Some people just don’t understand dialogue… SO now the government wants a formalised interfaith dialogue mechanism? Going by the history of the state’s response to attempts by civil society to initiate interfaith dialogue, I am not holding my breath. In 2005, various members of civil society had a conference proposing a statutory Interfaith Commission (IFC) [...]

Datuk Zaid Ibrahim DESPITE flare-ups in PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is on track to becoming a formal coalition, says Datuk Zaid Ibrahim who was tasked with developing a common manifesto for the opposition coalition. PR’s application to be registered with the Registrar of Societies was submitted last week, and the [...]

Updated at 7.05pm on 25 Sept 2009 PETALING JAYA, 25 Sept 2009: Will the PAS leadership take action against the party’s Selangor commissioner Datuk Dr Hasan Ali for undermining Pakatan Rakyat (PR)? Senior party leaders are unhappy with Hasan and Selangor PAS secretary Mohd Khairuddin Othman who backed his boss, Hasan, by saying that the [...]

Hindraf vigil on 27 Sept 2008 ON 25 Nov 2007, the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) burst into public consciousness through a mammoth street rally. Few doubt that Hindraf was pivotal in swinging Indian Malaysian votes away from the Barisan Nasional (BN) three months later in the March 2008 general election. On 2 July 2009, [...]

ALOR STAR, 1 July 2009: After the conflict between the DAP and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) in Penang, the Pakatan Rakyat government may be facing yet another challenge in Kedah. Kedah DAP chairperson Thomas Su Keong Siong has threatened that the party no longer found it necessary to be in the Pakatan Rakyat government in [...]

PETALING JAYA, 25 June 2009: Pakatan Rakyat needs to, among others, form a shadow cabinet in order for Malaysia to start having a two-party system, a political scientist said. Monash University Sunway Campus’s Prof Dr James Chin said Pakatan Rakyat (PR) had to first formalise itself as a coalition before talk about Malaysia having a [...]