Gwo Burne Offer his seat to Anwar

It takes two to tango.

Now the news already came from the horse's mouth, or should it be camera's LCD, that the MP for Kelana Jaya Loh Gwo Burne offered to vacate his parliamentary to enable Anwar Ibrahim the ticket to parliament and possibly the coveted Prime Ministership!

Loh was quoted in Parliament on Monday that he had offered his seat to Anwar. As I had wrote earlier, Kelana Jaya is high on the list as the seat for Anwar's entry to parliament.

On the other hand, Loh was busy taking pictures and videos on his first day in Parliament. Maybe it is a sign that he is taking all the necessary photos as momentoes in anticipation of his quick exit from parliament?

Adios Ramli Ngah Talib

The 222 newly elected MPs took their oath today. It will be an exciting Parliament this time around with 82 opposition members against 140 BN representatives.

History was made today with the appointment of a Sabahan Pandikar Amin Mulia as the new Dewan Rakyat Speaker. Adios to Ramli Ngah Talib, the immediate past speaker. Now he can fade away quitely to his kampung in Pasir Salak after a long service to the nation and the state of Perak. Even the parliament official website was very prompt in updating Pandikar Amin as the new Speaker as of today!

My first impression from afar of Ramli Ngah Talib was during my school days in the early 80s' when he came as the acting Perak Menteri Besar to officiate my school Annual Speech Day.

I remembers my school headmaster was very proud to announced that the Menteri Besar was a former student of the school, albeit only for his Form Five. Being a kampung boy, I was awed with this "big man" from Ipoh but as years past I starts to look at this big man as just another Umno politician with agenda of his own.

But no matter what, this guy really a political survivor. After being dumped as the Menteri Besar in 1999, he gentlemanly accepted appointment as the deputy transport minister after contesting a parliamentarian seat that year. Many politician his stature would have balked at this junior position as a slap in his face. But he persevered and was duly appointed the Dewan Rakyat Speaker in November 2004 after the demised of the long serving speaker Zahir Ismail.

Ramli was reluctant to let go of the speaker's post but at the end of the day he has to accept the political manouvering by the BN leadership. The BN leadership in KL had to submit to pressure from the East Malaysian BN politicians to allocate more positions to Sabahans and Sarawakians as a goodwill gesture to their contribution in providing 54 parliamentary seats to ensure the continuity of the BN federal government.

For this time around, it's the end of the road for Ramli Ngah Talib. Unless of course if he is appointed the next Dewan Negara Speaker!

For political parties, no one is indispensable. You played by the game rules and kick-out by the same rules!

Academician or Politician?

As I was walking into the Tan Sri Uda Library building in Shah Alam I bumped into one of my former political science lecturer during my university days, Dr Sanusi Osman. I duly introduced myself to him as his former student. We had a quick chat while going to the lift taking us to the 3rd floor to attend the launching of two books by a former lecturer of UKM, Rustam A Sani, who passed away three days earlier.

The book launching also becomes a memorial for this late academician, writer, political analyst and former deputy president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) which Dr Sanusi was also a former Secretary General.

I attended this event as a mark of respect to my former lecturer since I missed the funeral few days earlier and I know pretty well that I will be having the opportunity to meet other lecturers from my student days.

Some of the my university lecturers who left the academia for politics includes Ting Chew Peh, former MCA's Housing and Local Government Minister; Toh Kin Woon who was with Gerakan and former Penang Exco member. Dr Sanusi did contest in the Batu and Lembah Pantai constituencies under the PRM banner but failed to be elected.

During that time it did not cross my mind that these lecturers will jump into active party politics and I am amused of myself when I thought of some of those questions that I asked them as a freshie. One of those question that I posed to Dr Sanusi was, "why Barisan Nasional need to have so many ethnic based parties as members when BN can be a party for all?", without knowing he was an active member of the opposition PRM!

Where is Your Cousin's Apology?

At last Umno Youth chief Hishamuddin finally apologized for wielding the keris during Umno general assembly that cause discomfort amongst the people especially the non-Malays which duly affected the Barisan Nasional's performance in the 12 General Election. It's better late than never for a person to feel remorse for his actions and antics and seek forgiveness from everybody.


Every right thinking and cultured person should give a chance to themselves to accept his apology disregarding the actual intention behind the apology or the the level of sincerity carrying the remarks.

Tracing back the keris wielding and kissing incidents, I still can remembered vividly my thoughts during that time in response to the Education minister's antics. I was thinking," Hey, what is the Education minister trying to potray and teach the school children? Is he telling the millions of students under his watch that is it alright to brandish your weapon as you like? " What moral authority is left with him to set policies to educate our children and execute disciplinary actions on wayward students when the head of the education ministry himself are inviting a serious diciplinary case against him?

What the heck? It is already over and the person was given a lashing by millions of voters recently. So, we forgive him-lah but as a teacher usually tells a wayward student after giving him a disciplinary action," be a good boy and next time don't do it again, O.K? If not, be prepared for more lashing.

BTW, when is your cousin going to apologise for his speech in 1987 where he vowed to bathe the keris with Chinese blood? Since he said you would not lose the dignity by apologizing, when is his coming? People can forgive you but still cannot forget your cousin's action. Hopes he still has the dignity to be PM.

My Songkok, Your Serban

People doesn't like to be forced into doing certain thing which they don't like or can't readily accept.

The issue of wearing the "songkok", a Malay traditional headgear by DAP politicians during the ceremony to sworn in the new Selangor State Excos and appointment of the new Selangor State Assembly Speaker, Teng Chang Khim created a "temporary" challenge for the political party.

At the end of the day, protocol and common sense prevails and the songkok was on the head of these DAP politicians, maybe for the first time in their lives.

Retrospectively, what's the fuss it is all about? Every community had their own traditional headgears and they are always proud to share it with others. For instance, if we participate in an Orang Asli traditional function, don't spoil the atmosphere by declining to wear the headgear made of nipah by the Orang Asli community.

Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Abdullah Badawi worn the Kadazan traditional headgear when they visited the Kadazan Dusun community in Sabah.

Even Lim Guan Eng put on the serban when he celebrated the Vaisakhi with the Sikh community recently.

It is the state of the mind. We do not change our own traditional practices by just wearing traditional headgears of others. On the other hand, we should not force others to accept our tradition. It is up to them. It is their choice and they have to live with the way they deem fits.

We just need to respect each others way of life, tradition and practices. Period