TRULY MALAYSIA.......BUT ONLY TO BUY VOTES.

AZLY RAHMAN, one of my favorite columnist wrote from Columbia:

Below is a very interesting news story on the promises of elections. If I were a kid in Trengganu, I'd be thrilled to be given a laptop. I cam play video games, chat, do Instant Messaging, get online and talk to strangers the world over, set up a blog, or access appropriate and inappropriate online materials. I can do a lot of things --- much more than the learning softwares my teachers can write or provide in school.

But in years to come, will my children and I be tied ideologically to the "giver" who will continue to give more and expensive gifts only when election comes? Instead of being given RM 1000-2000 cash as a child, I now have a laptop. That's cool. That's really cool. I'd vote for any party then that will give me ... (who knows later,) other techno goodies, or even large screen TVs with free 100 Astro Channels or even a Kawasaki Ninja so that I may roam the streets of Kuala Trengganu at night and skip school daily.

But what's the use of hardware and software without a critical mindware installed in my brain. Will I be an 'educated person able to differentiate between right and wrong' and resist the temptation of being corrupt or being corrupted'? Will I be a good citizen of a just state or merely a good follower and a receiver of election goodies in a state run by gift-givers? I do not know. What I know is that I will keep getting nice things from a state that is rich in oil money.

What's the point of taking gifts in exchange for votes for the giver when the rich are getting richer and the poor gets a new roof every five years. Is this what we called "meaningful development"? Or a new development in the meaning of "corruption"?

Now I am wondering what I will be given in this General Election -- in a country that speaks of Civilizational Islam and Meaningful Progress.

Ah... keep giving us bread and circuses, so that we may know what "democracy" means...

-END-

Similarly, the promises to replace zinc roofs of houses of poor families and grant 4ha of land to anyone wanting to grow padi have also been popular.....reports NST.

The picture above was taken from our Op Centre by Shanghai Stephen.....I hope the MB can keep to his promise for this poor family. They don't ask much, just fulfilment of a sacred promise in exchange for a vote. Damn, have we sunk so low?

Granted that everytime a BN MP or Adun give up the ghost, his former constituency will invariably be deluged with a BN bonanza. I remember covering Ijok and saw the invasion of earth-movers. Of course, chegu Pathithan won the by-election against current Selangor Tan Sri Menteri Besar. And if you can recall, chegu was not offered as a candidate in March GE. Promises unfulfilled? I don’t know but I can guess. I have a hunch the promises left with the earth-movers.

VOTE PAS TO GET BACK WHAT BELONGS TO KT.