#umno

[a-dream-seeking-light]

Vika Falileeva In ‘Bibbidi Bobbidi BITCH’ For UmnO Magazine Photographed By Daniel Peter Schulz

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reposting cuz i discovered this post was flagged (tho i found more from this editorial at the source link in clean plates and higher res so extracting here):  

[unes23]

Cindy Bruna by Jonathan Segade for Umno Magazine

[rrrusskaya]

Cindy Bruna photographed by Jonathan Segade for UmnO Magazine Fall 2015.

[scrumpyfan43]

some pokemon fusions from the other night, mostly they just have funny names

[hitz-bettina6pwr9]

Why PH Is Afraid If Parliament Is Dissolved And GE-15 Held

DAP senator Chin Tong said they were forming Pakatan Plus (PH +), a coalition of DAP political parties, PKR, PAN and several PPBM members who supported Dr Mahathir. This Pakatan Plus coalition is supposed to form the government when the PN government collapses. They (Pakatan Plus) wants to form the government by way of MPs switching parties and not through elections. In the last GE-14 DAP has won in all 37 Chinese and 5 mixed areas. In every election in the last 20 years, the DAP has successfully increased its parliamentary seats from 10 seats (GE-10 in 1999), to 12 seats (GE-11 2004), to 28 seats (GE-12 2008), to 38 seats (GE-13 2013) and 42 seats (GE-14 2018). Their strategy is simple: FIRST, strengthen their influence on Chinese voters by sowing hatred and racism against the Barisan Nasional, Umno and the Malays. During the GE-14, more than 95 percent or almost all Chinese voters voted for PH / DAP. SECOND, using a handful of Malays to draw some support from the Malays, as well as to incite fighting among Malays (aim to divide the Malays.) With a small number of party members (estimated to have only 100-200 thousand members), this strategy succeeded, and with Mahathir's help they finally formed the government in 2018.

PH won in GE-14 due to Mahathir. This is because, Mahathir has attracted 25% Malay support, while 75% more Malay support has been split in two between UMNO and PAS.

And by that time Chinese voters' support for them had increased by 95%.

But now UMNO and PAS have joined the Muafakat Nasional and the political situation has changed; the majority of Malays were united with the consolidation of the UMNO and PAS.

With the consolidation of the Malays, the PH will have difficulty to seize power and DAP into the government through elections. They (DAP) to know if the elections are held, the Malays will not support the PH and they can not form a government only with the support of Chinese voters. In other situation.

The DAP and PH are now in a state of dilemma about who they will adopt as the 9th Prime Minister's candidate especially if Parliament is dissolved and the 15th General Assembly held. If they took Mahathir again as a candidate for prime minister, Mahathir may break and draw some support Malays. But the support of the Malays against Mahathir now has deteriorated badly and, it's not like it used to. The Malays see Mahathir is now ridden by DAP. To change the perception of the Malays against him, three months ago in an audio recording purportedly Mahathir said he did not like DAP. But his actions prove otherwise. During the "Langkah Sheraton" four months ago, Mahathir should have been the 8th Prime Minister after resigning as the 7th Prime Minister. But his plan failed, as UMNO rejected it because Mahathir was stubborn to bring DAP into the new government. Mahathir still does not want to leave PH and DAP. But even if he is still with DAP, the Chinese voters no longer look up to Mahathir after GE14, especially after Congress Malay Dignity organized by him. This is reflected in the devastating defeat of the PH and PPBM under Mahathir, in the Tanjung Piai by-election last year. Where only 40 per cent Chinese and 5 percent Malay voters voted PH, fell heavily compared to 80 per cent Chinese and 25 per cent Malays who voted for them in the GE-14. Therefore, if the DAP lifted him again as PM candidate in the 15th general election, most likely there will be no Malay votes. If this happens, PH will lose many seats in the coming GE-15. Seats won by PPBM like in Muar, Simpang Renggam and Sri Gading is due to the votes of the Chinese voters, and more than half of the seats PAN and many seats the party that has won is caused due to the split of the Malay votes between UMNO, PAS and PH on GE-14. It is very likely that this place will change hands if elections are held with Mahathir as the Prime Minister's candidate for PH this time. Apart from Mahathir resigning and causing the PH government to collapse, Khalid Samad was among the main reasons for overthrowing the PH government earlier, as he was too much forcing Mahathir to resign. In other direction.

But if they (PH / DAP) appoint Anwar to become a candidate for PM-9 in the GE-15, Anwar will still be able to retain the support of the Chinese voters to PH, but he will not be able to attract the support of the Malays.

Without Mahathir, Anwar had tried four times since 1999 to bring Pakatan to win the general election and form the previous government, but to no avail. This is because the Malays does not support Anwar, period. PH certainly know they can not expect Anwar to attract Malay support to win elections and then form a government. In more interesting situation to be considered.

Anwar and Mahathir are now both liable to PH and DAP.

That is why until now despite PH's ambition to restructure the government, they still cannot declare who the prime minister is. The internal state of PH is now very much in disarray with the split in PKR by Anwar and the internal PPBM crisis by Mahathir. And with PH's poor performance of 22 months as the government and their manifesto promises not being fulfilled, it is difficult for them to convince the people to vote them again. The people have seen that they (PH) are just crazy for power, but are not interested and are not able to govern the country. That's why PH doesn't want Parliament to dissolve.

Because they are afraid to face the people in elections.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2UZKLuf

[iridescentclub]

Codie Young photographed by Nhu Xuan Hua for Umno, 2015

[southeastasianists]

A regime change glanced askance - New Mandala

The ‘cari makan’ or a rent-seeking political culture may be the hardest thing to reform in Malaysia, even under a reformist government. And human nature will make this almost impossible to do.

Over the past several weeks, much of Malaysia’s elite has been playing the game of ‘pusing’ (Malay for turnaround), or as one businessmen told me, learning to ‘gostan’ (Malay contraction of “go astern”). In popular usage, it means to reverse back. This is how it works: many in the Malaysian elite are now claiming to be closet supporters of Dr Mahathir and the Pakatan Harapan (PH, or alliance of hope) coalition. Some claimed to have secretly “sponsored” the campaigns of PH candidates.

In an infamous blog entry, Making Beeline to Curry Favour with Dr M, by one of Mahathir’s closest political allies, Abdul Kadir Jasin wrote: ‘Last evening I was invited for a berbuka puasa with the Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, at the Perdana Leadership Foundation (PLF) in Putrajaya… I saw many familiar faces – men and women – who during good and bad times had stuck with THE man… But I also saw many who had been absent from his berbuka puasa and other functions for quite a few years. I felt no sense of remorse when I greeted them with disdain… When Dr Mahathir was in power they celebrated him as if he was a ‘Tua Pek Kong’ (Chinese diety) and man of miracle. He was lavishly praised and even more lavishly feasted… But when he left office but yet continuing to care for the country, many of these people abandoned him for fear that supporting or just being seen with him would jeopardise their billion-dollar contracts, projects concessions, or subject them to the scrutiny of the Inland Revenue Board… The mere mention of Dr Mahathir caused them to cringe…Their hypocrisy and lack shame put me off. But still I accepted their handshake for the sake civility and common courtesy…”

While crony capitalism is found throughout Southeast Asia (yes, even in Singapore), in Malaysia the cronies never had to ‘pusing’ or ‘gostan’ at such a rapid pace. The assumption was that UMNO and Barisan Nasional (BN) would remain in power for the foreseeable future. Thus the 9 May outcome was akin to suffering the first heart attack.

Unlike the West, political hypocrisy and the practice of switching political support for personal gain in Malaysia is often regarded as simply ‘cari makan’ or earning a living. There is no political shame is ‘pusing’ if the ultimate aim is to ‘cari makan’. In other words, you do whatever is necessary to get the government contract, or better, to get into government. Former prime minister Najib Razak was fond of saying that his political philosophy is ‘Cash is king’. During Najib’s era, ‘dedak’ was the common term used to describe the use of bribes to buy political support.

The culture of ‘cari makan’ had such an omnipresence in Malaysian politics that almost all the tycoons you see today in Malaysia are linked either to Mahathir or Najib. It was an open secret which tycoon was linked to each leader, such that the stock market in Malaysia had ‘political counters’, where certain companies were owned by these tycoons. It is not uncommon for the shares of these companies to move according to the latest rumour regarding the tycoon’s relationship status with the incumbent PM.

Those who came up in the 1980s and 1990s were handpicked by Mahathir and former finance minister and now chair of the Council of Eminent Persons Daim Zainuddin. In the past decade, another group of tycoons came up under the patronage of Najib. It was taken for granted that you could not become a business tycoon overnight in Malaysia without connections to the incumbent PM.

‘Pusing’ and ‘cari makan’ politics is most acute in the Malaysian state of Sabah. Not only is it done openly at every elections, it is celebrated with a local word ‘katak’ (or political frog), which essentially describes what happens as entire political parties and just-elected individuals move to the winning side on elections night. For political parties, it’s mostly about getting into government. For individuals, it can mean a sudden cash windfall. Sometimes, you can even ‘katak’ twice or more for such gains.

The most recent example of this was on the night of GE14, when it became clear that Parti Warisan were in a position to form a new state government – United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (UPKO), a BN-component party, announced it was defecting to Warisan to give it a clear majority to form the next state government. Two days later, four Sabah UMNO state assemblymen defected as well, giving Parti Warisan a clear majority in the state assembly.

In neighbouring Sarawak, two just-elected MPs joined the PH coalition once it was clear PH had formed the federal government. The sole MP from the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) tried but failed to defect to PH.

Across the sea, Malaya is fast catching up on ‘katak’ politics. Within a few days of PH’s victory, five BN state assemblymen defected to PH, giving the Johor and Perak PH state governments their majorities. More would actually like to defectbut they cannot do so now because of the raw feelings generated in the recent campaign. It’s likely when things calm down, more elected BN representatives will move to PH.

While many would see these moves as opportunistic, many of those defecting justify it on the grounds that under the present political system, they can only resolve their constituency issues if they are part of the ruling coalition.

When BN was in power, individual BN MPs were given between RM1 to RM5 million ($337,000 to $1.69 million) to spend on their constituencies. Opposition MPs got zero funding. These funds are spent on any events or projects approved by the MP without the need for another layer of official approval. BN MPs would normally use this slush fund for small projects or events to increase their personal support among their constituents. Opposition MPs see the funds as nothing more than blatant vote buying.

The new PH government has continued the practice but with a slight modification. PH MPs will get RM500,000 ($169,000) while Opposition MPs will get RM100,000, or a fifth of what a government MP gets.

Over the next year, expect more UMNO businessmen and opposition politicians to move into the PH camp, all claiming to be closet supporters of PH. The ‘cari makan’ political culture may be the hardest thing to reform in Malaysia – I would say it’s impossible, even under a reformist PH government. It is, at the end of the day, human nature.

[tarotsoup]

When Patrick Stump was Gerard Way