Change will do us good?

FYI, in case you're unfamiliar with Malaysia's convoluted yet similar-sounding coalition names, here's a crash course: PH = Pakatan Harapan; BN = Barisan Nasional; PN = Perikatan Nasional; GRS = Gabungan Rakyat Sabah; GPS = Gabungan Parti Sarawak

First, he predicted the current gomen's collapse, adding that Supreme Leader Anwar Ibrahim & Crew would only have themselves to blame if that happened. 

Now, a week on from those initial remarks and a load more shit-stirring and race-baiting, PAS chieftain Abdul Hadi Awang's claimed that it's the democratic right of the opposition to plot a sitting government's downfall, not just via the ballot box but also through Parliament (read: no-confidence motions).

Note that while Hadi hasn't confirmed whether he, his party and his PN colleagues are actually hatching a mass eviction of Putrajaya occupants, he has said they "want to plan". 🤔

And at least 1 veteran Umno strongman is convinced that the signs suggest Hadi and his merry women and/or men are already dreaming of sending PMX and his gang packing.

Remember the Sheraton Move, i.e. that unceremonious booting out of the former PH gomen in 2020 'cos of scheming, self-serving politicos?

Well, according to Umno vet, Shahrir Samad, that was all Hadi's doing. And the success of that coup, which saw Dr Mahathir Mohamad being replaced as supreme leader by Muhyiddin Yassin, is sure to make the PAS chief consider an encore performance.

To be clear, while Hadi's been the most vocal about a supposedly imminent gomen collapse, he ain't the only guy sowing seeds of discontent. PM4/7 Maddey, who's decided to portray himself as the 1 true saviour of the Malays, has been doing an ace job at poking fire too.

Also, also, there's been a fair bit of tension in unity gomen land, what with some eternal enemies refusing to play nice and thus, playing into the hands of rivals with devious intentions.

Still, what oughta be noted is that the coalitions/parties that make up the current gomen — PH, BN, GPS, GRS + Warisan + Muda + etc. — have all pledged to back Nuar Ibrahim's administration come what may. And crucially, too, our King has called for unity and no more switching of PMs!

The 1 big, fat problem, though, is that ostensibly power-hungry Hadi appears to not give a toss about any of that. And according to him, absolutely no one and nothing, not even the decree of our YDP Agong, can stand in the way of "democracy".

Situations vacant

Speaking of collapsing gomens, incidentally, 4 Penang state assemblypersons found themselves booted for good on Monday on account of violating an anti-frogging provision of the state constitution.

Tl;dr: the state legislature ruled that the webbed-footed quartet — Bersatuians Khaliq Mehtab Mohd Ishaq, Zolkifly Md Lazim, Zulkifli Ibrahim and Afif Bahardin — had breached Article 14A of the Penang consti when they withdrew support for PH in the wake of the Sheraton Move in 2020. As such, all of their seats ought to be declared vacant.

What you oughta know is that Article 14A, in effect since 2012, states that an elected rep oughta vacate her/his seat if she/he resigns, is stripped of her/his membership, ceases to be a politico, or is chosen as a candidate by another political party. 

Also, said provision was affirmed last year by the highest court in the land as being sound, valid and legal (we covered that decision in detail here).

Also, also, all 4 affected reps are reported to have kicked up no fuss, packed their bags and exited the legislative assembly when the motion to remove 'em was approved.

Yet, unsurprisingly, dissatisfaction has reared its head. And alongside the expected hand-wringing and foot-stamping and MacArthur-esque pledges to return, 1 Bersatu bigwig — sec-gen Hamzah Zainudin — has raised a fair point.

It's true that like all PH-associated candidates in the 14th general election (GE14), the 4 won their seats on PKR tickets. But sayeth Hammie, 2 of 'em booted frogs — Khaliq and Zolkifly — oughtn't be considered frogs at all. And that's ’cos they were always Bersatuians; a fact that didn't change when their party decided to exit PH in 2020.

This is quite a bit different from the sitch with Zulkifli and Afif, who were PKR men at the time of the Sheraton Move, were sacked by their party, and later joined Bersatu.

Now, Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow's said that any which way you look at it, all 4 betrayed the people's mandate. Thing is, though, Hammie may possibly have a point as his reasoning seems consistent with our just-passed federal anti-frogger law.

Problem is, Ham and Bersatu's complaint would have to be looked at by the courts, if that happens.

Till then and for the mo, in any case, the vacant seats remain vacant, with the Election Commission needing to be informed. 

But like the sitch in Batang Kali, Selangor, where a vacancy was declared, there'll be no by-elections to fill the openings ’cos of impending state polls.

A bungle of life and death proportions

A parent's worst nightmare is getting a call that their child has died.

Now imagine, if you will, the chaos, confusion and mix of emotions upon finding out just hours before cremating said child that they were actually about to cremate someone else's son!

Sure it may sound like the plot of an Astro Ria, Sun TV and/or Wah Lai Toi drama. Yet, sadly, shockingly, horridly, and, more importantly, inexcusably, such an event did recently take place in Tampin, Negeri Sembilan, traumatising 2 families.

Let's rewind. 

See, there's the 1st family, which was informed on March 3 that their 19-year-old son C. Laksman, who was being held in Sungai Buloh prison, had collapsed and died the day before. 

Note that the grieving fam hadn't recognised the body upon seeing it, but claimed it anyway, and attributed facial differences to post-mortem sutures and a shaved head.

The thing is, after forking out some RM20k for the wake and funeral, and just as they were preparing to cremate Laksman, the parents received a frantic, bittersweet call from the Prison's Department. The message? STOP, your son's alive!

This begged the question — who was in the coffin?!?! 

Well, as it turns out, in a massive, massive bungling (someone's gonna have to answer for this), the Prisons folks had apparently mistaken Laksman for his 18-year-old cellmate Grepprall Sall, who'd been on remand and who (allegedly, allegedly) died from a lung infection.

This meant for family #2 that they were only informed of their son's custodial death 3 days after it happened. Worse, the mother was initially informed her son was ill, only to be directed to the morgue upon arrival at the hospital AND, initially, prevented from claiming the body.

Naturally, questions abound. And here're just a few that top the list: 

How the heck did prison authorities goof up so bad? Why was Grepprall's mum given the runaround on her son's death and in claiming his body? Also, who'll be held responsible?

Unsurprisingly, loads of people have called for a probe, especially too as Grepprall's family is claiming he was fine prior to his arrest. Also, lawyer/ex-human resources minister M. Kulasegaran has urged the gomen to take action against negligent prison officers responsible for this cock-up, and for the families to get compensation.

But here's the bigger question — what will supreme leader Anwar Ibrahim and his Putrajaya crew do to address Malaysia's lingering custodial death issue?

Of wild imaginations and other news

Yesterday’s Covid-19 sitch —

New cases: 188 (Total: 5,043,978)

New actual deaths: *0 (Total: 36,966)

Active cases: 9,211 (ICU: 2)

Double vaxed: 84.3% (Population) 98.3% (Adults) 94.6% (60++) 91.9% (12-17) 43.5% (5-11) (State breakdown here)

Boosted: 50% (Population) 69.1% (Adults) 71.8% (60++) 1.9% (12-17) 0.1% (5-11)

Double boosted: 2.5% (Population) 3.4% (Adults) 6.1% (60++) — (12-17) — (5-11)

*Numbers could change as gomen updates data

With a slew of state elections on the horizon and everyone and their great grand aunt out to win the Malay bloc (see here, here and here), expect race-baiting and racial politicking to get bumped up on almost everybody's agenda.

Case in point, Pejuang chieftain Mukhriz Mahathir saying that Malaysia must abolish vernacular schools 1st before a non-Malay can even dream (our words!) of ascending to the gilded Putrajaya toilet seat and taking up the PM's mantle.

His logic (if you can call it that), is that V schools, a.k.a. national-type Chinese and Tamil schools (allegedly! allegedly!) serve to divide kids and the races.

Also, like a magician seemingly pulling facts out of thin air, the fruit of PM4/7 Dr Mahathir Mohamad's loins even claimeth that our founding fathers wouldn't have approved of such schools.

FYI, Maddey Jr., as we covered in past BTLs (see here and here), the setting up of vernacular schools is provided for under the Education Act. PLUS, the high courts in KL and Kota Bahru have declared them too legit to quit (we may have paraphrased the judgment a bit!).

But hey, facts have never stopped politicos with "nothing useful to talk about" from raising the spectre of disunity-causing vernacular schools and/or non-Malay PMs simply to score cheap brownie points whenever elections are close, so why should it now? 

Ironically, Mukhriz, who yesterday also said that the Federal Constitution maketh no mention of the PM's race, claimed 'twas better to have a not-corrupt, non-Malay supreme leader than a corrupt Malay one. We mean, is that really such a hard choice?

Anyways, divisive politics aside, here are other news highlights from Monday you may wanna know about:

• If you're worried about our nation's fiscal state, don't be. According to Deputy Moneybags Minister Ahmad Maslan in Parliament, the economic crisis will pass Malaysia by this year. This, based on our performance last year + projections by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund of $$$ growth exceeding 4%.
  
  He also pinky promised that only borrowers with floating-rate type loans would be affected by last year's overnight policy rate (OPR) hikes and not over 50% of household loan accounts with fixed-rate loans.
   
• Still on proceedings in Parliament:
   
  • Econs Minister Rafizi Ramli has claimed that 1 of Malaysia's main economic agendas is to shift from relying on fossil fuels to green energy.
    
    BT-Dubs, BTL's head honcho Darshini Kandasamy and editor Edward Gomez had in 2021 written an in-depth series on Malaysia's coal energy business and our green energy ambitions (here are parts 1, 2 and 3).
     
  • DAP's Stampin rep's been asked to apologise for calling GPS peeps "opportunists" over their support of Anwar Ibrahim. Meanwhile, picking up on the vibe, PN's Ronald Kiandee urged GPS MPs to jump to Bersatu/PN instead.
     
  • Floods or no floods, the new school term, starting March 19 or 20, won't be postponed in affected areas. According to Madam Minister Fadhlina Sidek, students affected by the floods can attend online home-based teaching, instead.
     
  • Speaking of the floods, the gomen has claimed that it's reprimanded suppliers that provided poor quality food to Johor flood victims at relief centres and is giving them 1 last chance. Seems suppliers were having trouble finding raw materials.
     
• The appellate court has upheld a 57-year-old unemployed man's guilty verdict and death sentence for killing his father by decapitating the victim and chopping up the body. The man had appealed on the grounds of insanity.
   
• The National Film Development Corporation (Finas) has said that its probe into the controversial indie flick Mentega Terbang won't be focused on the film's content but rather on production regulations. FYI, the movie, about a daughter exploring religion to deal with a dying mum, courted controversy for several scenes which allegedly went against Islam.
   
• Coppers have arrested a 40-year-old man who crashed into 6 cars on the Bukit Jalil Highway last Saturday. The guy had been high on drugs.
   
• Malaysia's most shining golfing star M. Ramayah, 67, has passed away. He'd been diagnosed with stage 4 spinal cancer.
   
• Transport Minister Anthony Loke has pinky promised that he'll not 100% close the door on MH370 investigations. He reiterated the past gomen's stand that a fresh search would be considered should new and credible information cometh our way. Tomorrow, March 8, marks 9 years since the flight went missing.