WHAT happened to Teoh Beng Hock? How did he end up dead outside the Selangor Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office in Plaza Masalam, Shah Alam? These were some of the questions on many people’s minds as a crowd gathered in front of the building on the morning of 17 July 2009, a day after Teoh’s […]
Pictures
Polling in Manik Urai
By Zedeck Siew
KUALA KRAI, 14 July 2009: Polling for the Manik Urai by-election began today at 8am at nine polling stations and would continue until 5pm. As of 1pm today, voter turnout was about 76%, or 9,359 of the 12,293 registered voters. As both PAS candidate Mohd Fauzi Abdullah and Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Tuan Aziz Tuan […]
Sedate in Manik Urai
By Zedeck Siew
THE 10-day-long campaign period for the Manik Urai by-election has been quite sedate, with few hard issues gaining any traction in this rural constituency in Kelantan. The campaign trail was peppered instead with the question of Kelantan’s petroleum royalties; the absence of PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa from party campaigns until 11 July 2009; […]
PAS outnumbers BN at Manik Urai
By Zedeck Siew
IT’S official: the Manik Urai by-election is a straight fight between PAS candidate Mohd Fauzi Abdullah and Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Tuan Aziz Tuan Mat from Umno. Nomination, held at SMK Sultan Yahya Petra (1)’s Dewan Petra, began at 9am today, although supporters from both camps arrived much earlier. PAS supporters, over 10,000-strong, marched from […]
PAS’s hopes and heroes
By Deborah Loh and Zedeck Siew
THE PAS muktamar this year has drawn more scrutiny than previous meetings, given the changed political landscape after the March 2008 general election. Attention is focused on the party elections, which some have described as a battle between conservatives and moderates. Ultimately, the elections reflects what party delegates think about PAS’s identity and position in […]
A by-election skimpy on issues
By Shanon Shah
IT has been nearly a week of campaigning here in Penanti, and the by-election still seems skimpy on issues. True, all the candidates have revealed their “manifestos”, but none of them seem to be too specific. Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) candidate Dr Mansor Othman has been the most strategic in releasing his manifesto, charter and […]
Fall of an icon
By Zedeck Siew and Gan Pei Ling
FOR decades, Jaya Shopping Centre, better known as Jaya Supermarket, in Section 14 was the landmark in Petaling Jaya. It housed the first supermart in the area when it was built in 1974, and for most of the 80s and early 90s, it was the focal point of activities for PJ residents. As the city […]
Penanti heats up
By Shanon Shah
THE Penanti by-election is the first in three decades which the Barisan Nasional (BN) has decided not to contest. But what initially started off as a quiet and sleepy campaign has perked up in the past 48 hours, with one independent candidate, Aminah Abdullah, alleging that Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) tried to bribe her. PKR […]
Underneath the hot Penanti sky
By Shanon Shah
IT was a hot, humid morning in Penanti on nomination day, 23 May 2009. It could have been the heat, or the Barisan Nasional (BN)’s absence, that made proceedings a tad more subdued compared to the tri-elections of 7 April. Nevertheless, a 1,000-strong crowd turned up to support the Pakatan Rakyat (PR)’s candidate, Dr Mansor […]
Perak assembly sitting disassembled
By Deborah Loh
WHAT was 7 May in Perak about? For the Pakatan Rakyat (PR), it was the last stand in the face of might that left them with little option but to go down holding their ground. For the Barisan Nasional (BN), it fulfilled the goal of ejecting Speaker V Sivakumar and replacing him with someone friendly, […]
