Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

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ray245
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Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

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Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has scored a historic victory in the country's general election.

The election commission said Mr Mahathir's opposition alliance had won 115 seats, over the threshold of 112 seats needed to form a government.

Mr Mahathir, 92, defeated the governing Barisan Nasional coalition, which has been in power for more than 60 years.

He came out of retirement to take on his former protege, Najib Razak.

"We are not seeking revenge, we want to restore the rule of law," Mr Mahathir told reporters.

He said he hoped a swearing-in ceremony would be held on Thursday. Mr Mahathir will become the oldest elected leader in the world.

A government spokesman later declared nationwide public holidays for Thursday and Friday.

With only a few seats left to count, official results showed Mr Mahathir's Pakatan Harapan alliance, along with an ally in Sabah state, Borneo, had won 115 seats with BN on 79 seats.

Opposition supporters poured on to the streets in celebration as the results became clear.

Mr Mahathir, who was once an integral part of BN and a mentor to Mr Najib, abandoned the coalition in 2016.

As he left, he said he was "embarrassed" to be associated with a party "that is seen as supporting corruption".

Mr Najib has been embroiled in a corruption scandal, which saw him accused of pocketing some $700m from the 1Malaysian Development Berhad, a state investment fund. He has vehemently denied all allegations and been cleared by Malaysian authorities.

The fund is still being investigated by several countries and Mr Najib has been accused of stifling Malaysian investigations by removing key officials.

The government recently passed a law redrawing election boundaries, leading to accusations that it had gerrymandered constituencies to ensure they were filled by Malay Muslims, who are traditionally BN supporters.

In the days before the poll, election reform group Bersih 2.0 accused the Election Commission (EC) of multiple "electoral crimes", including irregularities in postal voting and failing to remove dead people from the electoral roll.

A controversial fake news law was also recently introduced, which critics say could be used by the authorities to muffle dissent.

Mr Mahathir is himself being investigated under that law after alleging that his plane had been sabotaged.

The government had insisted the election would be free and fair, with Mr Najib saying that the EC acted "for the good of all".

Voters were electing 222 members of parliament as well as state assembly members in 12 of the 13 states.

Malaysia uses a first-past-the-post electoral system, where the party that gets the most seats in parliament wins even if it does not win the popular vote.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44036178

I couldn't believe the BN is actually gone as a power. Well, technically Mahathir was a former member of the UNMO/BN, so it's still somewhat the same in many ways. Although, having a 92-year-old Mahathir back in power is going to be interesting for the politicians in Singapore to deal with.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by Xisiqomelir »

@anithng Congrats man!
Although, having a 92-year-old Mahathir back in power is going to be interesting for the politicians in Singapore to deal with.
RIP Pinky. Even Daddy found it hard, and he was a real tyrant equal to Tun Dr. M.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by AniThyng »

I haven't had much sleep yet lol. You can imagine just how tense it was, never before has this even been seriously dreamed about.

Najibs passive aggressive concession speech threw away any remaining shards of dignity he has.

Now the new Government shall also know that the voters can decide. 5 years hence. :D
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by AniThyng »

Oh FFS it's 7 PM and we still haven't sworn in the PM designate.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by Xisiqomelir »

Image

Who accepts Tuanku's denial? It's 9:45 PM now, almost 18 hours after the official final results from EC were in, and there's STILL been no swearing-in.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by AniThyng »

It's done!

Now the real work can begin. Cabinet needs to be formed pronto.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Well, it will be interesting to see if anything actually changes.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by ray245 »

Sea Skimmer wrote: 2018-05-10 06:33pm Well, it will be interesting to see if anything actually changes.
Even if there was no major change, the fact that Malaysia managed to have a fairly peaceful transition of power is a good thing. This is especially important for the civil service, which really needs to see itself as separate from the government of the day.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by Xisiqomelir »

Sea Skimmer wrote: 2018-05-10 06:33pm Well, it will be interesting to see if anything actually changes.
Harapan has committed to the following 10 promises in the first 100 days:

Image
  • Scrapping the 6% goods and service tax
  • To restore full petrol subsidies and return gasoline from the current exorbitant price of $2.11/gal back to $1.54/gal (0.47 EUR/L to 0.34 EUR/L)
  • Complete debt relief for the wilderness settlers under the FELDA program
  • State pension funds for full-time housewives
  • A 50% increase in the federal minimum wage from RM 1,000/mo to RM 1,500 mo
  • Perpetual deferment of student loans as long as a graduate's wages remain below RM 4,000/mo
  • A Royal Commission of Inquiry into 1MDB and the missing US $4B
  • A restoration of the autonomous rights granted to the East Malaysian states as decided upon in the Malaysia Agreement of 1963
  • Monetary grants for low-income households for medical costs
  • A review of all megaprojects currently underway (China <-> Singapore High-Speed Rail, the US$100B/700k planned pop. Forest City project in Johor etc)
Additionally, Mahathir has expressed contrition several times during the campaign trail for creating the various levers of corruption Najib so freely made use of. A particularly astounding one was the revelation at his first official presser as PM last night that many Harapan donors had to make their political donations under the cover of secrecy because the government illegally deployed the tax office to harass open donors via unjustified audits and levies. He has pledged to return all the monies extracted from the open donors this way.

There are innumerable other "dirty tricks" that were employed during the election, and I wouldn't be surprised to see many of the returning officers who closed their polling stations early with hundreds of people left unable to vote relieved of their duties.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by Esquire »

We could use some of those platform planks in the US - best of luck to the new Government, although I wouldn't be especially surprised if some or all of those remained unaccomplished well past 100 days from now.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

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Good thing PAS ( the Islamist party) was put out of the winning coalition. I would not be too happy to see the new Malaysia agenda sidetracked by PAS's demands at a federal level.

They are kingmakers now in Perak state as it is a hung assembly, 3 PAS, 27 BN and 29 PH ( the new federal government coalition) and PAS is proposing a unity government... Provided the chief minister is Muslim, and the majority of the state executive council ( cabinet) is Muslim, regardless of party.

End of race ( and religion ) based politics will take a while yet.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by AniThyng »

Also this whole British style fptp/single member constituency system could use some tweaking....
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by Xisiqomelir »

Besok...o besok, saya tunggu lu besok, lagi satu...hariiii.....sehaaajaaaaa....

http://kadirjasin.blogspot.my/2018/05/n ... badai.html

A good-enough English translation courtesy of Reddit:
TL;DR (or translation) -- note that this is based on Kadir Jasin's (a member of the Council of Eminent Persons) opinion and is a translation based on the best of my ability (I confess that there were some editorialising on my part though): -

The raid on Najib's place during Ramadan was appropriate despite comments from dumbasses (translated from "otak udang"). Investigations on the billion dollar wrongdoing with 1MDB does not stop just because it is Ramadan

Najib does not fear the law -- if he did, he wouldn't have stowed away his (implied) ill-gotten gains at his residence. It is difficult to believe that those riches are inheritance.

Kadir thanks BN supporters who helped mislead Najib into believing that the status quo was sufficient for BN to win GE14.

Reckons that Najib will likely be obliged to go to MACC's office on Tuesday (unless his Sri Lankan shaman / witchdoctor turns him invisible or the law enforcement screws up really badly). It is highly likely that he will be arrested, brought to court, remanded, given a nice orange clothes loaned as a MACC detainee.

This is just the beginning (insert bwahahaha). His visit to MACC is not just about 1MDB but also about SRC which loaned MYR4.4bn from KWAP to mine coal at Mongolia. SRC cash that entered Najib's account is estimated at between MYR40-70mn.

The thing is, with all the loot found from Najib's (and Najib-linked) properties during the past few days, imagine how much more were transported overseas.

The government of the day should cooperate with other countries that already initiated 1MDB related investigations and seek to repatriate these loot (and laundered money) back to Malaysia.
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Re: Malaysia election: Opposition scores historic victory

Post by AniThyng »

I see now that the council of eminent persons was a fantastic way to get shit done without needing to wait for the cabinet to be formed or parliament to convene.
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