So far, as at 1.52pm today, 72 per cent of the 258 respondents to the online poll on this blog think the best solution to the Perak situation is to dissolve the state assembly and pave the way for fresh state-wide elections.
Another 20 per cent of you think by-elections would resolve the situation.
That’s over 90 per cent calling for new polls in one form or another.
This could sort out the mess once and for all.
The political turmoil in Perak has taken on a new twist with Election Commission chairperson Abdul Aziz reportedly saying that no by-elections would be held because of doubts over the resignation letters of the two state assembly members.
Aziz pointed out that the assembly members had sent in new letters to deny the validity of the resignation letters submitted by the Perak Speaker.
Where does this leave Perak? Will we see a battle in the courts?
See Aliran president P Ramakrishnan’s statement here in which he says the Election Commission’s decision is ultra vires.
Was the recent Israeli offensive against Gaza a “pre-introduction” to Iran?
In an unguarded speech, during which he was not aware he was being filmed by the media, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem, issued a strident warning against Iran.
“(He said) the country’s recent military offensives were a ‘pre-introduction’ to the challenge Israel expects from a nuclear-equipped Iran within a year,” Australia’s Seven News reporter Sarah Cummings was quoted in The Australian as saying.
Remember how Mahathir often liked to say that the major decisions of his administration were often made after consulting his Cabinet ministers and obtaining their consensus?
Mohamed Tawfik, the son of the late deputy prime minister Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, has a different take on this.
Tawfik was dropped as an Umno MP in 1990. When asked how that happened, he explains in the cover story of The Edge, Options pullout (for the week of 26 January 2009):
Mahathir called me into his office before the election. I was with my journalist friends when he called, so they started joking that I was going to be made a deputy minister.
Sorry to disappoint them… I went to see Mahathir and the first thing he said was, ‘You know, not every son can be like the father.’…
I thought to myself, bloody insult!
Too close for comfort. This is just away from the Civic Centre, across the main road from the Lotus Restaurant. Photos by Rakyat@work
Can you see the guy behind the police line? What is he holding? This is just metres away from the people.
Wonders never cease.
One of the two Perak assembly members who were supposed to have resigned their seats is now challenging the validity of his resignation letter.
…Jamaluddin denied vacating his seat. He said the resignation letter that was supposedly sent to Sivakumar was actually an old, undated “resignation letter” that he and the other six PKR assemblymen were forced to sign in late March last year.
Just when you thought it was safe to breathe again…
Two by-elections could now be held after Jamaluddin Mat Radzi and Mohd Osman Jailu reportedly resigned their posts as assembly members of Behrang and Changkat Jering respectively.
And now the Perak deputy speaker is reportedly missing – so we could be in for some interesting times.
President Obama has lashed out at Wall Street for taking huge bonuses totalling over US$18 billion last year while their firms were being bailed out by taxpayers.
That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful, and part of what we are going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility.
That”s right, the state of California – which has one of the biggest economies in the world – has no money left to pay income tax refunds; so now it is planning to refund taxpayers with IOUs.
It is also asking state employees to go on two days unpaid leave every month.
California is now staring at a US$42 billion budget deficit. How did this happen? Oxbury Publishing provides an analysis here.
You gonna be back, Arnie? I think you have just terminated California (as a going concern). Oops.
Who is going to bail out California?