Parliament May Be Dissolved Tomorrow for GE14

It seems that with the rushing through of the Fake News Bill as well as the passing of the Redelineation Exercise through the final Parliament sitting recently indicate the imminent announcement of GE14.

Tomorrow, Friday 6 April, will be a special Cabinet Meeting in the morning moved from Wednesday and is also the final day sitting of the Parliament. Because there was no Cabinet Meeting yesterday, the fuel pump prices remain unchanged. Perhaps, it will remain unchanged until after the next Government assembles because the current BN Government will only be a caretaker after the dissolution of Parliament.

On the next day, Saturday 7 April, BN will announce their manifesto and a lot of news breaks have been alluding to the fact that our PM Najib has never announced the manifesto unless he calls for the General Election.

As such, tomorrow will be a timely moment for him to do so. The Rakyat of Malaysia has been long awaiting this GE14 as our PM Najib has been teasing since last year but it never did materialize. This suspense has inadvertently hurt the economy because all the anticipation for the GE14 do cause anxiety and suspense to Government and Corporate procurement.

And PM Najib is most likely to announce GE14 tomorrow which is much welcomed!

BERSIH 4 ENDS PEACEFULLY

Today is Day 2 of the 34-hour Bersih 4 rally.  It was estimated that few tens of thousands of Malaysians camped all over the vicinity of Dataran Malaysia.

The morning started with prayers of various faiths. The crowd built up in the late morning.

Towards the last leg of the program at 9pm, the crowd had swelled to over 100,000 people. Speeches were made by politicians, NGOs and also the public.

The atmosphere remained electrifying all the way to midnight when everyone sang our beloved national anthem,  Negara ku. Watch the video.

BERSIH 4 Day 1 Highlights in Pictures

The day was hot but it didn’t deter the few hundred thousand of Malaysians coming out to stand up to be counted. Amidst threats by the Police and banning of the Bersih t-shirts, Malaysians were fearless to defy the senseless attempt to rock Bersih 4. Here are some highlights from Day 1 on the ground.

Walking near Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock

A lesson on metaphorical illustration

Speeches at Central Market

MAHATHIR MAKES 2ND BERSIH PRESENCE IN 2 DAYS

In an unprecedented move, Tun M did the unthinkable to show up at a street rally Bersih 4 not once but twice in as many days.

Today, Tun M took the KTM Komuter together with his wife, Siti Hasmah, along with an old friend, Zaid Ibrahim. FB went abuzz with pictures of Tun M with the people in a train, arriving at the Central Market station at 4:30 pm this afternoon.

Bersih 2.0 Claims A Mega 200,000 Turnout Today

There were certainly an incredible turnout of Malaysians in the Bersih 4 rally thus far. It will be hard to count as this is a 34 hour rally. Many have turned out in multiple locations and many will come at various times.

The KL Police Chief says an estimated 25,000 turned up but he will need to go for training to tell numbers in a crowd and willing to tell the truth.

There was definitely more than 25,000 but is it 200,000? Not sure but the turnout was awesome and will be scary for some people.

These aerial photos by MalaysiaKini may give us some perspective.

At the junctions if Tun Perak and TAR and Raja Laut.

At Masjid Jamek area, HSBC building on the left.

Tun Mahathir and Wife Stops By Bersih 4 Rally Tonight

This is really unexpected and surprising. During his tenure as Prime Minister,  Tun M never condoned peaceful assembly or assembly of any sort.

This evening at 7:30pm, he and his wife we’re mobbed by the crowd who were elated to see him there.

This can present Bersih 4 a big boost if morale and totally frowned upon by PM Najib. They are well respected veterans and Umno members, notwithstanding Tun M being an ex-PM and current instigator to wanting a change of PM.

In a rare sight, Siti Hasmah comments that Bersih 4 is “people’s power“.

Let’ see how the MSM spins this tomorrow.

Malaysiakini reported via Prime Streams just now.

BERSIH 4 TODAY

The time has come for reckoning if this rally will achieve its objectives. Many have made their way to the city regardless how many road blocks were put up by the police.

The LRT is most favored to transport people into the heart of the city. They are packed with passengers going to the same stops dressed in yellow. Instructions went out to all participants not to enter Dataran Merdeka or cross any Police barriers.

This rally, if the turnout is tremendous, will be the catalyst to major changes in the country as many believes. How and what the changes will turn out to be is left to be seen.

BERSIH 4 Starts Saturday

There is another mega rally dubbed Bersih 4 scheduled to be held from 2pm this Saturday 29 August thru midnight 30 August. Gauging from the donation response exceeding RM1.5m and a sell out of 35,000 t-shirts, many people expect this to be an awesome turnout of the rakyat.

Certainly, the Police is saying and behaving in the most predictable way declaring Bersih illegal, setting up road blocks and threatening potential protestors of the strong arm of the law, all repeated in each past Bersih rally.

There will also be sister rallies across Malaysia and around the world. Thus will garner global attention possibly over reputable media like BBC and CNN.

No, the PM will not step down, and that’s for sure. There is no such expectation either.

Umno Plans 50 Election Petitions, More Than PR

Najib dropped a major bombshell that Umno is planning to file at least 50 election petitions for parliamentary and state seats with another 37 under consideration (read here). This will beat Pakatan Rakyat’s 31 petitions being planned – PKR 20, PAS 8 and DAP 3. Filing petitions is an expensive affair and almost all the time, these petitions are thrown out because of technicality without considering their merits.

It is quite understandable for PR to want to file the petitions because they claim that they have been cheated of the results. It will be really awkward if they didn’t file enough petitions to demonstrate they can win at least 112 seats for a simple majority. Hence, the plan for 31 petitions. The #Black505 rallies have been conducted to expound on the displeasure of losing because of irregularities, foul play and gerrymandering which consequently had demanded for the dismissal of the SPR’s Chairman and Deputy and to restructure SPR to be placed under the jurisdiction of the Parliament, the original place in the Federal Constitution prior to the many amendments made over the years.

Now, for Umno and not even BN to file petitions will be surprising. To top it all, Najib said that Umno will file at least 50 petitions while having 37 more under consideration. This is the surprise of surprise. Just what is Umno displeased about the GE13 which they have never raised since the results were announced on the early morning of 6 May. They contended that everything was clean and fair and that all must accept the results and Najib called for a national reconciliation (besides blaming a Chinese Tsunami for losses of seats).

The question on everybody’s shocked minds is what points will Umno be raising for the Election Petition of a GE13 which they kept claiming was free and fair. Very strange indeed. Will Umno actually file those petitions or if this is just a Public Relations gimmick will be left for Malaysians to wonder for now. By 12 June, all parties must file their petitions with the High Court.

Malaysia At A Standstill

The PM has been sworn in. So did the Cabinet except for 5 individuals who should not have joined in at the time as they were not made Senators yet. The new term begins with a fiasco yet to be rectified. There has been rallies by PR and NGOs showing anger at alleged fraud and also directed at the Election Commission (EC) demanding reforms and for the heads to step down.

Obviously, none of the rallies and demands will be met because the Govt will not want to bow down to such pressure. In turn, they started to arrest PR leaders and activists but ignore pro-Umno bloggers and Utusan Malaysia and even Perkasa. The show of power to silence the Opposition is back.

Such is the beginnings of Najib’s new term. Uncertainty, draconian acts, selective prosecutions, all being the continuation of his previous term. No reforms are evident although Najib has reiterated that he will want to do so. While spewing such promises, the Sedition Act is used again. And arrests made to show power and strike fear into Malaysians.