Pakatan embarks on post-Sodomy II damage control

 

With Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s second sodomy charge behind them, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) has moved quickly to burnish the PKR chief’s reputation as a capable and responsible leader with morals.

In what appeared to be a bid to assure voters whose faith in Anwar may have been shaken by the sodomy claim and Datuk T sex videos, the opposition pact took pains at a ceramah here last night to stress his piety and trustworthiness.

Azmin speaking before an overwhelmingly Malay crowd at the ceramah in Sungai Petani on January 13, 2012. — Picture by Jack Ooi
PKR deputy president Azmin Ali told the 600-strong crowd gathered at Taman Sri Pinang here Anwar was well-suited to be prime minister as he had “impeccable character” and took his religious duties seriously.

“When he’s at an international meeting, whether in New York, London, Paris or Tokyo, he has never skipped a prayer,” he said to nods of approval from the overwhelmingly Malay crowd.

“Even when in a meeting, when the time for prayer comes, he will rush back to the hotel to pray before returning to the meeting. Do Umno leaders do that?”

An internal poll commissioned by PKR in August last year found that significantly more Malaysians approved of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak than Anwar, who scored especially low with Malay women.

Azmin, who has worked with Anwar for 13 years, also stressed that the former did not abuse public funds even during his time in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Cabinet.

The Gombak MP said Anwar did not go to international meetings ahead of time to shop like Umno leaders allegedly do and refused to stay in posh accommodations to save taxpayers’ monies.

“Because he could not be charged with bribery, abuse of power, embezzlement, Umno had no choice but to use sexual allegations to tarnish his name.

“But I’m convinced that he is not guilty,” he stressed.

Also present at the ceramah were PAS vice-president Datuk Husam Musa and Sungai Petani MP Datuk Johari Abdul. Perak DAP chief Nga Kor Ming, who had been scheduled to speak, was unable to attend.

Anwar was acquitted by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on sodomy charges brought by former aide earlier this week, bringing an end to more than two years of what The Economist called “sordid revelations in the media, legal wrangling and political point-scoring”.

Anwar escaped the second sodomy conviction in his career on Monday when trial judge Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove he had committed the act on Mohd Saiful Bukhairi Azlan, a former aide.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers has yet to decide if it will appeal the verdict.

The ceramah here was one of 15 held by PR simultaneously across PAS-controlled Kedah last night, ahead of what may be the opposition’s last national convention before Malaysia heads to the polls.

The convention, PR’s third, is expected to focus on four policy thrusts aimed at swaying key vote blocs, in preparation for the coming general election.

comments

UMNO has FAILED in all their scandalous acts against PR and this has made PR stronger. Many people has woke up with the recent happening by the UMNO ministers & deputy ministers and we are all for REFORMS.

GO Pakatan Rakyat GO, the People's Power are with you all the way to Putrajaya.

knowing UMNO they will try another method to tarnish anwar. they know pretty well that anwar is the biggest threat to them. UMNO is more concern on one person rather than to improve on their weakness,

Expecting snap polls, PR touts clean government

 

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) kicked off its national convention today on a war footing, pledging to rid Malaysia of corruption and waste once the opposition pact wins federal power.

Taking the cue from speculation that snap polls will be called within the year, PR leaders hammered home the point that the time for change was now in their opening speeches at the Sultan Abdul Halim Stadium here.

Repeated references were made to BN’s laundry list of alleged failures, from the recent National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal to the country’s rapidly growing national debt, which they blamed on the ruling coalition’s decades-long misrule.

“This country has been dirty for 53, 54 years. This is Pakatan Rakyat’s big chance,” DAP vice-chairman Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim  told a crowd of 2,000 opposition delegates and supporters.

“We have to work together and get rid of BN in the next general election to clean up this country we love.”

PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu said BN would continue to drain the country of its wealth if returned to power, stressing that a vote for PR was a vote for a better future.

“Their slogan is ‘BN menang, rakyat senang’, but we say ‘BN menang, Malaysia bankrupt’,” he said.

But Mohamad, popularly known as Mat Sabu, sounded a note of caution by pointing out that opposition victory was only possible if the opposition pact’s component parties worked hand-in-hand and stuck to its common platform.

“We are confident we can attain success in the coming 13th general election if we unite,” he said.

Using Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s surprise acquittal on Monday as a springboard, PKR deputy president Azmin Ali said that while the opposition leader was now free of sodomy charges, the people were not yet free.

“901 will be a source of inspiration for the people to reject extremist Umno and we will reject them in the next election,” he said.

The convention, PR’s third, is expected to focus on four policy thrusts aimed at swaying key vote blocs in preparation for the coming general election.

 

 

comments

 

If PR wins the next GE, I believe it will be the end of BN. Both MCA and MIC may decided to get out of union, and Gerakan will....well, where are the Gerakan? Few parties in Sabah and Sarawak may want to apply to join PR, and for Taib....hmmmm, I wonder what he will do next? Perhaps take up citizenship in Canada!

BN is so mired in corruption they have not advocated hudud for a while now. They talk big about Islam as an institution but less so about Allah because of their sins.

Najib will only call for a snap election if only his position is threaten by his own gang in this coming Umno's election.
Otherwise, he'll stalled on until his term expire so that he could lay his hands on more big and mega projects that he's gonna come up with.

I do believed that his recent visit to selangor and perak are just a ploy to distract everyone's attention away from all those exposed scandals as well as the upcoming ones.
In common sense, why would Najib wants an early election since his life are now full of enjoyment and lots of richness that even a king can't afford.

Holding a snap election earlier than his "expiry" date is just like begging for trouble!

NFC asset freeze not enough, wants full audit

 

PKR welcomed Putrajaya’s move to freeze the National Feedlot Corporation’s (NFC) assets but stressed it would continue to push for a full audit by an administrator on the scandal-hit company’s books.

Party strategic director Rafizi Ramli said this was because freezing assets alone would not allow the full extent of the publicly-funded cattle scheme’s alleged financial abuse to be known.

“We still want an administrator to go in and conduct a full audit,” he told The Malaysian Insider on the sidelines of the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) convention here.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak disclosed today that the NFC’s assets had been frozen for the time being, according to Bernama Online.

He also said he had instructed Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Noh Omar to study how best to resolve the NFC issue.

Rafizi (picture) also said Najib would also have to reveal how he intended to recover NFC funds allegedly transferred to overseas private companies owned by federal minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil and her family.

Shahrizat’s husband, Datuk Mohamad Salleh Ismail, runs the NFC.

“We would have to wait for the details as to how and under what law Najib is going to recover all these assets,” Rafizi said.

He added that Najib and Muhyiddin could not push all blame to Shahrizat as they too were responsible for awarding the project to her family in the first place.

“Najib and Muhyiddin cannot wash their hands (of this project)... It was because of their oversight and negligence that all these monies were misappropriated and transferred out in the first place,” he said.

The NFC issue came to light when the 2010 Auditor-General’s Report pointed out that the corporation had badly failed to meet production targets.

Shahrizat applied for three weeks’ leave from her duties, starting yesterday, after new allegations of bribery surfaced recently involving the RM250 million NFC project.

comments

"Najib and Muhyiddin cannot wash their hands (of this project)... It was because of their oversight and negligence that all these monies were misappropriated and transferred out in the first place,” he said.

And I wonder what kind of motivation caused such an oversight and negligence, if any.

dear najib....It is clear the money has been siffoned off by the Sharizat family. Please get the Auditor General,s office to investigate this matter. This is no joke and you must act.

We all know a deal has been struck with Shahrizat. She will go on leave, then resign, go overseas to live/study .. and her family gets to keep the RM250 million!!!

We need also to get the money back, not just 'investigate' the perpetrators.

cow shadow play....Shahrizat asks for leave as MACC probes NFC

 

Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil has applied for leave from her duties as minister after new allegations of bribery surfaced today involving the RM250 million National Feedlot Centre (NFC) project run by her family.

The women, family and community development minister said in a statement this evening that she has asked Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to give her three weeks leave starting from tomorrow.

“I hope the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will be able to investigate whether or not I was involved in any of the decisions made by the government on the NFC in which my husband, Datuk Seri Dr Mohammad Salleh Ismail, is the executive chairman,” she said.

The Wanita Umno chief refused to comment earlier today when asked by reporters about PKR’s latest allegation involving the national cattle farming project.

PKR had disclosed earlier today an email detailing how NFC’s lawyer allegedly told a MACC advisory board member that an official in the company had been tricked into paying money to a “conman” to influence a police probe into the national cattle farming project.

According to the email, the lawyer told the advisory board member how the NFC official had been tricked into paying money to a “conman” — understood to be Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail — to allegedly influence ongoing investigations by the police.

Tan Sri Megat Najmuddin Megat Khas confirmed to The Malaysian Insider this evening he authored the email which PKR presented earlier today as proof that a top National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) official had allegedly tried to bribe the police.

“He (the lawyer) told us about this conman’s story, about how this sweet-talking guy managed to convince his desperate client to part with his money so that he can get the police to be ‘less brutal’ in their interrogation!

“It’s sad to see how stupid one can get when you are stuck ‘between a rock and a hard place’!” the email said.

Shamsubahrin was recently charged with cheating NFC chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail of RM1.76 million in fraudulent consultancy fees.

Mohamed Salleh, who is Shahrizat’s husband, had earlier said Shamsubahrin was neither a relative nor has he ever been an NFC employee.

Police and the MACC are probing the NFC for possible criminal breach of trust following PKR’s allegations that at least RM27 mill in federal funds meant for the cattle raising scheme had been used to purchase land and property unrelated to cattle farming. The opposition party first latched onto the issue after the NFC, which lists all three of Shahrizat’s children as directors, made it into last year’s Auditor-General’s Report for failing to meet production targets.

PKR has since made several revelations relating to the scandal, including NFC’s purchase of two luxury condominium units in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, and the alleged use of project funds to pay for Shahrizat and her family’s personal expenses.

It also claimed there was a transfer of resources to unrelated companies in Singapore, as well as the purchase of a Mercedes-Benz CLS350 for RM534,622 and two plots of land in Putrajaya’s Precinct 10 for RM3,363,507.

PKR further alleged that some RM10 million had been diverted towards the purchase of a luxury condominium unit in Singapore for Shahrizat’s family.

Shahrizat (picture) has denied any wrongdoing and stated she is “only the wife” of the project’s chairman.

The senator has faced calls to quit from within Umno including influential former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

comments

We demand Najib to arrest her and family. The law will takes it course. She must be put behind bar !!! All Minister must declare their assets now !!! including PM and DPM !!!

We should now point the arrow at Muhyiddin. Why in the world he gave the project to her husband who has zero experience and expertise in rearing cows! Muhyiddin should be investigated and fired.

Simple - The whole family plus cronies travell around the world with the Rm 250 millions. This is socalled really " enjoy life to the very last drop.". Halo - you are not the only human being that knows how to enjoy your life ?. Each and every rakyat knows how to spend decent money. But someone here knows how to spend iilegal ways !!! Must be arrested and return all monies back to rakyat. The law will takes its course., Act now, Najib,,,before others act !!!

No big deal for RM250 million only. The senior UMNO crooks took more than that yet no action was taken. Billions of Rakyat money was stolen by the senior Ministers, their families, cronies, yet MACC still investigating after years, what an inefficient MACC, useless officers in all? Ask all ex-defense Ministers how many BILLIONS they and their cronies have stolen from the Malaysia rakyat? Vote UMNO out from the GE13 to fight corruption. Vote PAS, Nik Aziz, Lim Guan Eng, Anwar Ibrahim from Pakatan.

Right. She may not have influenced the decision to award to her husband's co., but surely she can advise her family not to misuse the funds and better still, make sure the project is successful. Instead, she's enjoying the benefits of owning the condos, cars, excessive credit card spending, golf clubbing etc. Where's her accountability as a Minister?

najib game to fool the people...Anwar verdict clears BN of conspiracy claims says najib....!!!

 

Datuk Seri Najib Razak has called rival Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s acquittal over a sodomy charge today an exoneration for the political conspiracy claims hurled at the Barisan Nasional government.

“Today’s verdict shows once again that, despite what many have claimed, the Malaysian judiciary is an independent institution where neither politics nor politicians have any influence over the dispensation of justice,” the prime minister was quoted as saying by Bernama Online today.

The prime minister added the ruling in favour of the opposition leader was testimony of his administration’s adherence to the tenet of separation of powers

“As head of the executive branch, I respect the decisions of the other branch of government, the judiciary,” Najib was further quoted in the report.

Trial judge Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah ruled today that the prosecution had not done enough to prove Anwar had committed sodomy against former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

Anwar, 64, was similarly indicted of sodomy over a decade ago and found guilty. He spent six years in jail before being exonerated.

The former deputy prime minister has maintained that his prosecution for sodomy was politically-motivated and a plot to kill his political career.

Today’s verdict defied the expectations of political observers and even Anwar, who had alleged that a guilty verdict was predetermined.

 

comments

 

After all the humiliations, harrassments, insults and mental tortures by Umno/Bn, Najib, Saiful, Main Stream Media (such as Utusan), Police, AG (and his prosecution team) and the Judge, for more than two years, they finally decided to hand Anwar acquittal verdict and declareded that the conspiracy claims is cleared.

Najib, do you think Malaysians are stupid?

You can fool some people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time! To paraphrase : One acquittal does not an independent judiciary make! One acquittal does not a conspiracy undo!

Dont worry, when PR took over the Putrajaya, most of the present ministers will have to buy the high court parking lot monthly cupon, because they will be tied down with all the court cases they committed during their regin time, buy cuopon for parking lots because they are ask to go on leave or jobless, no more previge given to them.

Whether or not the judiciary is independent does not bother me anymore.What's important is that UMNO is doomed ! TO all the other component parties in BN- " UMNO's days are numbered and so are yours ". The sooner you realise that the better for you.If you dont, well you're still in slumberland. Enjoy your sleep! You will need it ! Malaysians will make sure of that !

If Anwar is acquitted, Saiful should be charge for giving false information wasting govt. time and money. PM is afraid of backlash if Anwar is found guilty.

Anwar had nothing to do with Hasan’s sacking

 

PAS’s decision to sack Datuk Dr Hasan Ali was in no way influenced by Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the Islamist party said today.

PAS information chief Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said that the former Selangor PAS chief’s sacking from the party was due to the latter’s own actions and statements made in public recently.

“There are a lot of other reasons and to sack a party member it involves the entire party leadership and these steps taken are considered actions detrimental to PAS.

“A member can be sacked if found to have something to tarnish the party... Anwar had nothing to do with the decision, it was not influenced by anyone, it was discussed and agreed upon,” he told ...

The PAS central working committee sacked Hasan as a party member yesterday for breaching party discipline after he urged supporters to avoid yesterday’s rally in support of Anwar as his sodomy trial verdict was handed down.

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang had prior to that expressed the party’s support for the rally.

Hasan yesterday blamed Anwar for his sacking from PAS.

The Selangor lawmaker admitted it was likely due to his remarks about the opposition that got him the boot from the Islamist party, which is part of the state’s ruling Pakatan Rakyat (PR) pact.

Tuan Ibrahim said that if Hasan was unsatisfied with the decision he could appeal the matter to the party’s Syura Council within 30 days.

“This decision was unanimous... there were no differing views,” he said.

 

comments

 

Hassan says he champion Islam n Malay race but we all know this is just not true. He is merely use this as excuse to champion himself n help BN by putting PAS in bad light. What a coward n dirty politician. I think perkasa fits him so that the 2 Ali will fights it out until imploding themselves.

The way Hasan embraced Ibrahim Ali yesterday confirms that he had be a trojan virus all this while wreaking havoc in PAS. PAS should have done the excise earlier but better late than never and PAS now is seen to be a progressive party worthy of the vote for change.

If you have seen the TV statement and action of Hasan.... saying he is championing Islam you will vomit right on the spot. This guy just so bloody thick skinned as if he is the only Muslim in this country. As a fellow Muslim I feel ashamed and betrayed by this sort of selfish and ignorant behavior.

So Hassan Ali, your sacking has nothing to do with Anwar as you claimed. Don`t talk much, just submit your application to join UMNO.

Up to PAS to decide exco replacement

Hasan (pic) should relinquish his post as a state executive councillor following the latter’s dismissal from PAS

Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim said today he will leave it to PAS to decide which of its leaders will replace Datuk Dr Hasan Ali as a state executive councillor.

The PAS central working committee sacked Hasan as a party member on Sunday for breaching party discipline after he urged supporters to avoid yesterday’s rally in support of Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as his sodomy trial verdict was handed down.

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang had prior to that expressed the party’s support for the rally.

The Selangor Mentri Besar told reporters that he had not yet received word from the Islamist party as to who will replace Hasan.

“I am still waiting for the list of candidates for Hasan’s replacement from the PAS leadership and I expect to receive it soon,” he was quoted by Sinar Harian as saying.

Khalid has said Hasan should relinquish his post as a state executive councillor following the latter’s dismissal from PAS.

The Selangor administration is due to discuss Hasan’s portfolio as executive councillor in charge of Islamic affairs tomorrow, after saying his position was contingent on his membership of a PR party.

Khalid added that PAS’ choice would be by no means a “final” decision, and that he would be seeking an audience with the Selangor Sultan this Friday to discuss the matter.

“We are not being pressured by any parties to remove Dr Hasan but that is the next course of action because PAS has sacked him.

“It is only fair and right if we listen and adhere to the needs and wants of our ally,” Khalid said.

Selangor PAS Youth has backed newly-minted state commissioner Dr Abdul Rani Osman to take over as Islamic affairs state councillor, saying that the Meru state assemblyman was the “best choice” for the party.