The hidden agenda of MM Lee’s official visit to Malaysia (Part 1)
June 9th, 2009 | 
Author: By Fang Zhi Yuan and Lim Siow Kuan
It has been 10 long years since MM Lee visited Malaysia in an official capacity, the last being in the tumultuous year of 1999 in the aftermath of Anwar Ibrahim’s sacking as Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Lee was then Singapore’s Senior Minister. He visited the states of Johor, Malacca and the Federal Capital of Kuala Lumpur where he met up with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, his deputy Abdullah Badawi and Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin. He did not meet any opposition leaders including those from the PAP’s offshoot in Malaysia after Singapore left the Federation – the Democratic Action Party.
Beginning on 7 June 2009, MM Lee will embark on a five-day tour of four Malaysian states: Perak, Penang, Kelantan and Pahang after spending 3 days in Kuala Lumpur meeting Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, as well as other government, business and political leaders. (read full report here)
Besides leaders from the Federal government, MM Lee will also be meeting two state officials from the opposition for the first time - Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz.
Ambassador K. Kesavapany, director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, observed that Malaysia’s political and social fabric has undergone considerable change since MM Lee’s last visit.
‘MM’s visit will therefore provide him with a fresh reading of the Malaysian socio-political scene,’ Mr Kesavapany said.
There was indeed a radical change in Malaysia’s political landscape. The general election of March last year saw a three-party opposition alliance, the Pakatan Rakyat, win more than a third of the seats in the federal Parliament.
The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition also lost control of five states, three of which are highly industrialized states in Perak, Penang, Kelantan, Kedah and Selangor.
The opposition in Malaysia was once as weak, divided and powerless like its Singapore counterpart.
Prior to the 2008 elections, the opposition held only 29 seats out of 222 in the Dewan Rakyat. It was written off by even the most optimistic political observers of denying the ruling Barisan Nasional’s traditional two thirds majority in Parliament.
Yet something miraculous happened on polling day which were to transform Malaysian politics forever. The marginalized opposition is on the ascendancy and judging from current trends, appears well poised to seize power at the federal level by 2012.
6 by-elections were held since 2008 with the opposition winning 5 of them, with only a rural constituency in Sarawak being won by the Barisan.
Barisan Nasional fared poorly in mixed-constituency seats where it had no problems winning previously. Its percentage of votes in the Peninsula is only 49% and has to depend on the 54 seats delivered by East Malaysia to retain control in Parliament.
Malaysia and Singapore share the same British colonial heritage, culture and political system.
Both were ruled since independence by a strong government in control of all levers of the state, including the judiciary, media and police.
The opposition has been fixed, decimated and relegated to mere political spectators with no prospects of challenging the incumbent.
Against all odds, the Malaysian opposition has triumphed against the mighty machinery of the Barisan. Will the PAP suffer the same fate one day?
This unsavory prospect must have weighed heavily on MM Lee’s mind as he tries to understand the pivotal shift in the political climate of Malaysia which led to this drubbing of the ruling coalition.
ex-Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi made an open admission that the Barisan’s neglect of the New Media is a key reason for the March 08 political tsunami which caught them unaware and whose reverberations are still felt across the Peninsula.
Barisan thought they have the good old traditional media to count on to carry their propaganda and to smear the opposition. Little did they know that young Malaysians are reading blogs and feeding one another with news about the opposition not otherwise reported by the papers. Not only were they producing their own reports and videos, there were processed into VCDs and sent right into the rural kampungs to reach out to those who do not have internet access.
The New Media has truly taken root in Malaysia providing a stiff challenge to the traditional media with its dynamicism, vibrancy and creativity.
The three “giants” of Malaysia’s internet news - Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today and The Malaysian Insider have broken the monopoly of the mainstream media and force them to moderate their editorial policy to suit the current prevailing trends.
While news about the opposition were seldom reported in the press previously, they are now given prominent coverage to the extent that The Star, which was owned by MCA, was rapped by a minister for being “pro-opposition”.
Other than the Malay Daily Utusan Melayu which remains fixated on its narrow racial rhetoric, many papers have seen a subtle shift in their reporting on socio-political affairs.
The opposition is also boosted by a surge of young, well educated professionals joining their ranks such as DAP’s Tony Pua, a self-made millionaire, lawyer Teo Nie Ching and human rights activists Elizabeth Wong and Jernice Lee from PKR who can articulate the concerns and aspirations of the younger generation in contrast to the aging warlords of UMNO, MCA and MIC who are out of touch with the electorate.
In 1999, MM Lee’s primary concern is the rise of Islam fundamentalism in Malaysia. Today, he will probably be studying the implications of a possible change in the Malaysian federal government by the next general election in 2012.
Singapore is used to dealing with Barisan Nasional since independence. As the saying goes, ‘it is safer to sleep with the devil you know than an unknown angel’. How should Singapore realign its foreign policy and tricky bilateral ties with Malaysia if the Pakatan Rakyat were to assume power one day, which is no longer a far-fetched proposition?
[Change has come to Malaysia, but has it arrived in Singapore? Find out in Part 2 of this article]
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Dear Admin, thank you. You wrote: “As the saying goes, ‘it is safer to sleep with the devil you know than an unknown angel”.
Correction: “It is wiser the devil you know, than the ‘angel’ you don’t know” is the correct wisdom saying. Because, none can sleep iwth the devil and survive. Don’t get me wrong, but it is not necessarily in any religious spiritual sense or ‘favour’. And the ‘angel’ is also a devil, but a more dangerous one as don’t even know he/she is one, meaning a devil. An Invisible Devouring Beast!
Re: “Ex-Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi made an open admission that the Barisan’s neglect of the New Media is a key reason for the March 08 political tsunami…”
If Singaporeans wish for the Malaysian political tsunami to hit Singapore, then we should stop daydreaming and start taking action instead. It is also the new media in Singapore that has a responsibility to do *for* the opposition parties what the mainstream media will not. The new media in Singapore is equally guilty in obliterating the opposition parties in this respect.
The new media is not only a source of alternative *views*, the most often touted value that is seen to have, it should also be a source of creating the news as well as providing coverage that is blacked out by the mainstream media by way of deliberate policy.
Wayangparty is no stranger to creating the news. There are also the reader-generated news stories such as the recent ones by Sniper and Gunfighter. But you can go further:
1) How about the statements from various opposition parties regarding the recent minor tweaks in the electoral laws?
2) Do the various political parties have a position regarding something like secularism which was topical recently and in the public interest, the latter being raison d’etre for their parties? What are their positions?
3) How about video clips of interviews with those leaders on any – or every – topic matter which can be conducted and filmed by their party members (or volunteers) if you are short on labour. These could be uploaded and posted here as news stories; they would be the equvalent of what the mainstream braodcast media does for the PAP only.
These are NEVER things we see or hear about from the opposition parties because of neglect all around including in the new media, and I’m sure more heads can come up with other ideas.
In exactly the way that you have forced the mainstream media to run stories because of the disquiet that those stories were already creating as it should, you could force the mainstream media to eventually cover the opposition parties as well.
Only then can we stop daydreaming that changes seen in Malaysia will be ours as well.
That’s how the new media can contribute to the much needed (mainstream) media reform in Singapore.
You can go meet WHOEVER you want lah LKY, your time is over, soon you will be forgotten and fade away into the past. Worst part is you won’t be glorified by all, in fact there are so many out there just waiting for you to die and smear everything about you.
Singapore Democrats meet Anwar Ibrahim’s daughter: http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=1020
FOR our MMLEE, he went there ,their country to gain support.
As the election is near at the door, he have to made sure no one can come close to his power.
When everything is set, there are going to call for the election.
As for our opposition, there can made changes not much, as singaporean are used to their life styles.
Just a small changes like old mr chiam ,maybe he is going for his retirement. As he have given his resident good service.
I would like to jump the gun a bit and offer my own thoughts on Singapore’s awakening.
To me, the main thing needed is unity. Unity between the opposition parties, and unity between the opposition and the new media.
The opposition needs to stop their petty squabbling and their territorial mentality. Why should they play into PAP’s tricks and do grassroots work according to GRC boundaries?
They should just allocate territory approximately and spread themselves out. They should be asking voters to not just vote for their own parties, but all opposition parties.
When the boundaries are finally revealed, they can then stand for elections according to the approximate regions. If any party has to move, they can be safe in the knowledge that other opposition parties have laid the groundwork in the area.
I am saying this not based on an idealistic or moral perspective. Practically, it makes sense for them to do this and this will significantly improve their chances of success. Any 3-way fights are bad news and will surely almost consign both opposition parties to defeat.
With regards to the new media, the opposition should actively use this platform to raise their profile. Rather than sticking to their official websites and blogs, they should make use of sites like wayang and TOC, which enjoy far higher readership.
They need to raise awareness of their “brands”, and write articles to let the electorate know what they think. Should any controversial topics occur, they should take the opportunity to take pot shots, and offer alternatives which they would have done themselves.
Yes, the ruling party is not engaging the new media sufficiently and effectively. But it is fat hope if the opposition think they can profit without doing their own engagement too.
If only Singapore has Calibres of Malaysiakini to break the stranglehold of half century.
Nitro: I hope when the head of the famiLEE goes under, the famiLEE will not replace the statue of Stanford Raffles with his although I am sure the old man might have been contemplating that since he has indicated that he wants his legacu to be carved in stone.
Anyway, if the famiLEE did replace Stanford Raffles with KY Lee, it might turn into a PUBLIC PEEING area ! LOL
Reader: I absolutely agree with you regarding the 3-way fight. Any opposition party contemplating a 3-way contest is destined to fail for both parties, its a political suicide given the limited number of opposition members.
If the opposition wants to so something for Sinkapore, they should all sit down over coffee and WORK TOGETHER, putting aside any personnal or political differences and COOPERATE. Only in unity do we see strength.
Any opposition candidate voted by Sinkaporeans into Parliment be it from SDP or WP is a huge step for Democracy.
Hi [reader]:
I’m assuming that your post is a response to my own; I do think that we would need to make this article relevant to Singaporeans.
I have some speculations regarding the election chances of opposition candidates as compared to PAP ones in any elections. I know that this really ought to be a multi-factorial analysis, but my initial intent here is to isolate the various contributing factors to a problem and then correcting the problem by implementing the solution to each corresponding contributing factor that has been isolated; this is just one prong in what should be a multi-prong problem solving approach.
I believe that there may be a hierarchy of considerations that the Singaporean voter makes at/before the polls, and it is as follows. (This is independent of whether it is GRC system or an only SMC one.)
Voting for:
1. a candidate who enjoys name recognition from the PAP – this would describe the advantage that cabinet ministers have at elections (in SMCs – I know that this is no longer true with the GRC system), and how cabinet members are used as the heavyweight in each GRC to carry the rest of the team into Parliament;
2. an unknown running under the PAP banner – this would describe the advantage enjoyed by new as well as lesser known PAP candidates who either win based purely on the PAP name in an SMC or who get shooed into Parliament under the wings of a ministerial heavyweight under the GRC system;
3. a candidate from an opposition party who has name recognition; and,
4. an unknown candidate from an opposition party.
While I have no empirical evidence to back up the above claim, I’m quite confident of being able to see a correlation based on past results past between the politicians from the above 4 categories to the number of votes they have won in any previous would bear out the truth.
If the above speculation is true, then it would be obvious that PAP candidates contest and win elections based on their *party name*, but opposition candidates do not have that same luxury but are instead required to build a name brand for themselves, and as individuals and not a party. Not at this stage anyway.
It then makes further sense that, given the permanent news blackout on the opposition parties as well as their individual members, the new or (alternative) media has a niche to fill.
That is if they are sincere in the desire for democracy in Singapore.
However unlike me, you have seemed to place the onus more greatly on the parties themselves to make the first move and use platforms like TOC and Wayangparty.
Re: “With regards to the new media, the opposition should actively use this platform to raise their profile. Rather than sticking to their official websites and blogs, they should make use of sites like wayang and TOC, which enjoy far higher readership.”
I mulled over this and came to the conclusion that we are both right. I have much more to say about this but for now I’ll just summarize this:
To take Wayangparty as the example at hand:
1. news can come to Wayangparty (eg. editors’ spin of news in the MSM, readers’ contributions, investigative journalism by Wayangparty reporters, press releases[???]etc.); or,
2. Wayangparty can make the news, usually by generating its topics based on what seems to be topical and generating interest in Wayangparty readers at any one time.
I don’t have the time right now, but we might want to discuss the two points above in greater detail later.
Hi Robox:
Yes, my comments were indeed partially inspired by yours.
Just look at what PAP is doing. Every NATIONAL Day Parade, we get to see their smiling faces and waving hands on TV. Even in popular media like magazines and entertainment shows, we occasionally get interviews with the young and dashing Baey. Whenever there are any social incidents, we will get quotes from various PAP MPs. Clearly the opposition has a lot to catch up in terms of building brand awareness and image.
I believe the opposition should be the ones engaging the new media instead of the other way round, as I do not wish to see the new media being the exclusive mouthpiece of the opposition.
If the new media wishes to become a viable alternative to the mainstream media, it has to be more objective and more encompassing. We want everybody to read the new media, not just supporters of the opposition.
My idea is that sites like wayang should still focus on doing their commentaries and scoops. However, opposition party members can submit their own articles and responses. At the beginning of their articles, a few lines of their background can be given, and their photos shown. If they contribute frequently enough, and if they write well enough, they will soon be able to build their brand. This can also serve as a platform for promising new members of the opposition to carve out their names from scratch.
To remain all-encompassing, the sites should also solicit articles and responses from PAP members, and members from the academia. Readers should be allowed to judge for themselves who make the most sense.
On another point, I feel that the opposition should do more to help people in need. For example recently, there was a petition at Hong Lim on why the disabled are paying full fares for transport. I have no idea why the opposition weren’t the ones organizing it. (If it is illegal for political parties to do it, then perhaps the big names should do it in their personal capacities.)
Such charitable acts will go a long way in building goodwill, both with the disadvantaged groups and with society at large. The new media’s job would then be to publicize the events and the opposition’s role in them.
These are my humble 2 cents on what I feel can be done.
I think if someone asked the brotherhood. They would know the reason why. They seem to be also doing the same thing when it comes to sensing out the new Cuban initiative to rewire havana and it is not unusual. They may be doing the same due to the numerous short circuits they have been experiencing here in wayang. I think, they just got fed up and said, transfer all the servers to a secure location. End of story. That of course changes the rest of the story as well.
“Singapore’s interests FIRST.”
Yes we salute you MM.
45 years of history speak.
“Dear Admin, my previous comments appear to be still in moderation. I am re-posting below in case they were lost. If there is any reason to not publish them, do let me know via comments.”
Hi Robox:
Yes, my comments were indeed partially inspired by yours.
Just look at what PAP is doing. Every NATIONAL Day Parade, we get to see their smiling faces and waving hands on TV. Even in popular media like magazines and entertainment shows, we occasionally get interviews with the young and dashing Baey. Whenever there are any social incidents, we will get quotes from various PAP MPs. Clearly the opposition has a lot to catch up in terms of building brand awareness and image.
I believe the opposition should be the ones engaging the new media instead of the other way round, as I do not wish to see the new media being the exclusive mouthpiece of the opposition.
If the new media wishes to become a viable alternative to the mainstream media, it has to be more objective and more encompassing. We want everybody to read the new media, not just supporters of the opposition.
My idea is that sites like wayang should still focus on doing their commentaries and scoops. However, opposition party members can submit their own articles and responses. At the beginning of their articles, a few lines of their background can be given, and their photos shown. If they contribute frequently enough, and if they write well enough, they will soon be able to build their brand. This can also serve as a platform for promising new members of the opposition to carve out their names from scratch.
To remain all-encompassing, the sites should also solicit articles and responses from PAP members, and members from the academia. Readers should be allowed to judge for themselves who make the most sense.
On another point, I feel that the opposition should do more to help people in need. For example recently, there was a petition at Hong Lim on why the disabled are paying full fares for transport. I have no idea why the opposition weren’t the ones organizing it. (If it is illegal for political parties to do it, then perhaps the big names should do it in their personal capacities.)
Such charitable acts will go a long way in building goodwill, both with the disadvantaged groups and with society at large. The new media’s job would then be to publicize the events and the opposition’s role in them.
These are my humble 2 cents on what I feel can be done.
What hidden agenda ? From the Umno perspertive, yes.
For Singaporeans, he is doing for our country which is always under constant attack from the Utusan and the like !
Actually MM LKY was in Malaysia in August 2000. So thats actually 9 years not 10. PLs check your facts!
You look more and more like a pap henchman as you ONLY pep talk up pap! NEVER a lost cause, fail cause, error caused and the like from you tanjong8! ARE you bais or really THAT silly? Won’t call you stupid because you certainly are not. But you’re probably more unwise. And calling others stupid is also stupid as it doesn’t produce good at all.
Think you go ONLY IN ONE Direction IS because you been down that ramp so long and beeen enjoying and relishing too perhaps the increasing speeds. BUT what direction are you going for your children and all your other downlines? GO READ HISTORY man. You’ll be a fair bit wiser for that. Go read my other one in why lky may have gone north. You depend too much on luck standing out FOR you. Luck runs and many other “goodies” have the ugly habit of runniing out of steam YOU KNOW?
No . . no . . no . . I won’t rock this sampan in this tumultous seas it is in.
I’ve seen the REAL world out there.
I’ve seen hunger, starvation, looting, arson, etc., when hell breaks loose.
Coming to 50 good years for this little red dot – all thanks to the honest (though expensive), dedicated & able leaders.
Writers who are advocating for a change for the worse are NOT stakeholders.
Beware of rattle snakes that sow seeds of discontent & hope to destabalise the island.
If Singapore government wants Barisan Najis to remain in power in Malaysia,the best way is to make sure MM Lee and his ministers keep coming to visit Malaysia and have serious discussion with opposition leaders such as Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim,Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh.Malays here will get very irritated when Singapore ministers are having repport with DAP and PKR’s leaders and they will swing their votes to Barisan Najis so that UMNO will become stronger.
Only your Singapore PM can save our Malaysia’s Barisan Najis,I hope Singaporeans can advise their ministers to temporarily stop coming to Malaysia so that we Malaysia.They are welcome after we Malaysians vote in a new federal Government.
[...] course, Wayang Party has a totally different take on the matter. They think that MM Lee’s visit is purely driven by his fear of possible [...]
[...] The hidden agenda of MM Lee’s visit to Malaysia (Part 1) by Fang Zhi Yuan and Lim Siow [...]