Current Affairs

The Orang Asli community living in Pos Tohoi, Gua Musang have for nearly 6 months now been staging a blockade against loggers and plantation companies, preventing them for entering work sites that they claim are on orang asli customary land. On Saturday, a group of chainsaw-wielding men drove their pick-up vehicles through the blockade and destroyed it. This incident happened days after the Deputy Minister of Rural and Regional Development, Sivarasa Rasiah, said that he would initiate talks with the Kelantan government to gazette Orang Asli claims to customary land in Gua Musang.

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 On Saturday, a by-election was held for the Sungai Kandis state assembly seat, which fell vacant last month following the death of PKR’s Mat Shuhaimi Shafiei. This is just one of three by-elections in the state of Selangor following the General Election less than three months ago. While the PKR candidate, Mohd Zawawi Ahmad Mughni, won comfortably with a majority of 5,842, voter turn was a mere 49.4%. Today we ask what the impact of low voter turnout and various party political strategies have for the shape of politics to come.

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in town today as part of a five-day visit to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. He is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad today. His visit comes amid deep skepticism in the region of President Trump’s foreign policies. Today we explore what this newly minted Secretary of State will be trying to achieve.

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Majlis Amanah Raya or MARA was recently in the news over reports that the government is mulling reorganising the government agency and placing it under several ministries. Several UMNO politicians have come out to oppose the move including former MARA chairman Annuar Musa and former Rural and Regional Development Minister Ismail Sabri. In recent year MARA has also been implicated in several high visibility corruption cases such as UniLodge scandal in Melbourne Australia.

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Yesterday in the Dewan Rakyat, Education Minister Maszlee Malik said that the government still needs to study whether the United Examination Certificate (UEC) will be recognised for entrance into public universities and the civil service. Pakatan Harapan came into power promising recognition for the UEC but since the May 9th polls there has been a backlash to this proposal.

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Last week, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had announced that the government will repeal security laws such as the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, or SOSMA in short. Human rights NGO Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) has welcomed the announcement, calling for the government to implement a moratorium on the use of SOSMA pending its repeal. Today we ask if crime prevention will be compromised if SOSMA is repealed.

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Following the 14th General Elections, the media is expecting greater media freedom and also better access for those in power. And as Parliament open last week, journalists were hoping that there would be new rules how coverage there could be conducted, pointing to rules that limited media coverage in the House itself previously. Today we look how coverage at Parliament is being redesigned.

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This morning the State Assemblyman for Balakong, Ng Tien Chee, was killed in a traffic accident, precipitating another by-election. This adds to the upcoming Sungai Kandis by-election in Selangor following the death of assemblyman Mat Shuhaimi on July 2 due to lymphoma. Nomination is this Saturday and polling on Aug 4. The Sungai Kandis constituency has 51,230 registered voters consisting of 51,217 ordinary voters and 13 overseas voters. Today we explore if anything has changed since the much criticised conduct of the Election Commission over the 14th General Elections.

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Following public outrage the marriage of a 41-year-old Kelantanese man to a 11-year-old Thai girl as his third wife, all eyes are on the government. While the Minister of Religious Affairs has expressed its commitment to end child marriages but doubts linger because the Minister of Women and Family Development (who is also the Deputy Prime Minister) hasn’t communicated her governments resolve to both rescue the child and resolve the legal issues that have allowed men to marry children.

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YB Khairy Jamaluddin, Member of Parliament for Rembau says the government must not scrap GST because of politics but instead, consider lowering the rate to 3%-4%. He points out that lowering the GST rate would be revenue neutral for the government and it won't have an inflationary effect when introducing the SST. It will also keep an efficient tax system in place at the same time. He says we have "put aside politics and go for sound economic policy". Khairy labels the current debate on which tax system burdens the people more as a "red herring". 

He says: "What we have to agree on is that it burdens the people the same... If we set it at a lower rate and that debate will take care of itself."

So where do politics and policies meet in this GST/SST case? We ask him. Listen in.

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