(Permatang Pauh by-election pic by Danny Lim) SINCE the historic March 2008 general election, it has become clearer to Malaysians that democracy is messy and expensive. Indeed, any politician who tries to convince the rakyat that democracy is an easy and frugal affair is guilty of trying to fool the masses. But what have we […]
Shape of a Pocket
Najib’s ploy
By Jacqueline Ann SurinLEST we allow our new prime minister to get away with a slick public relations exercise, here are some cold hard statistics about previous prime ministers and the Internal Security Act (ISA). In July 1981, two weeks into office as prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad released 21 ISA detainees. As he himself candidly admitted […]
Umno’s insincerity
By Jacqueline Ann SurinCorrected on 27 March 2009 at 3.20pm HOW will we know if Umno is really going to keep its promise to reform? Quite simply, really. Similar to how we would measure a friend or partner’s sincerity, all it requires for us to make an educated guess about Umno’s reforms is to watch what the party […]
BN’s disrespect for democracy
By Jacqueline Ann SurinIN many ways, it was a privilege to be in the US when 9/11 happened. I was a journalist on a fellowship at the University of Maryland, College Park when the World Trade Centre came crashing down in an unexpected terrorist attack on American soil [1]. The privilege of being in the US then was […]
Why just hudud?
By Jacqueline Ann SurinIT is understandably very easy to demonise PAS for its Islamic state agenda. After all, the party leadership seems quite adept at declaring its intentions to implement some features of an Islamic state, such as hudud, at the most inopportune moments. In a global climate of Islamophobia and because of Muslims acting out of a […]
