Lim Guan Eng better be careful

The DAP is going to abolish NEP in Penang! PAS is saying they are not agreeing to it. Lim Guan Eng better not be another cock and plunge Penang and Malaysia into another nightmare. The ultras are licking their wounds and are looking for an excuse to let loose their anger. And blood tasting is what they may be looking for. The position of PAS is more sensible. PAS also did not totally agree with the NEP. What they want is to modify the NEP to benefit all races, especially the poor. That should be the way to go for DAP. Review the NEP, keep the good and discard the bad, change a little here and there to benefit all Malaysians. Throwing it out into the bin without a second look is inviting for trouble. In a time like this, a lot of good common sense is needed to take in the sensibilities of all the races. Lim Kit Siang better quickly whisper to him a few pieces of good advice along this line.

Myth 174 - No Estate Duty

We have just scrapped Estate Duty and the super rich are all popping their champagne. I am going to argue that this is another Singapore myth. What is Estate Duty? In brief it is a tax on a citizen's life long accummulation of wealth, his properties and money. With the scrapping of the Estate Duty, this is gone. For the average Singaporean, his life long accummulated wealth is his HDB flat and the money in his CPF. These are his material assets. All he has. HDB flat is safe, but not his CPF. In a way the Estate Duty now comes in another form. It has transformed to tax the estate of a citizen in advance. You guess it, the Minimum Sum and the Medisave are Estate Duty taxed in advance. No they will tell you that they are different and for different objectives. And they will be returned to you at the appropriate time when they decide to. So for 40, 50 or 60 years, maybe more, the citizens will be dumping real money into the CPF and in return they will get an IOU chit from the CPF saying how much it owes the citizen. And only the CPF has the authority to decide when to give it back to the citizen and at its terms. Still not really like Estate Duty leh. True. Let's take an extreme case where a citizen only has a little Minimum Sum and his Medisave. And he dies without any surviving relations. Where does the money go to? This is as good as it gets to being an Estate Duty Tax. And it is 100% tax! Whether this is equivalent or far from what Estate Duty is, it all depends on one's perception and definition. (Check with Matilah) Now who does not pay this transformed Estate Duty? Those on pension scheme and the super rich who are able to work around the CPF ruling and not contributing to it. Even they do so, it is less than the smallest peanuts in relations to their wealth.

The magic of Malaysian politics

It is unbelieveable that the only person that has all the cards to play is someone that is not even an elected MP. Anwar is now calling the shots, manouvring and shuffling the cards. Abdullah the PM is the captain of a sinking ship and watching perilously at the possibility of his crews jumping over board. And it takes only one GE with the ruling party still the majority govt to shake the political landscape. It is simply amazing. Everyone gravitating towards Anwar and watching what he is going to do next and when he is going to be the next PM.

Increasing relevance of Cyberspace

The Malaysian GE has shot cyberspace into the limelight. Many claimed credit should go to cyberspace for breaking the govt's stranglehold on one sided reporting in favour of the BN. And cyberspace came to the rescue to provide an alternative view that the people had been deprived of. Below are some comments which I extracted from The Straits Times by Jeremy Au Yong. Said the site's owner Raja Petra Kamarudin: 'Traffic went up so high that I could not get on to update the site.' The massive visitor numbers put up by both websites, gave one of the clearest indications yet, of just how much the Malaysian public have been turning to alternative media for its political news. With opposition parties feeling shut out of traditional news media, they turned to the Internet to air their views. And it seems many Malaysians follow them there. Said Mr Premesh: 'The alternative media has broken the monopoly of the government on the media and provided a platform for information distribution. It gave a platform for people not in power.' And some now say, cyberspace was where the recent election was lost. Mr Tony Pua, a Democratic Action Party candidate who made his name as a blogger, said the Internet played a pivotal role in informing people about the issues. Although he admitted that he was surprised at how effective it turned out to be. 'The Internet may be more instrumental than people thought it would be. This was not expected by anyone,' he said. And no one was caught more off-guard than the government, said Mr Premesh: 'They thought it wouldn't reach beyond the segment of the community that had Internet access. They didn't consider the spillover effect. 'If you had gone to a rally, you would have seen that the people are well aware of the issues, issues that were only broadcast on alternative media. The Internet fed the information into a certain part of the community, and it spread from there.' He referred to stories like the alleged links between murdered Mongolian model Altantunya Shaariibuu and Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, as well as the judiciary scandal involving Datuk VK Lingam. Raja Petra felt that the Internet's biggest contribution was in getting the middle class to the ballot booths. 'Alternative media cured the apathy the middle class has. They were no longer saying: 'Let's not bother.' Suddenly, it was let's go and give the opposition a chance,' he said.

The goodness coming from the GE

The Malaysians have two men to thank for the results of the GE and a new Malaysia. Credit must go to Anwar for bringing about two unlikely bedfellows together to share a common dream, a Malaysian Malaysia. And credit must also go to Abdullah for allowing this to happen. Today, Abdullah is talking about a Malaysia for all Malaysians, a fair and level playing field, uniting all Malaysians and prosperity for all. This is a stark contrast from the pre election days when he allowed UMNO to be more extremist than PAS. UMNO was then trying to be more Islamic and more Malay than whatever PAS stood for. UMNO was trying to outdo PAS! Now PAS has moderated its position, and this caught UMNO with its pants down. Now a new tune is being sung by all parties, in the govt and the alternative govt. Everyone is talking about a Malaysian Malaysia. The challenge to the future is whether Anwar is strong and dynamic enough to keep PAS under check and not going the extreme Islamic path. And on Abdullah's part, whether he can rein in the ultras in his party and return UMNO to be a party for all Malaysians. His problems are more difficult as there is also the big issue of corruption among his close aides and ministers. UMNO needs a thorough clean up and many of his corrupt gangs must go. To think that Samy Vello is still thinking of leading MIC as a component member of the BN speaks a lot about where UMNO is.