Sarawak's Political Shock

Today in the state of Perak in West Malaysia, a high political drama is been played out. Will the national Barisan National Alliance (or shall we say UMNO) seize power by froggy means, considering two of the frogs have been charged by police for corruption and are due in court?

Whether the ruling party does succeed, and at this time of blogging, it appears it will...my mind drifts back to Sarawak's own political high drama way back in 1996.

That's right-thirteen years ago-how much younger we were then and even the present national news agency Bernama head, (Datuk) Azman Ujang was just an astute political correspondant for Bernama then.

It was the day Sarawak stood still when its second largest component partner, Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) in the four-party state-remember this was 1996 then- was dealt a stunning blow and reeled from shock with both the defeat of its popular chairman, Wong Soon Kai and the breakthrough for the Democratic Action Party (DAP) in gaining a foothold in the state's legislative assembly.

Who says politics is ever boring or clean?

Here is The Borneo Post article dated 10/10/96. ClJiJust click over ck once over it to enlarge it for reading!








Just click over it to enlarge it for reading.

Unsolved Malaysian Mystery 8

Click to enlarge

One day, a popular mayor of a major city in Malaysia suddenly stepped down ... and the rumor mills were soon at work. Was it due to a political falling in with certain leaders in one of Sarawak's most powerful political party, the Chinese-based Sarawak United Peoples' Party or SUPP as well-known locally? Was it a problem with the Chief Minister? Had he been forced to quit by ambitious young 'turks' in the Chinese party itself? Was there something that a blackmailer could use? Was it something else? The rumors were hot everywhere!

He would be the second mayor to leave in a huff. The first council leader to step down abruptly, shocking many Mirians was Miri's highly popular then Miri Municipal Council Chairman, Dr. Yie Siew Kee.

As in a number of unsolved mysteries in this part of the world, reading tea leaves may be easier than solving them. For one reason, perhaps the main one, is that too many Sarawakians are happily digging their hands into the proverbial cookie jar... and the press seems to be in the hands of loyalists to the powers that be.

Song Swee Guan's next headlines grabbing incident was his shocking suicide attempt on the eve of the last state elections. It was baffling indeed and no one knows for sure if his story affected the outcome of that elections in which an empathetic Dominic Ng of Parti Keadilan and a number of other Opposition party DAP candidates were amazingly elected by Kuchingnites and Siburans.

The Eleventh Hour Game...

At the eleventh hour...

a) the ill-fated courageous American firefighters were either still climbing up the stairs or rescuing some of the thousands of trapped World Trade Centre innocent civilians whose buildings had been hit by two aeroplanes cowardly hijacked by al Quaeda terrorists;

b) the sixth Global Interfaith Conference to be held in Malaysia and chaired by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, following the September 11 attacks by Islamic terrorists were abruptly cancelled by the Malaysian government under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi;

c) one of the most sensational murder trials in Malaysian history involving a shot Mongolian translator, Altantuya Shaariibuu and the use of extremely rare special explosives to blow her to pieces by elite special forces commandos, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar and the alleged abatement by University of London graduate, Abdul Razak Baginda, allegedly her lover, a high profile socio-economic think tank organization founder and consultant and a prominent adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister, was abruptly postponed due to the astonishing reason that the prosecutor and the sitting judge were seen playing badminton earlier;

d) the Malaysian Prime Minister, a widower, Abdullah Badawi suddenly announced on a Wednesday he had found someone, an Eurasian convert, Jeanna Abdullah, whom he would be marrying on the coming Saturday;

e) the ex-premier, Mahathir Mohammad announced he was going away from Malaysia on the 18th June, 2007 and the whole of Malaysia trembles because the COSMIC JOKER somewhere above us loves to play jokes on Malaysia whenever this awesome mortal is not around;

f) the main Opposition party, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) called for an inquiry into allegations by a Malaysian prince, Raja Petra Kamaruddin in his hugely popular blog, Malaysia Today on the close collaboration between organized crime syndicates and the Malaysian Police, including the highest cop in the land, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP);

g) the IGP hastily called for an urgent meeting of officers resulting in them declaring their support for him in the face of allegations;

h) will anything extraordinary happen today as the sensational Altantuya murder case resumes once again on this day?

i) will anything else sensational happen in Malaysia?