Features

WHEN Anne Munro-Kua’s husband Dr Kua Kia Soong was taken away under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in the dead of night in 1987, the emotion that gripped her most tightly was fear. “Can you imagine the range of feelings you are left with? Dominant over all is fear, fear of what will happen to […]

YOU can hardly tell what’s really going on with Pakatan Rakyat these days. The leaders of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), DAP and PAS, who form the coalition, seem unable to stick to a common line, even when it comes to supporting opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s grab for power. After several leaders issued conflicting […]

Central committee nominees pose for photos after nominations closed on 4 Oct 2008. Seated are (from left) Koh Tsu Koon, Chia Kwang Chye and national election supervisory committee secretary Chin Fook Weng DESPITE being the Barisan Nasional (BN) component party that suffered the most dismally in the 8 March 2008 elections, the life has not […]

AFTER years of keeping publicly silent on issues involving the rights of the Chinese Malaysian community, MCA leaders seem to have found their voices of late. From its president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting railing against the demonstrators who disrupted the Malaysian Bar Council forum on conversion to Islam on 9 Aug 2008, to the […]

Datuk Seri Najib Razak (Public domain) AS the power struggle within Umno begins to intensify with month-long divisional meetings set to begin on 9 Oct 2008, all eyes are on party president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Najib seems set to take over the Umno presidency now that […]

EVEN as opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim stumbled in his quest to unseat the government by 16 Sept 2008, the likelihood of a change in government lingers palpably. Questions now abound about how exactly Anwar can achieve forming the next government. Some legal experts have said a vote of no-confidence in Parliament against the […]

UMNO has moved its annual general assembly and party elections from December 2008 to March 2009 purportedly to bring forward the transition of power from its president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak. But this surprise decision by the party supreme council on 26 Sept is just a […]

The MCA leadership, comprising mostly men. Ng Yen Yen is third from left IF Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen is not successful in her bid for the MCA’s vice-presidency in October 2008, she reckons what it means is that the 59-year-old party is not yet ready for a woman leader. By contesting one of the […]

(© Julia Freeman-Woolpert / sxc.hu) ARE things really so bad that Malaysians need a Race Relations Act? Some might say it’s the politicians who need to be legislated, not the average Ali, Ah Chong and Muthu who, even if not the best of friends, would refrain from making racial slurs in public. But such a […]

AMIDST the ethics debate that surrounds the possibility of defections by Barisan Nasional (BN) Members of Parliament (MPs) to the Pakatan Rakyat, a handful of civil society organisations have issued a qualified endorsement of a new government formed by crossovers. The statement, released on 16 Sept 2008 in conjunction with Malaysia Day and the anticipated […]