant laws to set up this commission and it will be made known soon,” he said, adding that the Government also proposed to include the recognition of “judicial power” as proposed by the Commission.
He said these moves were vital to help restore the people’s confidence in the judiciary.
The Cabinet, he said, had urged the public, including the media, to allow uninterrupted investigations without undue pressure and prejudice against any individual identified in the report.
“It must be reiterated that in our legal system, an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” he told reporters at the Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister’s Department here yesterday.
The Royal Commission was formed to verify the authenticity of the video clip purportedly showing prominent lawyer Lingam on the phone brokering judicial appointments with a senior judge. Twenty-one witnesses testified at the 17-day inquiry which began on Jan 14.
Zaid also said that the Cabinet had agreed for the contents of the report to be released and sold to the public.
The report, which comes in four volumes comprising 2,889 pages, will cost RM541.60; of which the main report costs RM161.40 while the notes of proceedings, statutory declaration and lists of exhibits are priced at RM123.30, RM120 and RM136.90 respectively.
The public can buy the report at the Legal Affairs Division from Tuesday afternoon.
In its report, the commission said that the video clip, made by businessman Loh Gwo Burne, was indeed recorded at Lingam's house in December 2001.
It said it had no hesitation in finding that the clip to be genuine, real, reliable and trustworthy and its contents true in substance and material particulars.
In examining Lingam and Fairuz's testimonies, which they described as bare denials, against the direct evidence elicited from the phone conversation as well as the evidence of Gwo Burne and his businessman father Loh Mui Fah, the commission found that it was none other than Fairuz that Lingam was speaking to on the telephone.
The panel also said the evidence showed that Lingam was not intoxicated during the conversations, as he had suggested.
It added that the evidence also militates against Lingam's other suggestion that he could have been “bullshitting” or bragging.
The commission said that, in the final analysis, there was conceivably an insidious movement by Lingam with the covert assistance of his close friends Tan and Tengku Adnan to involve themselves actively in the appointment of judges, in particular that of Fairuz as Chief judge of Malaya and later Court of Appeal president.
In the process, the panel added that Dr Mahathir was also entangled.
While noting that the group's ultimate aim could not be ascertained, given the limitation of the terms of reference, the commission said it was reasonable to suggest that it could not be anything but self-serving.
The panel said the collective and cumulative actions of the main characters concerned had the effect of seriously undermining the independence and integrity of the judiciary as a whole.
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Malaysia under PM Badawi seems to be entering a new phase of political evolution of transparency and governance.
Mahathir may yet live to regret his goading statements in belittling PM Badawi's Government.
Singapore has alot to catch up in holding the Political Leadership accountable for all the political horrors that have continued since the 1950s.
It will take a new Government to dig up the skeletons in the vaults, and a blast of fresh air will be needed to clear the cob-webs that hold the entire charade in place.
Will Singapore ever get to experience a similar independent commission to investigate all the scandals that had occurred, and make public all the honestly investigated details ?
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Sunday May 18, 2008
Dr M: Take me to court
By FARIK ZOLKEPLI and GLADYS TAY
JOHOR BARU: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is prepared to be charged in court so that he can reveal many things about the judiciary.
“By charging me in court, I will have the opportunity to explain many things that the judges did, including lobbying,” Dr Mahathir said.
“I hope the investigation will not end with no case. In that case, I will have no opportunity to explain what had happened.
“I want to tell about the judges who had come to me to lobby. If lobbying is wrong, then these judges should be probed,” he said when commenting on the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry. It held there was evidence that he, lawyer Datuk V.K. Lingam, tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and former chief justices Tun Eusoff Chin and Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim were involved in a conspiracy to manipulate the appointment of judges.
The Cabinet had agreed with the commission's recommendation that the A-G's Chambers investigate allegations against the six.
Dr Mahathir said he would also suggest for more such commissions, including one to investigate Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should he (Dr Mahathir) get his day in court.
“In England, they investigated (former British Prime Minister Tony) Blair, and he was forced to step down,” he told pressmen after attending a forum and dialogue on the recent general elections organised by Johor Umno grassroots and MYKMU.NET here yesterday.
He explained that many had lobbied to become ministers and deputy ministers but the appointments were based on his own assessment of the candidates.
“If I feel a person should be appointed, then I will appoint him. I will not appoint a person if I don’t feel he is qualified, even if a judge suggested he be appointed,” he said, adding that Lingam could not fix the appointment of judges but only claimed that he could.
Dr Mahathir said the Lingam video clip was just a ploy by PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to disqualify Lingam from representing him in a RM100mil defamation suit.
“If Lingam cannot be accepted by the court, then Anwar will indirectly win the case,” he said, adding that the clip would not be significant if the Government had not set up the royal commission.
Mahathir is playing hardball with his explicit threat to pull Badawi and the entire Malaysian Judiciary down.
Badawi and his present Cabinet should not hold back now, but go for the ''jugular vein'' and finish Mahathir off once and for all.
Given Mahathir's many provocative acts of disrespect to the office of the PM, there is no further use for Badawi to continue pussy-footing Mahathir - who will instead finish Badawi at the first opportunity.
Badawi must place the final nail into Mahathir's coffin and weld an iron lid tight over the wooden cover.
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this is a very intriquing case. badawi obviously saw an opening to `kill 2 birds with one stone'; put mahathir in his place and at the same time score some moolah(cred) with the judiciary and the public in general. obviously, mahathir has called his bluff and no doubt will potentially drag some of badawi's federal ministers and close business associates down if this goes to court. who will blink first?
i obtained a copy of today's the star, malaysia and with every 4 pages or so, it is littered with reports of the turmoil and volatility he is facing in his government. amongst them are：
1. mahathir accused the government of `selling out' lands in johor to singapore in the guise of the iskandar project. former parit sulong mp, datuk noraini ahmad made an even more eye-popping allegation; that the project was designed to create a `singapura raya'.
2. sabah chief minister have gone public about their dissatisfaction with the slow rate of progress in the state. despite contributing an unequal revenue royalty via petronas oil, sabahans are getting the short end of the stick. the cry for the labuan bridge to be built instead of the 2nd penang bridge, cooking oil tax levy, little federal support to tackle illegal immigration issue, etc. are grouses that the chief minister made public. he went as fas as asking for political autonomy in the running of the sabah state. with anwar prowling and courting the east malaysians, there are precarious times for badawi and gang.
3. mic is trying extra hard to win back the indians trust by asking $300m for development funds. this is an outright uphill task.
4. wide coverage of profile/article of prominent blogger's (lawyer haris ibrahim, who is staunchly anti-mahathir) admission on his loss of faith of badawi's administration further peg back badawi's reputation in indirect ways.
he has got his work cut out for him in the next 6 months.
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Great to see you taking an interest in the politics of Malaysia - as it is critical for us to keep ourselves updated with events up north, so as not to be overtaken by events that can affect us negatively.
Afterall, Malaysia is not some far away country - but linked to Singapore through an umbilical cord in the Causeway and the Second Link, and many still have families on both sides of the political boundary.
Many younger Singaporeans have also married and travel frequently to visit the in-Laws on both sides.
Mahathir has the ''gift of the gap'' - and seems to be an avid political gambler, walking a tight rope, and playing bluff.
Singapore has been the Ace of Spade for Mahathir to use in digging a hole for anyone willing to co-operate with Singapore; and Mahathir knows that without Singapore there will be no progress to any of Malaysia's industrial development.
Singapore has always been the biggest investor in Malaysia throughout its history - Mahathir knows it, and by creating instability in the Iskandar Development Project, Mahathir hope to make this project into a still-born baby to embarass Badawi.
With Badawi already announcing his plans to step down, is there anything for him to lose by taking Mahathir out of the picture, and pave the way for his DPM Najib to have a smooth ride without Mahathir hounding the political scene.
If the cards are played right, Badawi will surely be well looked after by a grateful Najib as the new PM.
The East Malaysian States of Sarawak and Sabah has always been treated as second cousins, or worst - as colonies, and have never been seen as equal partners.
Singapore was treated in similar ways when in Malaysia, and Tunku and his UMNO politicians had a rough time being badgered by an unrelenting and very vocal LKY.
In actual fact, the bulk of the Malaysian Federal Budget during the mid-1960s came from the very prosperous entrepot revenue of Singapore, and the rich timber export revenues from Sarawak and Sabah - and this was when Petronas did not exist.
The events of those days saw the Chief Ministers of Sarawak and Sabah proposing that Singapore should take the lead to form a new break-away 3-S State of Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah.
Unfortunately, LKY declined the idea was silly for the fact that there is a large expanse of space between States in East Malaysia and Singapore, and this was then the territorial waters belonging to a hostile Indonesia.
MIC is no longer a relevant party as long as Samy Vellu continue to be the leader, as he is already seen as representing his own interest more then that of his Indian community.
Now that he is in his late 70s, he has yet to groom any successor, nor see to the social, economic, cultural or political development of his community - in the same manner as the other component parties in Barisan Nasional.
The backward state of the Indian community is largely the result of Samy Vellus neglect in bending backwards to accomodate the demands from Mahathir, who knew how to manipulate Samy Vellu by pandering to Samy's greed.
Samy will have alot to answer to his community when Mahathir starts to sing in Court.
Badawi maybe seen as weak, and the Malaysian Opposition Parties may have seen a revival in their political fortunes, but all this could not have taken place if Badawi had not loosen the political grip over politics.
It was Badawi's putting his religious principle of a progressive Muslim into practise, that resulted in this changed political vista in Malaysia - and more will be forthcoming before Badawi steps down.
Mahathir may have his Petronas Twin Tower to show for his term in office, but Badawi will be seen as the Malaysian who brought about the true renaissance of a modern Malaysia based on progressive Islamic principles of law and order, political and economic equality to every Malaysian irrespective of ethnicity or religion.
Against the conservative interpretation of Islam, PM Badawi is reported to have planned a visit to a Buddhist Temple to offer his respect to the Buddhist Community on Vesak Day.
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badawi did. he is only the 2nd PM, after the 1st PM tunku abdul rahman in 1967, to have visited a buddhist temple. badawi visited the 113yr old buddhist maha vihara in bricksfield.
probably another of his mending ways, perhaps a tad too late.
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It seems that the stage is now set for a ''Battle Royale'' with Mahathir quitting UMNO, and severing any personal ties left with the present leadership personalities.
With the cabinet decision to proceed with investigation that will lead to the prosecution of the main players in the 'Judge fixing scandal' - Mahathir is left with little choice but to stir the hornets nest further, so as to get a change of leadership that will be more compliant to protect his interest.
Monday May 19, 2008 MYT 2:19:46 PM
Dr M quits Umno (update 2)
ALOR STAR: Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced Monday at 12.35pm that he is quitting Umno, citing a lack of confidence in the current leadership.
He said this during a talk here on Monday.
He has been critical of his appointed successor Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, blaming the current Umno president for the party's disappointing performance in the 12th general election.
The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, of which Umno is the largest component party, won the March 8 election with a simple majority, and saw four more states join Kelantan under Opposition rule.
Dr Mahathir urged other party members to quit too, as a way of pressuring Abdullah into vacating his post.
However, he advised those who do quit not to join any opposition party, adding they can all rejoin the party once there is a change in leadership.
Abdullah has so far refused all calls for him to step down, and said he would defend his presidency in the party polls in December.
Dr Mahathir joined Umno at its inception in 1946.
He became a Member of Parliament in 1964 when he won the Kota Setar Selatan seat.
He lost the seat in the following general election in 1969.
Following the May 13, 1969, riots Dr Mahathir was sacked from the Umno Supreme Council on July 12 because of the widespread distribution of his letter to first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman criticising Tunku’s manner of handling the country’s administration.
Dr Mahathir rejoined Umno on March 7, 1972 and was appointed Senator in 1973. He relinquished the senatorship post a year later to contest the Kubang Pasu seat in the general elections. He was returned unopposed and was appointed Minister of Education.
In 1975, Dr Mahathir became one of the three vice-presidents of Umno.
Tun Hussein Onn appointed Dr Mahathir Deputy Prime Minister on Sept 15, 1978.
Dr Mahathir was Prime Minister of Malaysia from July 16, 1981, until Oct 31, 2003.
Umno information chief Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib said he was surprised at the decision, but added that it was Dr Mahathir's right to do so.
"Every member has the right to join or leave the party," he said.
Asked if Umno would convene an emergency meeting, the former Umno vice-president and Selangor Mentri Besar said that "we will wait and see."
The next Umno Supreme Council meeting is scheduled to be held within two to three weeks.
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Karpal: Who are the judges, Dr M?
PETALING JAYA: The remark by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad that he would expose judges who came to him to lobby for promotion should not be ignored.
DAP national chairman Karpal Singh, who contacted The Star Sunday, said a tribunal should be set up to investigate these judges.
“I call upon Dr Mahathir to publicly identify the judges. If they are not identified, judges who are not guilty will be tainted with the same brush,’’ he said.
“On the other hand, those judges who are accused of lobbying should be given a chance to clear their name. In the public interest, he should let everyone know who are the judges involved.”
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the V.K. Lingam video had recommended that Dr Mahathir and several other prominent figures be probed for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy to manipulate the appointment of judges.
Following the findings, Dr Mahathir said on Saturday that he was prepared to be charged in court so that he could reveal many things about the judiciary.
If not for the existence of 'healty political climate' that encourages the Opposition Parties to provide the checks and balance, will Malaysia be able to expose the deep sickness that has affected their judicial system ?
Badawi must be credited for bringing about this change in the political climate in Malaysia.
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things will get worse before it gets better. there's hope for malaysia yet.
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Malaysian political environment is maturing and developing.
They can handle such conflicts peacefully and without resorting to violence.
Real political leaders can rise up from this type of environment to lead the country.
Singapore political environment of course, is still completely in the hands of PAP and thus development of political scene is completely worthless.
This is what Lee Kuan Yew likes.
This is what he wants.
Which is why I want Lee Kuan Yew to die.
Simple logic.
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what LKY and Mahathir have in common is both have enjoyed absolute power before for a considerable long time (arguably the former is still having that `privilege'). when both called time, it is hard for them to really step aside and be magnanimous about letting new leaders take charge. they probably felt they know too much.
initially mahathir seemed the wiser of the two when he maintained that he is keeping his distance from daily politics whereas LKY is still knee deep in it. however, mahathir is now taking a complete u-turn, only he wants to bring the government down!!!
this only reinforced the notion that absolute power leads to tyrannical behaviour.
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Judgment day will come even to the Great Leaders - either they will answer to the people whom they lead, or they will answer to their Maker.
History will judge them to be Great Leaders, or petty ones clinging to greatness.
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Judgment day will come even to the Great Leaders - either they will answer to the people whom they lead, or they will answer to their Maker.
History will judge them to be Great Leaders, or petty ones clinging to greatness.
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apparently, the person who challenged mahathir to walk the talk is a PAS man. the old man, once again, took an impulsive dare and it chiseled even deeper the malay division amongst the umno members. his own pride took precedence and it could unravel to be something catastrophic if umno couldn't manage it well.
anwar's comeback speech a month earlier could prove prophetic.
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Mahathir calls for UMNO members to quit UMNO and rejoin it after PM Badawi has stepped down.
Is it not ironical that his own son refused to quit UMNO and will remain to be a thorn within UMNO ?
Clearly, Mahathir is trying to create a crisis environment so as to deflect attention oto drive hard for an investigation to his involvement with his crony in fixing the Malaysian Judicial appointments.
Wednesday May 21, 2008 MYT 1:20:03 PM
Youth chief condemns Mukhriz for conditional membership
By TEH ENG HOCK
KUALA LUMPUR: Umno Youth chief Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein condemned Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir for setting conditions in asking Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to step down as party president.
"Mukhriz pressuring the president to step down is nothing new. But what I cannot accept is that he set conditions for his membership. He said he would leave the party if the president did not resign by July," Hishammuddin told reporters at the Parliament lobby.
He said he was not empowered to impose disciplinary action on Mukhriz but would raise the matter to the management committee headed by Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
On Tuesday, Mukhriz said he hoped "action will be taken before the party’s branch level meetings in July, and if the Prime Minister still does not step down by then, I reserve the right to take a different stand.
“If there are no positive developments within the party in the shortest period of time, my fear is that if the leadership crisis is to drag on, we will lose other states in the next general election. So there is no compromise. The Prime Minister should just resign,” said Mukhriz.
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wooohooo~!
I say .. squeeze Dr M by the balls.
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Damn.. talk about digging his own grave. He shouldve just shut the fuk up and sit the fuk down. lol!
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A retarded chimp(Dr M) investigated?Lol im sure he will be blabbering all sort of nonsense during his trial
I daresay he should be thrown into the local zoo and given his regular suppply of bananas to keep quiet and stop causing trouble(and friction) on Malaysia's ties to other countries
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Malaysia political scene has become yet another circus