The 13th general election will be any time now

In the UMNO general assembly yesterday,Prime Minister Datuk Najib gave very strong indication that the general election is very near.He said UMNO will field many new faces this time, and called on senior members who are not selected to remain loyal and support the new candidates. The name list will not be released too early to avoid possible problems.He is confident that the National Coalition (BN)will win back the few states lost to the opposition during the last election March 2008(308 election).

I am afraid the Prime Minister might be over confident, it might very well be the repeat of the 308 election this time also. In that election BN did not bother to clear up some issues which had been dragging on quite some time like the "Istana" house of Selangor Menteri Besar, the "close one eye" case of Jasin member of parliament. BN leaders ignored them without realizing that these are the "triggers" that hurt most during an election.
This time around there are issues always, the hottest is of course the NFC issue, the RM56,250/ pair night vision binoculars, the diamond order etc. Nobody is held responsible for all these. BN leaders are treating the voters like dumb-dumbos, by giving some lame explanations.

For example in the NFC case, Datuk Shahrizat, the Wanita UMNO Head, whose husband is involved in it, declared that it had got nothing to do with her. Her husband minds the cattle business while she minds the UMNO affairs, the two are not connected. But just answer one simple question," why her husband got the project in the first place, and not people like me and you got it?"

As for the purchase of the binoculars,the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission declared that there was no irregularities in the purchase of the binoculars by the Marine Department, just that the officials were not following the Treasury order to do a market survey before hand. That means if the officials involved had followed the Treasury order, they might be charged in court now. Therefore it is always wise not to adhere to the Treasury order because facing a disciplinary action is better than facing a jail term any time!
If these type of explanations are acceptable, you can be sure that all the politicians will rush to have their relatives grabbing whatever government tenders available and make tons of money!
If that happens, Malaysia will definitely top the list of corrupted nations in the region.
Until now, many top level leaders still think these are petty issues and advise grassroots leaders to forget them!The rakyat may be silent now, but the votes in their hands speak louder than any thing!
So be forewarned.