The Nut Graph | PETALING JAYA, 15-July-2009: Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim was given the thumbs up by 63% of respondents in an independent poll conducted last month, while 19% were unsatisfied with his performance.

The results of the survey by the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research conducted between 5 and 15 June were released to the state government, which announced it today amidst tension in the state legislative assembly over the performance of its executive councillors (exco).

The survey had been commissioned by the state government, a statement from Khalid’s office said today. A total of 1,360 registered voters in Selangor were interviewed by telephone for the survey.

The poll also revealed that 60% of Selangor residents felt that the state is heading in the right direction, while 64% said they were satisfied with the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) government’s performance. Twenty-two percent said they were not satisfied.

By ethnicity, 59% of those satisfied with the state government were Malay Malaysians, while Chinese and Indian Malaysians tied at 69% each.

Selangor’s PR government is currently in the spotlight with allegations that one of its exco members has close links to underworld figures. The accusation was brought by Wangsa Maju Member of Parliament Wee Choo Keong, who said in his blog that a Selangor exco member had been allowing local mafia figures to use his public office premises for meetings.

He did not name the exco member, but his allegation drew the strongest response from Ronnie Liu, the exco member in charge of local government issues. Liu is from the DAP, while Wee is from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).

Azmin Ali Wee made the allegation in a blog entry to support the suggestion by Bukit Antarabangsa assemblyperson Azmin Ali’s call for Khalid to reshuffle the Selangor exco lineup, citing non-performance and public complaints. Azmin is also vice-president of PKR, which is also Khalid’s party.

Azmin has denied speculation that he is out to replace Khalid as menteri besar, blaming former Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo from the Barisan Nasional for starting the rumours.

Come clean, says MCA

Riding on Wee’s allegation, the MCA is turning the heat on Liu by asking him to reveal the number of entertainment licenses approved, since these fall under Liu’s jurisdiction as the exco in charge of local government.

MCA Selangor secretary Lee Wei Kiat in a statement today said Liu had to clarify this because the number of illegal massage parlous and cybercafés had allegedly increased since the PR took over the state government after the 2008 March general election.

Lee also pointed out that Liu had himself revealed in the state assembly that there were more than 1,000 cybercafés operating illegally.

Measures well received

The Merdeka Center survey found that the Selangor government’s good ratings were due to measures taken by the administration, such as its Merakyatkan Ekonomi Selangor agenda, which introduced several welfare programmes. These included Tabung Warisan Anak Selangor, Skim Mesra Usia Emas, free water for the first 20 cubic metres for all Selangor households, and Hadiah Anak Masuk Universiti, an education fund for children of plantation workers.

The poll also found that 58% were confident in the state government’s ability to manage the state’s economy.

deborahloh@thenutgraph.com

Angus Reid Global Monitor | 15-July- 2009 – Malaysia’s prime minister enjoys a high level of public support, according to a poll by Merdeka Center for Opinion Research. 65 per cent of respondents are satisfied with Najib Razak’s performance, up 21 points since May.

The United Malays National Organization (UMNO)—the biggest party in a coalition of 12 political factions known as the National Front (BN)—has formed the government after every election since the Asian country attained its independence from Britain in 1957.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over as prime minister in October 2003, after the retirement of Mahathir Mohamad, who served for more than 22 years. In the March 2004 election, the National Front secured 198 of the 219 seats in the House of Representatives. Abdullah was sworn in as head of government with the biggest majority in three decades.

In the March 2008 ballot, the National Front won 140 seats in the legislature. The coalition’s share of the vote dropped drastically, from 64.4 per cent in 2004, to 50.27 per cent in 2008. According to Human Rights Watch, the most recent election was “grossly unfair” and marred by irregularities.

In September 2008, Abdullah announced his intention to step down in 2009. Najib—who served as deputy prime minister and finance minister—took over as head of government in April.

On Jul. 7, Najib celebrated his first 100 days in office by announcing what he called 11 “people-friendly” measures, which include discount rates for frequent users of toll roads. The prime minister declared: “I believe this will come as a relief to the people, particularly those who use toll roads daily.”

Polling Data

Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Najib Razak is performing his job as the prime minister?

Source: Merdeka Center for Opinion Research
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,060 Malaysian adults, conducted from Jun. 19 to Jul. 1, 2009. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

My Sinchew.com | 14-July-2009 – SOME WEEKS AGO I wrote about a letter I received from a person who shall not be named which began with the words “With referencing to the above, please see my bottom”. Having read my article, many people begged me to reveal the identity of the person guilty of such appalling English.

My response was that it did not matter. Terrible English is everywhere in this country and there was no need to single this person out.

I was browsing through some shops a few months back when I came across a sign that said “Please do not touch yourself. We will help you.” Needless to say, I fled the scene as fast as my legs could carry me.

More recently I had dinner at a popular restaurant near a popular roundabout in Petaling Jaya. The quality of the English on the menu was dreadful. For vegetables, we had a choice between the “Lecture” which I believe should have been spelt lettuce and the irresistible bacteria sounding “Coli Flower” which was no doubt the cauliflower.

We were laughing so much while ordering but the waitress was oblivious to the joke. She herself could barely string a sentence of English together.

The Government’s decision to reverse the policy on the teaching of Science and Maths in English is both wrong and selfish. Coming at the heels of Datuk Seri Najib’s hundredth day as Prime Minister, the reversal is a reflection of a Government that clearly lacks the political will to make the right decision.

Let us not be concerned about the future of our children because we have to worry about the political repercussions if the policy is not reversed. In a nutshell, that seems to have been the basis of the decision.

The fact that the majority of ordinary Malaysians want English to remain as the medium of instruction for these two subjects has been nonchalantly ignored. The independent poll by the Merdeka Centre shows this quite clearly and the ongoing poll on Tun Dr. Mahathir’s blog is a foregone conclusion the way it is going thus far.

When Tun Dr. Mahathir re-introduced English for teaching Science and Maths, he justified the policy by arguing that much of the contemporary scientific literature was written in English and that it would be near impossible to translate all of it into Bahasa. This was because to translate requires three qualifications – fluency in English, fluency in Bahasa and expertise in the subject. Tun Dr. Mahathir opined that there are just not many people who can do this.

The former Prime Minister was dead right. Further, translations also take time. Scientific papers or textbooks released today become outdated extremely quickly. By the time it is translated into Bahasa, students in other countries are already reading more current material.

Proponents of the reversal take the rather misguided view that since this is Malaysia, we should just be speaking Malay and that is the most important thing. They also point to France as an example and say look at the French and how they insist in using French for everything.

With respect, Bahasa is not French. It will never have the reach of French globally and students in other countries are not going to flood into language classes just to learn Bahasa.

In any event, M. Xavier Bertrand, the former French Minister of Health was apparently once quoted as having said “I didn’t consider that as Health Service Minister, I would need English. I was wrong.”

The politicians that run this country must face reality. The need to preserve our own national identity and to protect our culture and language is important but it must be counter balanced with the importance of children learning English to be able to compete effectively on a global scale.

English is the leading language in the world of science and the Government should recognise this in order to ensure that our children become future world leaders in the various scientific fields. Simply increasing the time allocated to teaching English in general will not help to achieve this.

At the same time, it cannot be denied that Bahasa is also important because it is the national language. In fact, for purposes of protecting our national identity, which is that of a multi-cultural society, fluency in Mandarin and Tamil for example should also be held up as tremendously important.

We should be working towards a society fluent in English and Bahasa and all the other leading languages spoken in locally. The target should be to see a future generation that is able to effortlessly switch between English, Bahasa, Mandarin and Tamil at the snap of a finger. The target should also be a future generation additionally equipped with mastery of at least one leading foreign language such as Spanish, French or German.

When this happens, the ability of this country to compete globally will have no boundaries.

It will be 2010 in less than half a year. We will then be a mere 10 years away from 2020. If the politics of language still chokes us today, what hope do we have that Vision 2020 can still be achieved?
Any such hope is clearly false hope.

The problem of languages when combined variously with other concerns such as the failure of the Government to rein in the police force and also to solve religious issues relating to conversion simply makes the situation worse.

We need to get past these problems with wise solutions sans political considerations before we can reasonably begin to hope for the success of any vision let alone Vision 2020 which looms just around the corner. (By David D. Mathew/MySinchew)

MySinchew 2009.07.14

The Straits Times Singapore | 14-July-2009 – Reme Ahmad mulls the relatively new phenomenon of using data to read polls.

THE first time I heard about Merdeka Center for Opinion Research was just after the 2004 elections. The then-Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi had won big-time, and The Straits Times needed fresh analysts to give opinions rather than the same tired names.

A colleague found and began quoting the boss of Merdeka – Ibrahim Suffian, or Ben, as he is known to his friends and the media.

Since then, the name of the independent outfit based in Bangi, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, has kept growing with all manner of talked-about public polling. And while some may question how Merdeka could know the pulse of 27 million people by calling just 1,060 voters, or some such small sample size, most people accept the data as being unbiased and fair.

Last week, two events firmly brought polling and pollsters into the limelight of Malaysian politics – and possibly changed the way public policy issues might be decided in future.

It’s becoming more likely that asking the public for its opinion on policy issues (referendum-like) will become a permanent feature of civil society in Malaysia.
I sure hope so.

This is because in the past, the government sometimes steamrolled public opinion by saying things like: “This is what the rakyat (people) wants!” Or worse: “I don’t care whether the public likes it, I know this policy is good for them.”

Indeed, Malaysia is not the only country in the region that is seeing the entry of pollsters and public polling. The result of the July 8 Indonesian presidential elections was made known very quickly with the help of exit polls carried out by these polling companies. No one would have paid any attention to them if they had provided poor, inaccurate data previously.

Anyway, back to the two major events in Malaysia last week.

Event Number One:

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s popularity was measured by a poll carried out by Merdeka. He scored 65 per cent from the public, compared to 46 per cent just a month-and-a-half ago. The poll became page one news in both the mainstream media and on the internet, for days.

And since Merdeka would have used scientific methods (like random sampling) for its polls, the results have been accepted as the truth.

Event Number Two:

Dr Mahathir Mohamad used his website to poll the public on what is called in Malaysia as PPSMI – the Malay initials for the policy of teaching math and science in English.
The government decided to scrap this policy after just six years and Dr Mahathir, the man behind the PPSMI, said he wanted to ask the rakyat themselves what they thought. A huge majority, around 85 per cent of 75,000 visitors, is against scrapping the policy.

Of course, unlike Merdeka’s survey, the polling on Mahathir’s chedet.cc can be assumed to be less scientific. Why?

1. His ardent supporters are the ones who visit his website, ie people who tend to agree with his views.
2. The rule for this polling is one-man-one-vote. But even if there was an electronic block to prevent people from voting twice using the same machine, a person could actually vote at least three times. He can vote once in the office, another time using his home computer, and a third time using his laptop.
3. Another reason why the voting could be considered un-scientific (ie random sampling): Only parents who are UNHAPPY with the government for scrapping PPSMI would most likely visit chedet.cc to register their anger. Those who are happy with PM Najib’s decision may not or not bother to visit the site to click a vote.
4. Additionally, only people with internet connections can vote. So people in the rural areas would be left out of this poll unlike the Merdeka polls which cover rural areas too.
   This means that the results can be expected to be skewed towards those who wanted PPSMI to continue.

Still, for Malaysia, what was unearthed by the two polls was quite revolutionary.

The polls set off debate about the Najib and PPSMI issues in coffee shops, and the internet version of coffee shops called blogs and chat forums. The polls showed that the rakyat has suddenly been given its voice on two important matter – how the government and its PM is doing, and their views on a key tenet of education policy.
No, this was not the first time Merdeka has made public the results of its polling. And no, this was not the first time that a prominent website had asked for public opinion through mouse clicks.

Also, the Malaysian government uses its feedback unit JASA, plus police and military intelligence to gauge public opinions.

But the fact remains that both Merdeka’s and Dr Mahathir’s polls, both independent of the government, generated much, much discussion.

And so, I hope that public polling would soon be as regular as going to the ballot boxes to pick an MP and an assemblyman.

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, this year’s two elections have led to a boom for polling outfits too.

In the April 2009 legislative elections and July 2009 presidential polls, there was a big rise in the number of political consultants, pollsters, public-opinion gatherers and image-making companies.

Some of these pollsters were paid by the political parties, but still, the media has lapped up and legitimise the more independent-minded ones with reliable data.

For both the elections to pick their MPs and the President, a version of exit polls – called quick counts in Indonesia – were widely-used by the media and the political parties. The quick counts were carried out these pollsters and survey companies and they have often proven accurate.

Perhaps it is early days yet, but for sure sooner rather than later, the independent pollsters with regular accurate data will follow those in the US and Europe closely.

If so, then whether in Malaysia or Indonesia, the winner is surely civil society.

My Sinchew.com | 13-July-2009 – I believe that the Prime Minister had a sweet 100th day in office.

The reaction from the civil society is better than expected. Leaders of many countries will envy the 65% approval rating.

I wouldn’t doubt the figure as the Merdeka Centre and its Director Ibrahim Suffian are trustworthy.

The points are the scenes behind the figure and its significance.

Najib’s situation is slightly different compared to other leaders who took the office the same time when Najib became the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Whether it is Lee Myung-Bak, Ma Ying Jeou, Nicolas Sarkozy or Barack Obama, they are now facing the problem of declining prestige. One of the reasons is the high popularity during the time when they took the office.

The people’s expectations were driven by the elections and incited by the election victories. The universal suffrage under the presidential system has as well contributed to the leaders’ personal momentum.

People had a very high expectation of the candidate they voted. Even though they were not the supporters, they would still be influenced by the environment and expected something from the chosen leader.

For example, South Korea President Lee Myung-Bak was having an almost unrealistic high prestige during the time when he won the presidential election. But it was difficult for him to reach the direct proportion between expectation and performance after he took the office.

When his actual performance did not comply with the high expectations, disappointment spread over the atmosphere, causing the rapid fall of his popularity.

When the people of South Korea, Taiwan, France, the United States and the United Kingdom are complaining about their leaders, as the outsiders, we may find that one of the reasons is perhaps, their leaders are not having poor performances, instead, the people have set their expectations too high.

On the other hand, it was the party’s decision to make Najib the Prime Minister. Thus, he was not driven up by the election.

He took the office when the country, as well as his personal image was facing a lot of problems. Personally, there were all kinds of gossips about him spreading around and externally, his government was facing various problems, including the continuous defeats in by-elections, the Perak chaos and the economic recession.

The then situation was the worst time for Najib. Just like the stock market, since it had already reached the bottom, the only direction to move on was to rebound.

Meanwhile, Najib’s people-friendly and moderation image, as well as his several liberal policies have overturned the people’s impression on him, which was conservative, self-contained and unyielding.

When the people have changed their impression on Najib, they changed as well their attitude of reservations and objections, leading to the rise of his popularity.

However, politicians must not revel in applause, too much of applause will always obscure the other voices. It was one of the problems of former Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak.

From the 101th day in office, the people’s expectations have risen and it is going to be very difficult to maintain the 65% approval rating, unless if he keeps up the effort and do better. (By TAY TIAN YAN/Translated by SOONG PHUI JEE/Sin Chew Daily)

( The opinions expressed by the writer do not necessarily reflect those of MySinchew )
MySinchew 2009.07.13

The Straits Times Singapore | KUALA LUMPUR, 13-July-2009 – MALAYSIA’S ruling party prepared Monday for a special state election considered a test of its support among the country’s Malay majority – one that an Islamic opposition group is expected to win.

More than 12,000 people are eligible to cast votes on Tuesday for a new state legislature representative in the rural Manek Urai of northern Kelantan state, which has been ruled by the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, since 1990.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has pledged numerous political and economic reforms since taking office in April, but analysts said the PAS appears certain to fend off efforts by his United Malays National Organisation to take the seat. It became vacant after the Islamic party’s incumbent died of heart failure in May.

‘It’s a no-brainer. PAS will win for sure. It’s a hardcore PAS area,’ said James Chin, a political science professor at Monash University. But PAS might win with a reduced majority compared to general elections last year because Umno has campaigned heavily over the past week, he said.

‘These are the kinds of seats Umno needs to prove that it can win, in terms of meeting Malays’ interests,’ said Mr Ibrahim Suffian, director of independent research firm Merdeka Centre.

A nationwide poll in late June by the centre showed that Mr Najib’s approval rating had risen from 45 per cent in mid-May to 65 per cent, likely because many people are warming to his plans for changes such as rolling back an affirmative action program for Malays.

The telephone survey of about 1,000 people had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Mr Najib succeeded an unpopular prime minister, Mr Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who presided over the ruling National Front coalition’s worst-ever election results last year. The coalition, led by Umno, has been accused of allowing corruption and racial discrimination to become rampant.

The Manek Urai special election will be the seventh since the March 2008 general elections, in which an opposition alliance that includes PAS and two other parties won more than one-third of the seats in Parliament.

The opposition has won five of the by-elections so far, but key alliance officials have squabbled in recent weeks over policy decisions. — AP

The Malaysian Insider | PUTRAJAYA, 13-July-2009 — The much-talked about government report card to show how well ministers and their ministries are performing will only be out next June, said Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon today.

Koh, a senator, who was recently brought into Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Cabinet to take charge of the government’s key performance indicator (KPI), said the ministers had already set their own focus areas and target dates.

However, the first review of their work will only be out one year from now.

He said there was a lot of work to be done first before the results could be seen, noting that the KPI system was recently introduced by the prime minister after his takeover in April.

“We are at present at the level of driving performances,” Koh told reporters during a briefing here today.

He explained that the groundwork included evaluating the strengths and weaknesses and allowing for corrective action to be taken to improve the leaders’ work performance based on six priority areas which Najib had announced last Saturday.

He noted that a carrot-and-stick approach will be used to judge the way the leaders perform.

“In the final analysis, in any system of KPI, there will be rewards. And the reward will in a sense, if he performs, the people will elect him again or the government will appoint him again if he’s not an elected officer,” Koh said.

But he declined to elaborate on the penalties ministers and other leaders who fail to perform will receive.

“What kind of punishment? Warning? Whatever, I think we’ll deal with that after one or two years of implementation.

“To talk about it now is a bit premature, in the sense we should be focused on performing,” he said.

The government has come up with the list of six key areas it needed to work on based on direct feedback from the public as well as from news reports and pollsters such as the Merdeka Center.

They are: reducing crime and corruption, improving education, improving public transport system, raising low-income households and upgrading basic infrastructure outside towns.

Koh pointed out the list of six main focus areas were to ultimately help the government move forward and achieve developed country status.

The senator took pains to point out several other steps the government would be taking between now and next June, when the first review will be done.

The prime minister will start announcing the target deadline for each of the six milestones to be achieved at the end of this month.

Another KPI workshop will be held next month, at which all ministers will lay down more concrete details on how they will achieve their plans within the target time frame.

And from September onwards, the government will unroll the full action plan on tackling the six public concerns that form the core of the strategies.

Koh said Najib is taking the whole performance indicator business very seriously and will be holding monthly meetings with ministers concerned to push forward the national objectives.

Hindu.com | KUALA LUMPUR (AP), 12-July-2009: Malaysia’s leader announced economic sweeteners for the public to mark his first 100 days in office, but opposition critics accused him Sunday of relying on populist measures like “an early Christmas Santa Claus” to strengthen his support.

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s efforts to revive the sagging popularity of his National Front ruling coalition have received a boost after a recent opinion poll indicated that Malaysians were increasingly warming to him.

In a nationally televised speech Saturday, Najib announced a number of steps to help mostly poorer citizens cope with the financial downturn, such as reducing fees for people to set up small businesses in Kuala Lumpur and cutting the cost of obtaining motorcycle licenses and paying road toll charges.

“Today it is all about you, the people of Malaysia,” Najib said. “The moves that I have unveiled in these 100 days are only the first steps in our journey toward a better, brighter future.”

Najib succeeded an unpopular prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on April 3 and pledged to restore public support for the National Front, which suffered its worst electoral results last year after more than five decades in power.

Najib has promised to tackle widespread complaints of government graft and racial discrimination. He has sought to lure foreign investment by rolling back an affirmative action program for the ethnic Malay Muslim majority, including scrapping a requirement for Malays to own a 30 percent stake in some sectors of the financial services industry.

The independent Merdeka Center research firm last week said Najib’s approval rating has rocketed from 45 percent in mid-May to 65 percent, according to a recent telephone survey of about 1,000 voters nationwide. The survey had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The center said the results indicate a rising number of Malaysians appreciate Najib’s decisions.

Senior opposition leader Lim Kit Siang, however, accused Najib of trying to be “an early Christmas Santa Claus” with his latest measures, instead of introducing meaningful reforms to combat problems such as corruption and crime.

“What exactly has the prime minister got to offer which are really different from the discredited and past failed policies of the National Front government?” Lim said in a statement.

Najib has also benefited from signs of disarray within a three-party opposition alliance that won more than one-third of the seats in Parliament in general elections last year. Opposition officials have increasingly bickered in recent weeks over policy decisions in some of the four states ruled by the opposition.

Bernama | KUALA LUMPUR, 12-July-2009 — A random survey by the MIC revealed that the support from the Indian community for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s leadership has increased, its president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said today.

“We expect the support to increase further in the next few months,” he said.

At the same time, he said, the support for the MIC has also improved tremendously after its poor showing in the last general election, losing six out of nine parliamentary and 12 out of 19 state seats.

“The prime minister’s 1Malaysia concept has captivated the hearts and minds of the Indians as it is not merely a slogan but has been translated into actions beneficial to the community,” he told reporters after opening the party’s Youth wing’s leadership forum here.

It was reported recently that the Merdeka Centre survey showed that some 74 per cent of Indians polled were satisfied with Najib’s performance as prime minister.

Samy Vellu said the increase in the support for the prime minister among the Indians was attributed to the many reforms undertaken by Najib and his administration.

He said the 11 initiatives announced by the prime minister yesterday, including allocating RM15 million under the Tekun scheme for Indian entrepreneurs has boosted the support among Indians towards the prime minister.

“Before this, the prime minister allocated RM100 million for Tamil schools, RM20 for Indian youth development programmes and RM499 million worth of Amanah Saham Malaysia shares,” he said.

Intake of Indians into public universities and public sector had also improved, he said, stressing that almost nine per cent of Indians were recruited into the civil service.

Samy Vellu said many of the new policies and allocations for the Indian community introduced by the government were contained in several recommendations made by the MIC over the past 18 months.

He thanked Najib for considering many of the party’s proposals which were also similar to the demands made by other Indian organisations.

On the MIC elections, Samy Vellu said he would probably announce his line-up after the nominations for the post of deputy president, three vice-presidents and 23 Central Working Committee members.

“I can’t say now but I have my own preferred candidates (for the posts),” he said.

The MIC polls are scheduled to be held on Sept 12 while nominations would take place two weeks before polling.

Samy Vellu is said to be backing incumbent MIC deputy president Datuk G. Palanivel for the number two post while the contenders are former deputy president Datuk S. Subramaniam and vice-president Datuk S. Sothinathan.

MIC secretary-general and Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam may also join in the fray.

— BERNAMA