Negeri Sembilan DUN sitting

The Negeri Sembilan State Legislative Assembly sitting for 2009 was officially opened by the new State Ruler Tuanku Muhriz this morning. Today's sitting was just for the opening ceremony and there was no Q&A session nor debates. Actual sitting will take place on Monday and Tuesday next week, 27-28 April.

If there are any issues that you want us to raise up in the DUN, please give your comment here or alternatively, you can email me at siewfook@gmail.com . Specific issues are most welcomed.

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Point of View: National Service

I was invited by NTV7 to appear on the programme "Point of View" hosted by Florence Looi. The recording was done about 3 weeks ago and the show went on air last Sunday. The topic was about National Service Training programme and whether it shoud be scrapped. I have always taken a middle position on this matter that it should be reviewed throughly whether it is worthwhile to spend RM600 million a year on the programme. Is it the only way to achieve national unity? Is there no more problem of racial polarization among our youth after 5 years the programme was implemented? Well, catch my point of view on this subject by clicking here:

http://www.ntv7.com.my/Shows/Watch-Episodes.aspx?param=Lyu%2bzAUJzuEIAMmcdDTiESgDu%2bQ%2bA3HvGCruXEvdS%2bCas23z3FRPCvLM7eSbIM%2fz

source: www.ntv7.com.my Read more!

DAP NS Public Consultation and Dialogue

In line with our aims to promote a more participatory democracy, DAP Negeri Sembilan is organizing the 2nd Public Consultation and Dialogue with the people of Seremban since last year's general election. This is an avenue for us to update the public regarding the various important issues facing the country today especially the scenario under Najib's administration and the "One Malaysia" agenda. It's also a forum for the public to give us feedback or criticism to the performance of our elected representatives. DAP Parliamentary Leader Sdr Lim Kit Siang will be the keynote speaker. Admission is free and open to the public. Details as below:

Date: 21st April 2009 (coming Tuesday)
Time: 7.30 p.m.
Venue: Neighbour Grace Assembly hall, Jalan Temiang, Seremban
(opposite former Odeon cinema)

For enquiries, pls contact 06-7634525. Read more!

My ceramah speech in Bukit Gantang (2)

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Part 2

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DAP's social democracy at work!

Would like to share with you this interesting article in The Sun. I thought it was well written and someone who understood the DAP's history and its ideological roots. It's precisely what we as social democrats can offer to the Malaysian people. Not many, our own leaders and members included, can claim to understand the essence and values of the social democracy ideology. I think this article articulate it in a very practical way. A lot of people misunderstood the word "socialism". Many thought it is a "dirty word", outdated and linked it to communism. Being in the Left does not mean we have to kill off all private enterprises nor we have to be seen as the No 1 enemy of the capitalists. We only strive for a more just and fair society and reduce the gap between the rich and the poor! Happy reading!

The DAP’s socialist streak

WHEN the Penang government announced late last month that it had eradicated hardcore poverty within its borders, the news raised quite a few eyebrows. It seemed an incredible, if not impossible, task to achieve. On hindsight, however, when one looks at what the Pakatan Rakyat government executed, the solution seems common-sense.

But though it may appear simple, the move was instituted with such impudence and guts it could only come from a political element that is part of the origins and makeup of the DAP – its democratic socialism.

What the state did was to directly uplift every one of the 726 households registered with the welfare department as being in the hardcore poor category by giving them the money. Affected families were literally funded to ensure their incomes are topped up so that they get at least RM500 every month.

These poor souls whose lives, and statistics, seemingly changed overnight must owe their new fortunes to a political decision made way back in 1966. It was then that the DAP was first registered, following the Setapak Declaration, as an offshoot of the Singapore-based People’s Action Party (PAP). What marks the event as significant today is not just its history, but the fact that the party was registered as a democratic socialist entity.

Penang’s success in eradicating hardcore poverty is a fruition of a progressive post-modern socialist ideology. In fact, much of the state’s economic and social policies today can be attributed to a highly-evolved socialist streak in the DAP.

By socialism we do not necessarily mean the radical, anti-capitalist school that emerged in the early 20th century, influenced by the works of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Democratic socialism surfaced as a splinter movement that envisioned the attainment of socialism not through a revolutionary process, but through an embracing, evolutionary one. It embraced civil liberties, free elections, parliamentary democracy and transparency in governance.

It is no coincidence then that the DAP is a long-time member of the Socialist International, whose origins can be traced to early international labour movements.

Now, some 43 years after the DAP was founded, Penang has to some extent become a test-bed of sorts for a modern socialist experiment in Malaysia. Hints of this new wind, blowing along a distinctly proletarian agenda, was already felt on the first day that the DAP took helm of the state by assuming the chief minister’s post, with Lim Guan Eng ordering all summonses for hawkers and parking be waived.

Lim had later even proposed to the federal government an “economic stimulus” plan worth RM48 billion that he said would have a “tidal effect” in directly benefiting 27 million Malaysians during the financial crisis. The plan included giving a RM6,000 annual “oil bonus” to all families earning less than RM6,000 a month, or a RM3,000 annual bonus to bachelors earning less than RM3,000 a month. The amount, Lim said, would cost RM35 billion or one third of Petronas’s 2007 gross profits of RM107 billion.

The idea to use national coffers in a massive way to alleviate the people’s burden is perhaps something that could only have come out with such brazen confidence from the DAP, due to the socialist element in its set-up.

For democratic socialism seeks to improve the rights and standards of the majority by directly increasing the powers of workers and consumers. It does place social welfare as a prime component in the governance of a society.

Any aid or subsidy, however, is not meant to be dished out as dole benefits to passive citizens without resourcefulness or personal enterprise; the aid is deemed necessary to empower people, by giving them impetus to be active participants in the greater economic community.

In one of the Penang government’s boldest moves, for example, all residential landed properties on state land were made freehold, and all industrial and commercial property owners had their leaseholds converted to the maximum 99 years. “We want to give ownership of land back to the people,” Lim had said.

Of course, in practice, the DAP’s style of administration is not so purely egalitarian; but its socialist roots do hold significant sway in how the administration has caught people by surprise, by making sweeping changes with unassuming audacity.

It remains to be seen then how many more surprises the DAP-led government will dish out, and exactly how well its socialist inclinations will work for the state over the remaining duration of its term in power.


Himanshu is theSun’s Penang bureau chief. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com. Read more!

My ceramah speech in Bukit Gantang by-election

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It's UMNO who are ungrateful to Malaysian Chinese

Media Statement by DAP Socialist Youth (DAPSY) National Chairman and MP for Rasah Loke Siew Fook on Tuesday, 14th April 2009 in Petaling Jaya.

UMNO should instead be grateful to the Chinese community for prolonging their political survival in the 1999 general election.

DAPSY expresses the uttermost outrage over the most distasteful and divisive statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin that the Chinese voters were not grateful to the Barisan Nasional and wanted to be kingmakers in Malaysian politics.

Such an insensitive statement, coming from the No 2 leader in the country just barely a week after he took office, showed how out of touch the BN leadership were with the constituents on the ground and their failure to understand the sentiments and aspirations of the Malaysian electorate.

Muhyiddin thought that the Malaysian Chinese voters still subscribed to the old way of “beggar politics” where they would give their votes to the BN in exchange for tokens of allocations to Chinese schools and temples during election season. Let us tell Muhyiddin that their old trick no longer works. The people aspire for a fair and just government where their needs and basic rights to education and development are look into on a sustainable and structural basis, not tokenism.

Muhyiddin’s statement also exemplifies the feudalistic mentality of UMNO leaders who think that they are forever the political masters in the country and the people including the Chinese community are duty-bound to elect them into power. This is also an outdated idea and the people must teach the UMNO leaders that the rights and mandate to govern must be earned and won through good governance, fair policies and clean leadership. The people are the real masters and they have every right to determine who should be the government of the day.

Instead of calling the Chinese community as being ungrateful to the BN government, I would say that it is UMNO who are ungrateful to the Chinese community. It is a known fact that it was the Chinese voters who saved and prolonged UMNO’s political survival in the 1999 general elections where majority of the Malay electorate deserted UMNO during the height of the “Reformasi” movement. In fact, Muhyiddin’s boss, Prime Minister Najib escaped a humiliating defeat by a mere 241-vote majority in his Pekan constituency thanks to the Chinese votes.

Muhyiddin owed all Malaysians a public apology. . Read more!