Evening with Zaid Ibrahim

Sembang- Sembang is a NGO based in Penang organized a talk and book launch by Zaid Ibrahim the ex-law minister on the 2nd Nov 09 at Wisma Penyayang. I bought Zaid's book and got it autographed while cracking a conversation.YB Sim Tze was the chairman and introduced Dr.Mansor , the Deputy Chief Minister of Penang and Zaid Ibrahim to the audience. It was a packed room and they need to open more space room to accommodate the people who were coming in.
The program started with the firing of confetti which went going wrong for both the Pakatan YB’s; Sim and Dr. mansor as they needed a second try to fire it, I guess it depicts akin Anwar Pakatan’s ambition to march to Putrajaya!
Dr.Mansor talked about the Malaysia’s constitutional democracy which was hailed as one the best during the 1960’s in this region but faded away after UMNO and BN was formed and hold on to power. The formation of two party system during the 1999 election was further enhanced in 2008 which brought about a political tsunami. Thus it laid the ground work for a two party system is ongoing which he believes that shall eradicate poverty, corruption and mis-management of public funds in the future.
Zaid spoke after Dr.Mansor and he mentioned that the two political party is a dream and a dream worth having by Malaysians. We never been short of opposition even in the past and crossover of MPs as the first case happened when the Supreme Court allowed party hopping law under the provision of freedom of association during the great Mahathir period for obvious reasons only know to Mahathir. We need to change this law but it can only be achieved if Pakatan runs the country without which UMNO and BN has no political will to bring about such changes.
PAS,DAP,PKR knew that each party on their own can’t make to Putrajaya so they need to collaborate and work together to make it happen. That reminds of a Beatle songs” We can make work it out” Zaid said and to make it work we need to be friends first. He reiterated that the op leaders wanted to make it work. He went on to say that PAS has no plans to work together with UMNO as their main goal is to kick UMNO/BN from the government yet some PAS leaders do have their own political agenda which is causing some discomfort among the coalition.
Policy formulation would be a test of their commitment as we come from different political parties with differences in ideologies so to work it out it’ll take time and that is what he has been working on now. The first step is to register a political party is under way now yet there are some issues like party symbols i.e Rocket, Moon and Pakatan Eye still being debated by the leaders and it’ll take some time to iron that out. He went on to say that he is good Malay and not a liberal Malay taking jibe at his former UMNO fellas and added that during Pak Lah’s time there was decency in governance but now it is highly questionable!
The Pakatan coalition needs to work on issues and policies and not to champion race or religion if they want to move forward! There is still political fear prejudice amongst the Rakyat and which is real such as the Malays rights, freedom of religion and other issues and all this fears need to be addressed soon thus enable the people to trust each other. It got to start with the parties coming together to trust each other and to work things out first. The panel took various questions from the floor from the Orang Asli Rights, Primary Health Care to land Conversion Law in Penang. There was some hostile audience with one being shouted to sit down when he raise his voice to repeat the question on land scams in Penang, poor chap! I conclude that the message said was to ask the Rakyat to continue supporting Pakatan Rakyat as it is the only hope for a two party system at this moment. There could be many differences both within and among the various parties but it is being sorted out to be strong and furthermore it is newly formed coalition and to have differences is a norm.
Thus it gives us hope that there is a possibility to have a strong two party system which is gets away from the current race based governance! There is still hope for Malaysians!