March 8, 2009

The tree that made news

This maybe the longest title for a post in this blog just to make a point. And I know I have been ranting about the same thing yesterday. Blogging everyday gives me the liberty to schedule my post to be posted at certain time of the day and I am actually not finish with my disillusion of my country political situation against the current economic situation when I posted my post yesterday. You can access it here about how fast novelty of new things are gone. Today, 8th of March 2009 is exactly one year after something happened in Malaysia which was called a political tsunami. Every politician felt it either for the right or the wrong reason. The people of Malaysia today said they are already tired of politics and politicians. As they say, everyone have their own opinion.

What has actually been happening in this one year of Malaysia type 'change'? The ruling political party had to do some soul searching by looking internally in changing itself. The main political party who represented people by the colour of their skin had to think whether that is still the best way to garner political mileage which then translate into votes. They had to go and look for new leaders. Those who have waited in the wings took the chance and propose themselves. Those who have faded into the background either through indiscipline or fading popularity, came back and offer themselves. I think there is no fresh face as this is the party which have 'history' written all over it and they don't believe in new blood as much as the new generation do not believe in old people.

So, is the 'other side' any better? They managed to ensure they have more representation in Parliament. They have managed to get more voices in. They did not manage to change one iota of government policy as there are not enough of them to do that. There were these two times when they managed to make even the current Prime Minister to rush in into the assembly hall when they called a vote for a bill to be passed as failure to do so would have resulted in the bill being taken out. That was only in the early days after the said political tsunami. After that the opposition was harping about taking over the Federal government on a specific date which was 16th September 2008. It didn't happened. They then keep changing the date until people finally decided they have been bluffing all along. So much for promises. 

What happened for the past one month can be call laughable to say the least. At a moment when the ruling political party in that states (in which they are the opposition at federal level) was welcoming a member of the that particular states opposition party into their fold, their own members, along with the one they welcomed 3 days before jumped ship to the other side. Confused? That was not all. Then the other side became the ruling party by default when they command the majority. As the determining factor in our country is our monarch, both went running to meet him and guess who did he chose to be the ruling government? It was the one who have the most members and commands the state assembly. Not before the speaker of the state assembly send to the election commission resignation letters of the three who jumped ship. Now we have two sets of governments and no one wants to say they have lost.

Let me break it down for you. There is this one state in Malaysia who is currently govern by a government whose members are just one more than the opposition. They managed to do it by bringing over 3 of the former member of the former state government. The speaker of the state assembly is still the opposition which they ousted. He still has all his power by definition and the current government actually cannot have an assembly as they do not have the speaker on their side. What did the current opposition did last week? Tried to convene an assembly, denied and did it under A TREE! They say it was legal and all. Was it? Hmmmm... They now want that old tree immortalise no matter how long it takes them to gain back power. 

As a law practitioner, I am glad they took it to court to settle all these differences. Who do I think is the most confused? The civil servants who works in that state. Can they get anything done? Who are they going to listen? Some are already being threaten with their own litigation as they seems to be siding with the current government. Should they listen to the former government? How about contracts and others awarded to private sectors? I think with all this happening, why bother?

 
Not a tree but much better than the one they did the 'assembly'

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