Cabinet on Wednesday to discuss the  unhappiness one man or the unhappiness of Malaysian people  as manifested by the Lunas by-election result?

(Petaling Jaya, Monday): Works Minister and MIC President, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu had announced that he would raise at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting his unhappiness over the police handling of the busloads of Barisan Nasional phantom voters on polling day in the Lunas by-election.

The Cabinet would become a laughing stock if on Wednesday,  Federal  Ministers could only concern themselves with the unhappiness of  Samy Vellu of having to return to Kuala Lumpur despite his promise not to return to the Federal Capital without a victory in Lunas rather than the unhappiness of the Malaysian people  - as the Lunas by-election victory of the Barisan Alternative candidate is a loud and clear message of the unhappiness of the people and their  popular demand  for far-reaching political and economic changes in the country.

Malaysians regardless of race, religion or political beliefs are waiting to see whether the Cabinet on Wednesday would discuss the unhappiness of one man  or the unhappiness of the Malaysian people as manifested by the Lunas by-election result.

If the Cabinet is to be relevant to the political changes and demands of the people, there are at least five areas which it can start initiating reforms to start the national healing process, namely:

• End the protracted national crisis of confidence by restoring the independence, impartiality and integrity of all organs of government, particularly the judiciary, the office of Attorney-General, the Police, the Election Commission, the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Auditor-General’s Office and Parliament.
• All-out war against all forms of corruption, cronyism, abuses of power and malpractices, starting with the establishment of an anti-corruption agency which is fully independent and autonomous of the Prime Minister’s Department and the Attorney-General’s Chamber, answerable only to Parliament.
• End the politics of ingratitude and respect the constitutional and democratic right of the Malaysian Chinese as well as all other communities to vote the candidate and party of their choice without questioning their trust and loyalty, and in the particular contest of the Lunas by-election, drop the Vision Schools plan and apologise  for the unwarranted and unacceptable attacks on the Chinese community as "extremist", "communist" and "anti-national" for their support for Chinese education and Suqiu.
• Give top priority to addresss the problem of the marginalisation of the Malaysian Indians under the Malaysian sun and to prevent them from becoming the new underclass in Malaysia, a special programme in the Eighth Malaysia Plan 2001-2005 to ensure that the Malaysian Indians return to the mainstream of Malaysian development in all spheres of national life - whether political, economic, educational, social or cultural.

(4/12/2000)