Win-win vs Lose-lose

Oppositionists are born losers. They fight against the ruling party’s corruption, among other things, working hard in digging up evidence to support their accusations while the accused were enjoying their ill-gotten gains, literally thumbing their noses at them.

When opposition becomes the ruling party in certain states, they are bound by their own self-imposed ethics like transparency, accountability, frugality and so on. This means they have to be whiter than white in their work. For example, Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng in Penang has just introduced a party directive that state assemblymen are not allowed to apply for land.

Opposition fought for local government elections. Now that they have become state government, they have to introduce it, subject to the current law and if need be, amend it to enable its introduction. Fair enough.

But the new Minister in Local Government, Ong Ka Chuan, had the cheek to state that he supports the introduction of local elections! His own brother, Ka Ting had been the minister for a number of years - where was he when the opposition clamoured for it? Another BN joker even suggested that their representatives should be appointed in the local councils! Did the BN government ever considered appointing opposition party leaders to be councillors? A case of ‘heads I win, tail you lose’!

Seriously, if appointment of councillors is still the order of the day, I would suggest the appointment of some non-partisan local professionals who are keen on keeping an eye on local affairs - nothing like the genuine interest and passion for the job.

In the long term, I sincerely hope that the culture of frugality in spending taxpayers’ money, transparency in awarding contracts and accountability in financial management will encourage a new breed of clean politicians. Only those who can get going when the going gets tough, need apply.

Instead of the clamour to become politicians in order to make tons of money, it will be like national service where self-interest takes a back seat. What a wonderful world it would be.

At the national level, BN turned a blind eye when party hopping worked to their benefit. Now that the opposition is getting nearer to taking over, short of 30 MPs, all of a sudden, anti-hopping laws are suggested and likely to be seriously looked into!

I am not complaining about the suggestion at all (in fact, all for it) but the timing of it really sucks big time.

It goes to show that a strong opposition is definitely good for us.

As reported in The Sun recently, there are loopholes in the law which can enable local elections without federal approval:

Local govt elections without federal approval

THE SUN) - There are loopholes in the law which can enable state governments to introduce local government elections without the approval of the federal government.

Planning lawyer Derek Fernandez said state governments may invoke Section 1(4) of the Local Government Act 1976, which states: "The State Authority may … by notification in the Gazette exempt any area within any local authority area from all or any of the provisions of the Act or from any by-law."

Fernandez said publishing a notification in a state gazette therefore exempts the state government from applying Section 15 (1) of the Local Government Act (provision which enabled the state to bring an end to local government elections) to the area of the local authority.

"After this is done, the state government can then invoke Article 113(4) of the Federal Constitution which states that federal or state law may authorise the Election Commission to conduct elections other than those referred to in Clause (1) {House of Representatives and the Legislative Assemblies of the States}, and pass a state law for local government elections," he said.
Alternatively Section 5 (1) of the Local Government Elections Act 1960 may be invoked, Fernandez said.

The section states that "notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any written law which relates to Town Boards or Rural Boards in force in any State, the State Authority may, after consultation with the Election Commission in respect of the boundaries of the local area and the number of Councillors to be elected … by order published in the Gazette of the State, direct that the whole or a majority of the members of a Town Council, Town Board or Rural Board established in the State under any such written law shall be elected instead of appoint-ed or nominated by the State Authority …"

Fernandez said one has to choose between the two methods available to avoid a clash between the laws, adding that the introduction of local government should be handled in two stages. "Stage one should be to appoint new councillors without political affiliations under the criteria in Section 10 of the 1976 Act, while the mayor or president should be retained so as not to disrupt the transition process, unless he is really unfit.

"Stage two should involve holding elections to select the councillors, while the mayor or president can be appointed from a competent administrator."

The issue has become a hot topic of debate after many opposition party candidates promised to resurrect local government elections, in the interest of transparency and accountability in public spending by local authorities, if they came into power.
To realise this objective however, the federal government would have to endorse the amendment of Section 15 of the 1976 Act.