Mud slinging Malaysian politics

Yesterday was rare in a sense that I was not involved in any form of photography as I usually do during the weekends. Perhaps I was just tired from being involved in the Miss Fair and Lovely finals the night before at the Sarawak Cultural Village.

On Sunday mornings, I usually "muddle my mind" by reading the local newspapers on politicians blatantly accusing each other. Barisan National being the main political party in Malaysia openly incriminating the opposition of hypocricy and dishonesty, vice versa.

Today was no exception.

Anwar Ibrahim's blog stated that

"on or about 16^th May 2009, you (Foreign Minister Datuk Anifah Aman) uttered and or made a statement at the State Department in Washington during a joint press conference with US secretary of State Mrs. Clinton, that was published and/or caused to be published by Associated Press and was consequently carried by The Star Newspaper (and several local print and electronic media), which was captioned as “Anwar offered me the DPM’s post, says Anifah” ". This is pretty serious stuff.

Obviously, Anwar's lawyer's aren't amused, hence a letter of demand sent directly to Anifah's door step. "Our client has also instructed us to demand damages of RM100 million from you for the injury caused to our client’s reputation."

BN politicians are also crying foul of the recent interview of Anwar Ibrahim by reporter Ian Buruma being published in The New Yorker. They claim that Anwar isn't Malaysian enough to make these kind of statements, and his claim that his life is in danger is all bullsh*t.

You may read the post in full here or download the pdf version.

The problem encountered by the BN puppets is that its just too late to stop media from the internet. Too much damage has been done through the internet, such as Malaysian Today blogger Raja Petra that there's simply no way to cover these issues except to blatantly deny them as over and over again (as if there's nothing better to do, and serving the needs of the rakyat isn't their number one priority).

I'm not saying that Anwar should have the helm of the country. An economics student whom I talked with recently says that Anwar doesn't have enough economic backing to be able to restore the price of petroleum to a level before Abdullah Badawi called off government subsidies for this essential commodity. Plus he's got so much issues to deal with DAP and PAS, that I doubt the Pakatan Rakyat will be able to be as solid a party as the BN coalition of UMNO - MCA - MIC.

Only God knows who will have the last laugh.

Me? I don't know, and I don't care. There are much more important things in life.

Laters