The Scenic Bridge Plan is Scrapped

Malaysia Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced that the construction of the controversal "Scenic Bridge" which were to replace the 82 year-old Johor Causeway linking Malaysia to Singapore will be stopped permanently, to everyone's surprise. The idea of building this bridge was mooted in 2003 by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir who reasoned that the Causeway was built without giving due environmental considerations to the Strait of Johor. He claimed that the Causeway was blocking the free flow of the water of Johor Strait and eventually turning it into a pond of dead water. Whereas a bridge will allow the sea water to flow freely below it. But his proposal was met with strong protests from the Singapore government, whatever for, I really don't understand. Maybe Singaporeans love dead waters. When Tun Dr Mahathir retired and Datuk Abd Badawi took over as PM, he continued to pursue the idea of replacing the old causeway with a new bridge, he even went as far as designing a curved bridge calling it the "Scenic Bridge" on the Malaysian half of the bridge. His idea was to build our portion of the bridge first while the negotiation between Malaysia and Singapore was underway. When the two countries come to an agreement finally, we would have completed our part already. And this is also to beat the ever rising costs of construction materials. On seeing this, the Singaporean government demanded unreasonable bargains like allowing their fighter jets to fly over Malaysian air space freely and allow them to dig the Johor Strait for sand, an action which will erode the Johor shore lines as well as poluting the sea water. This brought about outcries from Malaysian public, demanding the government to scrap the idea of building that new bridge. Being an elected government of a democratic country, Datuk Badawi has to listen to the people and stopped the project. The effects and implications of this decision is yet to be seen, but it is done for the best of the people's interests. I can not understand the rationale of Singapore's objections to building the bridge because I did not follow this issue over the years. I did not bother myself about this issue because I won't be using it often, I go to Singapore maybe once in 5 years. I thought there is much to be gained on both sides if the conggestion at the causeway is eased as a result of the building of this new bridge, not only Malaysia will benefit, right? From the commercial angle, it is better for Johor Port and Port Kelang's business if the conggestions situations at the causeway worsen bacause the lorries delayed there will caused great loss to the businessmen who prefered using Singaporean port instead of our own ports. When they realised this, they will switch to using Port Kelang or Johor Port. Why should the Malaysian government be so eager to improve the traffic conditions at the causeway since both Malaysians and Singaporeans are using the same causeway? Maybe the Malaysian public dare to criticise the government while the Singaporeans dare not, and also they are dumb as pointed out by the renownTaiwan author, Lee Au（李敖) recently. Therefore the Malaysian government will feel the pressure of public criticism while the Singaporean government will relax and watch because there will be no critism from Sinpagore public against their own government.