Enough is enough — Pakatan Rakyat must go down!

April 22nd, 2008 gier

As the premier political research institute under the armpits of mentera.org, the Mentera Institute of Learning Foundation for Political Research On Nationalism (MILF-PRON) has observed, with increasing disquiet, the dismal political landscape of the nation today. It is like a plague, a blight on our march towards a guided monarchy with a constitutional democracy.

The so-called Pakatan Rakyat government is riddled with corruption, cronyism and nepotism. Furthermore, it is not a stretch to imagine that two of the component parties inside PR, PAS and DAP, are working together trying their level best to convert this beloved nation of ours into an Islamist Secularist country! Such a state, should it come to pass, would turn the country into an anarchic, fascist, right-wing, socialist welfare failed state.

As for PKR, the party which many consider to be the backbone of PKR, their nepotistic tendencies have not gone unnoticed. For example, consider who the de facto leader of the party is; then consider who the official President of the party is; and next, consider who the Minister of Parliament for Lembah Pantai is! We are sure that our readers are smart enough to cross the i’s and dot the t’s, but in case you’re not, they’re all in the same family! Oh, yes. Bet some of you didn’t see that one, eh?

That’s not all. Consider the State Assemblyman for Kota Damansara, Dr. Nasir Hashim. He’s the cousin of Tan Sri Rahim Thamby Chik! What on earth is going on? Nepotism, we know thy name …

Of course, nepotism is not limited to PKR. The Chief Minister of Penang is, wouldn’t you know, the son of the party Supremo! And the Secretary-General of the party is the son of the Supremo too. And why is the Supremo called the Supremo? Shouldn’t the Secretary-General be the Supremo? Ahah! A conspiracy, uncovered.

As for PAS, we know for a fact that the son-in-law of former party president, Fadzil Noor is an active member in their Youth Wing, as the Secretary. Would you believe it? He’s just a son-in-law and he walks around doing stuff for the party.

Consider further the issue of the appointment of councillors in the King-less Republic of Penang. According to a recent report on the online comic, Malaysiakini, the ruling government have appointed “boys”, rather than giving the posts on merit. An NGO coalition stated that instead of providing 10 posts to their own NGO gang, the government only had 7 posts given to NGOs — and not their NGOs, either, but other people’s NGOs!

Too, there were accusations from “loyal” party members as well, that the government chose to ignore the hard work and, yes, loyalty of the party members and instead chose people from NGOs into the posts. Instead of giving so many posts (7) to NGOs and “strangers”, the posts should instead be given to party members, some of whom have sucked up to the party leaders for a long time. The overt act of cronyism, by appointing other people instead of themselves is, as anyone might agree, totally beyond the pale.

Therefore, in our opinion, this has gone on too long, and must not be allowed to continue and fester, like a bad boil on the arse. So, we call on the People to rise and give the old, rotting and decrepit Pakatan Rakyat the what for! Let them know that their acts of corruption, cronyism and nepotism are vile, and that we won’t stand for it anymore. Come the next General Election, we must all vote for … uh … the other guys.

Thank you.

Makkal Sakti!

Bersih, Cekap, dan Amanah!

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The Single Winner Voting System: A MILF-PRON Primer for the Election

March 7th, 2008 gier

In the previous post, we discussed the First Part The Post system of voting in the criminals you detest the least. FPTP is a subset of an overall group of voting systems called the Single Winner Voting Systems. How the SWVS is implemented in Malaysia is our area of concern here, but you can read up on it on Wikipedia, of course.

The objective here is to point out that in spite of what the incumbent government says, support for them is not as overwhelming as we would generally think. While they have always had a 2/3rd majority in parliament, this is not often reflected on the ground in proportion. Let’s take the following example:

We use the state of Negri Sembilan, using data from the 2004 GE. There were 8 parliamentary seats contested in that GE (same as for the 2008 GE too), all of which were won by BN.

So, as we can see from the table above, all 8 seats were won by BN, with almost 70% of Negri Sembilan voters shooing them into parliament. In a SWVS such as the one practised in Malaysia, the 30% odd Negri voters who wanted someone else to represent them do not get a look in at all. Critics of the SWVS says that to be really fair, the 30% should also be represented in parliament proportionally. So, in an ideal proportional voting system, there would be 5.6 BN MPs and 2.4 opposition MPs representing Negri Sembilan. So fun.

Of course, a whitewash like Negri Sembilan do not show the extent of what is considered the inequality inherent in SWVS. Let’s consider Kedah instead.

So, for Kedah in 2004, out of 15 seats, 14 were won by BN with PAS obtaining a solitary seat. However, looking at the voting numbers, BN effectively represents 93.33% of Kedah in Parliament with just less than 60% of the voters actually voting for them.

Every GE, the boffins in the ruling party and the opposition would look through these numbers, figuring out vulnerabilities, “swing” votes, ekcetera. This is because, in spite of what the TV ads run by BN tells you, Malaysians are actually not that easy to please.

Anyway, am bored oredi. Thought of writing about gerrymandering too, but sod it. After elections lah …

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First Past The Post: A MILF-PRON Primer for the Election

March 4th, 2008 gier

‘They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes,
yet what is it they really crave, deep in their hearts?
Only that things go on as normal
and tomorrow is pretty much like today.’
– Lord Vetinari (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)

It goes without saying that as a simultaneously reactive and proactive institution, the Mentera Institute of … MILF-PRON … should lend its brain farts along with the braying masses in putting its 2 sen[1] opinions regarding the upcoming General Election. We thought that it is apropos [2] to provide a primer regarding our election system, which we learnt from that other august institution, Wikipedia.

In this primer, we will tackle the first of three concepts which are of rather high importance for voters’ understanding, which are: First Past the Post, Single Winner Voting System and Gerrymandering. Let’s begin.

First Past The Post

In a First Past The Post (FPTP) system, the candidate with the highest number of votes wins the election. Now, that is as it should be obviously. However, this system has a rather obvious flaw too. Take the following example. Let’s consider the Lembah Pantai parliamentary constituency (P121)[3]. There are 3 candidates vying to be elected to represent the natives of Lembah Pantai. These are, in order of hotness, Nurul Izzah Anwar, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil and N. Periasamy. Further, let’s say that in the election, the votes were tallied as so:

This would give Shahrizat the P121 seat, with a “majority” of 3,400 votes. However, we can see that in spite of the win, Shahrizat in actual fact only has the support of 41% of the voters in P121. Shahrizat, in other words, is the “First Past The Post”, without actually having a simple majority.

In can be speculated that if there was no “split” in the voters who didn’t want Shahrizat to represent them, and only one other candidate was contesting (Izzah, because she’s hot), then the other candidate (i.e. Izzah, because she’s hot) would have been able to garner 59% of the voters and win the seat.

And this is why the opposition fight with each other every time before the GE, to avoid split votes. And this is also why the incumbent government is sometimes laughing their arses of at the opposition … but that’s a story for another day.

So, that’s First Past The Post. Next, we will discuss the superset of FPTP, the Single Winner Voting System — a.k.a. how 64% of Malaysian voters can hand 90% of the Parliament to the last Election’s overall winner.

[1] Harga sebenar komentar: RM 0.07
Subsidi kerajaan: RM 0.05
Harga komentar: RM 0.02

[2] A Greek word meaning … I’m not sure what, but sounds very intellectual so it’s appropriate for this post.

[3] See http://www.undi.info/

Posted in MILF-PRON | 3 Comments »

Proposal For RFID Tags To Be Introduced For Mass Rallies

November 26th, 2007 gier

In responding to the Government’s push towards a K-Economy in order to compete in a globalised e-World, the Mentera Institute of Learning Foundation for Political Research On Nationalism (MILF-PRON) would like to propose RFID tagging for the general public on occasions where they attend mass rallies. The core of this proposal is to address the vexing issue of the actual number of attendees at such rallies.

This month alone, there have been two rallies in Kuala Lumpur, the first being the BERSIH rally on the 10th of November, and the second, the HINDRAF rally on the 25th. On both occasions, the estimates of the number of people gathered varied wildly. In the case of the BERSIH rally, some estimates are as shown:

In the case of the HINDRAF rally, well … we can’t be bothered to draw up another table[1], but suffice to say that the estimates vary wildly as well. Given such variances, the logical step would be to initiate some kind of counting mechanism, and the best approach would be the use of RFID tags.

These tags can take the form of a bracelet, similar to the Unity Band. However, as opposed to the crass commercialism and total lack of utility of the Unity Band, the MILF-PRON RFID Band® would actually have a use, apart from making you look like a tit with a fluorescent bracelet.

When everyone attending a mass rally wears this MPR Band®, getting the actual number would then be trivial. A set of gantries can be set up at strategic points, and the “marshalls” in the rally can herd the attendees through the gantries. RFID technology means that double counting cannot happen, so an attendee can also merrily go through as many gantries as he or she wants, and there will not be an error.

Another option is to use RFID “guns”. We propose to develop and provide to the Government a special purpose RFID gun that would be able to “shoot” at the rally attendees and detect up to 50,000 RFID tags in one “shot”. This gun is still in development at the moment, mainly because we have been informed by our China-outsourced boffins that the prototype 1 MegaWatt RFID gun has a tendency to also cook flesh[2] when switched on.

The MPR Band® will be on sale soon for all discerning rally organisers. We deliver anywhere, including jail cells.

[1] Translation: we can’t be bothered to trawl the Interweb for the numbers.

[2] “It cook from inside, like microwave oven, Boss,” is what the head boffin told us, speaking from the Burns Unit of the hospital where he was sent after the first (and so far, only) test run.

Posted in MILF-PRON, Politics | 1 Comment »

Press Release: Police Permit Needed For More Than 5 Readers?

November 23rd, 2007 gier

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Glenmarie Golf and Country Club: At the 19th hole of the GGCC today, the Director of MILF-PRON made a statement to anyone who would listen that he has uncovered a new proposed legislation by the government requiring all online weblogs (blogs) to have a police permit if they are expecting more than 5 simultaneous readers. Speaking from the bottom of his pint glass, the Director had this to say:

“As we all know, public gatherings of more than 5 people require a permit from the police in this country. The government, in their wisdom, have also decided to extend this law into the Interweb. From the information that I have obtained, this is so that the government can monitor any online discussions, especially those which touch on “sensitive” issues — such as race, religion, colour, Astro broadcast monopoly, communists, Amir Muhammad, sexy clothing of flight attendants, errorgenous … uh … eroginous … err … erogenous zones and other matters.”

He added, “This initiative by the government should act as a complement to the earlier initiative to register bloggers. Also, I would like to have another pint of Tiger, please.”

On the registration of bloggers, MILF-PRON as a simultaneously proactive and reactive research facility had taken the initiative to assist the government by providing an online form, as can be accessed here: Online Blogger Registration.

On the matter of mentera.org, MILF-PRON’s parent organisation, the Director stated that, “The permit is not needed for mentera.org, since they seldom have more than 2 readers at any one time. In addition, our studies have shown that the total number of readers for mentera.org is not 7 or 8 plus their pets as claimed by the blog owner, but is in fact nearer to 6. Without pets. How come that Tiger is taking so long?”

With regards to mechanisms for measuring the number of readers for a particular blog, the Director asserted that it’s very technical and that it should not concern the general public. However, he noted that the government is planning to spend RM 70,000,000,000 on upgrading the Interweb infrastructure for their MPs and offices, by installing IPv6 capable routers and refrigerators. While this would not have an impact to the rest of the country which do not have IPv6 capable toasters, it would at the very least help the government monitor their own MPs and the civil service.

Finally, the Director stated that all blog owners can apply for the police permit at any police station convenient to the policeman in charge at the station. Finally, finally, he also stated that MILF-PRON will soon be producing an online permit application form for blog owners which they can fill up and print for submission to the police station.

Posted in MILF-PRON | 1 Comment »

Sempena Mesyuarat Agung Tahunan UMNO — Mempersembahkan … UMTEAM!

October 31st, 2007 gier

Seperti yang kita maklum, Mesyuarat Agung Tahunan UMNO akan berlansung tidak lama lagi. Sejurus daripada itu, memetik daripada wawancara yang telah dilakukan bersama Dato’ Norza Zakaria di Malaysiakini tidak lama dulu, dan juga berdasarkan kepada liputan wawancara tersebut di blog ini, pihak penganalisa MILF-PRON telah menyiapkan “team-sheet” untuk pasukan UMNO-TEAM (UMTEAM) yang dijangka akan bergasak sesama sendiri dan juga mana-mana lawan — tak kira musuh (seperti PKR, PAS, DAP), ataupun sekutu (GERAKAN, PPP). Sila tatapi “team-sheet” yang diberikan dibawah (klik pada imej untuk yang lebih besar):

Seperti yang dapat kita lihat, UMTEAM menggunakan susunan 4-3-3, dengan Dato’ Abdullah sebagai penyerang utama, disokong oleh sayap kiri dan kanan. Bahagian tengah padang di kuasai oleh Dato’ Shahrizat, bersama dengan Dato’ Hamid Albar dan Dato’ Radzi Sheikh Ahmad. Barisan pertahanan pula mempraktikkan “diamond formation” yang mana Dato’ Seri Najib Razak menduduki posisi “overlapping left-back” supaya dia boleh menghidupkan falsafah “out from left field” dan menggegarkan lawan.

Penjaga gol, tidak lain tidak bukan lagi … Dato’ Seri Nazri Aziz. Yang merisaukan pada prestasi Dato’ Nazri ialah kebolehannya untuk menjaringkan gol sendiri …

Barisan simpanan adalah wawasan MILF-PRON berdasarkan wawancara yang disebut di atas. Kita dapati yang Dato’ Mukhriz ada di tepi sedikit. Ini adalah kerana, pada pendapat kami, Dato’ Mukhriz kalau boleh ingin di “transfer” ke pasukan lain, tetapi oleh kerana tiada pasukan lain yang “credible”, dan juga pasukan UMNO (Baru) ini diasaskan oleh penyerang/pertahanan terbaik mereka yang juga merupakan bapanya sendiri (Tun Mahathir), maka memanglah tiada pasukan lain yang dapat disertainya.

Adalah dijangka bahawa sekiranya pemain simpanan lain, pada satu hari nanti dapat menjadi “first Eleven”, Dato’ Mukhriz mungkin akan di “drop” kan. Entahlah beb.

Sekian analisa “team-sheet” UMTEAM oleh penganalisa Mentera Institute of Learning Foundation for Political Research On Nationalism, MILF-PRON.

Terima Kasih.

Posted in Lame Jokes, MILF-PRON, Politics | 5 Comments »

The Superstitious Rocketman — One Week After

August 7th, 2007 gier

It has now been a week since Mr. Jeff Ooi, esq. became a politician. As an institution that is proactive and reactive at the same time, we at MILF-PRON have conducted an analysis of his performance thus far. The following is our report on the Superstitious Rocketman.

We start by several observations:

1. We know that the Rocketman is angling for a Parliamentary seat in the upcoming general elections. Why do we say this? Well, his political website is at http://parliament.jeffooi.com/, that’s why. Here, we see that Mr. Ooi, esq. has embraced one of the basic tenets of being a politician, which is: No point in being coy, but instead be as blindingly obvious as possible.
2. He has also hewed towards one of the multi-cultural Malaysian politicians’ Standard Operating Procedure by making a blog post entirely in Chinese here, thus alienating more than half of the population who have absolutely no idea what he’s on about there.
3. While he has jumped from one party (Gerakan) to another (DAP), it is too early to say whether he is a member of the politician sub-species known as the katak. After all, just as one swallow does not a bukkake summer make, one jump does not a frog make.

Let us now proceed to analyse his performance so far.

1. In the week since he became a Rocketman, world oil prices have reached record highs and he has not done anything about it. This must count as a disappointment to all.
2. No one has been remanded, or arrested under the I/OSA, so that must count as a plus.
3. On the other hand, no one who were already remanded or arrested under the I/OSA were released, so that negates the plus point above.
4. He attacked the UMNO Youth Deputy Chief’s statement regarding Anwar Ibrahim and the Jewish conspiracy that was published in the Star newspaper. However, as we were accessing the page on the Star to see what Mr. Ooi, esq. was on about, we were distracted by this report which was eminently more interesting, and therefore lost our thread of thought. So, we count that as a plus for the Rocketman.
5. He has not fulfilled any of his promises since entering the political stage, which is a negative.
6. One the other hand, he hasn’t actually made any promises, which is a plus, since he wouldn’t need to dodge any bullets just yet.

In summary, given the analysis above, we conclude that with the entry of Mr. Ooi, esq., the Malaysian political landscape has changed not a jot. As such, we must consider his performance thus far to be a disappointment. After all, a week is a long time in politics.

Posted in MILF-PRON, Politics | 1 Comment »

Ezam keluar PKR — Satu koop ditat yang gagal

June 26th, 2007 gier

Mengikut laporan daripada komik atas talian, Malaysiakini, Ezam Mohd. Noor telah keluar daripada Parti Keadilan Rakyat, atas sebab “hilang kepercayaan kepada pucuk pimpinannya, termasuk mentornya dan ketua PKR, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.” Pengeluarannya ini menyusuli pengeluaran mantan bendahari agung PKR, Abdul Rahman Othman and salah seorang ahli glamernya, Dato’ S. Nallakaruppan.

Mengikut laporan tersebut, antara sebab-sebab Ezam mengundur diri dari PKR ialah pada pandangannya, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim bersikap sebagai diktator yang lemah dan berada dibawah telunjuk naib presiden PKR, Azmin Ali. Menurut Ezam lagi, Anwar “dikatakan telah mengarah bahagian Permatang Pauh supaya tidak membuat sebarang pencalonan bagi jawatan timbalan presiden.”

Walaubagaimanapun, tuduhan Ezam itu telah disangkal oleh Timbalan Ketua Bahagian Keadilan Permatang Pauh, Che Mat Hashim di dalam satu kenyataan yang boleh di baca pada pautan ini: Sah Ezam Keluar PKR. Perkembangan ini boleh dilihat sebagai petanda yang PKR berada di dalam satu krisis, yang mana jika tidak ditampan, boleh membawa kepada parti tersebut meledak dengan sendirinya.

Jika dilihat dari aras muka, sememangnya itulah kesimpulan yang ketara, terutama sekali jika kita menilai kenyataan-kenyataan yang telah dikeluarkan oleh Sdr. Ezam dan Dato’ Nalla (Sdr. Abdul Rahman Othman tak kata apa-apa, dia belah aje). Akan tetapi, penganalisis kami di MILF-PRON mempunyai kesimpulan yang berbeza dan berwawasan — iaitu, pengeluaran personaliti-personaliti tersebut adalah kerana mereka merupakan sebuah cabal yang cuba untuk menjalankan satu koop ditat (satu perkataan Belanda yang telah di Melayukan) keatas pucuk pimpinan PKR — yang akhirnya terkandas.

Berdasarkan dokumen-dokumen rahsia yang kami jumpai (di belakang rumah RPK), MILF-PRON mempunyai bukti yang angkuh kukuh untuk menyokong dakwaan kami ini. Dalam menganalisa dokumen-dokumen tersebut, tidak syak lagi bahawa Ezam, Abdul Rahman dan Dato’ Nalla berkomplot untuk menjatuhkan pimpinan aristokratik dan lembik Datin Seri Wan Azizah Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Juga, mereka merasakan Anwar tidak mengotai janji-janji manis yang dituturkan kepada mereka sepanjang menjadi ahli PKR. Umpama kata pujangga negara yang popular seketika dulu, Gingerbread:

Lembut lidah mengukir janji
Segunung mimpi berkecai kini

Selain daripada itu, sikap tidak demokratik yang dipamirkan oleh Datuk Seri Anwar yang lebih mendengar kata-kata Azmin Ali and Tan Sri Dato’ Khalid Ibrahim (dan tidak kurang juga Datin Seri Wan Azizah dan Nurul Izzah) menaikkan perasaan jeles dan kecil hati di dalam jiwa mereka. Ini adalah kerana, dalam pendapat mereka, adalah lebih demokratik jika Datuk Seri Anwar mendengar kata-kata mereka.

Sejurus daripada itu, mereka dan penyokong-penyokong mereka (yang terdiri dari semua golongan kaum, seperti bangsa Melayu, Cina, India dan Lain-lain) mengadakan perjumpaan rahsia di hotel-hotel and rumah-rumah tumpangan terkemuka di sekitar Wilayah Persekutuan dan Ijok. Di dalam perjumpaan yang beberapa kali itu, mereka merancang koop ditat untuk mengambil alih pucuk pimpinan PKR daripada Datin Seri Wan Azizah, sambil meletakkan Datuk Seri Anwar sebagai pengerusi boneka.

Walaubagaimanapun, koop ditat ini gagal, seperti yang kita ketahui. Antara sebab kegagalan koop ditat ini ialah kehilangan semangat Dato’ Nalla setelah dia menyedari bahawa ahli baru berbangsa India yang dibawa masuk olehnya ke dalam PKR bukanlah berjumlah 1,000,000,000 tetapi sebenarnya 10. Bagi Abdul Rahman Othman pula, dia merasakan bahawa bergabung tenaga dengan orang bukan Islam mungkin bukan cara yang terbaik, maka dia pun mengambil keputusan untuk menyertai PAS, kerana PAS adalah parti yang tidak mengira kaum, asalkan kaum itu beragama Islam. Untuk Ezam pula, dia merasakan teramat bosan dengan kerenah Dato’ Nalla and Abdul Rahman, maka dia bermula untuk lebih menumpukan perhatian kepada NGOnya, GERAM. Diatas sebab-sebab yang telah kami nyatakan di atas, bercampur dengan sebab-sebab lain, arakian terkuburlah usaha koop ditat ini, akibat habis nafas.

Begitulah kesimpulan analisa yang dijalankan oleh penganalisa-penganalisa zakar pakar di MILF-PRON. Sekian, terima kasih.

NOTA: Ini adalah rekaan semata-mata. Jangan ambil serius, ye.

Posted in MILF-PRON, Mentera Moden, Politics | No Comments »

In-depth Analysis on the bye-Election

April 20th, 2007 gier

Because we are victims of populist tendencies, the Mentera Institute of Learning Foundation for Political Research On Nationalism (MILF-PRON) have decided to publish an in-depth analysis of the Ijok bye-election. This research had been carried out by none other than our rectum rector, Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Wira Paduka Kelana Orang Besar Ir. Professor Dr. Bung Siddekq Al-Saghof (though we normally just call him dude). This is his report:

The decision by PKR to field Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim is an inspired one, given the racial composition of the constituency. The racial breakdown of Ijok is, according to the famous online comic, 51.8% Malay, 27.7% Indian and 20.6% Chinese (which strangely amounts to 100.1% — doubtless due to some rounding error). Ostensibly, there are no “Dan Lain-lain” voting in Ijok.

Further, based on the previous two elections, the gap between the BN (MIC) candidate with the opposing candidate (PKR in 2004, DAP in 1999) are 18.2% and 28.3% respectively. In 2004, the PKR candidate was a Malay, effecting a 10.1% swing from the Indian DAP candidate of 1999. In order for PKR to win this time around, they would have to pull a further 11.9% swing to obtain a simple majority. Making the assumption that the independent candidate votes would also be highly likely to swing towards to opposition, this 11.9% is further shortened to 8.5%. Given the credentials of Khalid, an 8.5% swing is not unreachable.

In addition, being the former CEO of PNB and Guthrie, Khalid would have a certain appeal to the Indian estate workers, knowing that they could have their “old boss” back, in a much more important capacity.

Therefore, in the words of our associate, Sharizal, seterus perebus (translation: onward you boiler), it is our considered belief that the elections will be won by the BN candidate.

(MILF-PRON Political Analysis Report 01/2007/04/20 v1)

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Mentera.org now accepting blogger registration

April 5th, 2007 gier

As many of you would have read by now, bloggers may be required to register “with the authorities” (you cannot make this up …). To that end, we here at mentera.org have decided to be helpful and created the form below. All entries will be handled and processed by our newly set up institute, the Mentera Institute of Learning Foundation for Political Research On Nationalism (MILF-PRON).

Mentera Blogger Registration Form

If you answered yes to the above, please fill in the details below:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Lame Jokes, MILF-PRON | 6 Comments »