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Make The Country More Open, Democratic And Transparent Statement by Dr Tan Seng Giaw, DAP National Vice-Chairman and MP for Kepong on the UMNO Deputy President, UMNO Wanita President and UMNO Youth Chief's pledge for transparent and open culture as well as UMNO is not a shortcut to riches. 11 May 2000 | |||||||
| UMNO Women and Youth had their joint general assembly and elections yesterday. We hope the newly elected Women's President Dato' Seri Rafidah Aziz and Youth Chief Dato' Hishamuddin will play their part in helping the country towards a more open, democratic, just, transparent and clean governance. All the local mass media devote tremendous amount of coverage on the UMNO Women and Youth general assembly, focussing on the speeches by the UMNO Deputy President Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, former Women's President Dato' Siti Zaharah and Youth Chief Dato' Hishamuddin. Such media attention should be accorded equally to the Opposition. Dato' Seri Abdullah touched on the declining votes for UMNO, the need to be close to young people, and to choose respected, open, clean, trustworthy and effective leaders. He emphasized that UMNO was not a shortcut for wealth. We wish he would go further than mere rhetorics. Dato' Siti Zaharah spoke on unity and imperialist threat. Dato' Hishamuddin outlined eight concepts for change such as respectable values, courtesy, discipline, service, sacrifice and wisdom as well as open and transparent culture. It is interesting to hear all these rhetorics. Tomorrow, UMNO President Dato' Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad will have more to say. We hope that they will look seriously at the state of the nation in all aspects. For example, the separation of powers of the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. Do we have a true separation of | |
powers? We should not ape blindly the systems of governance and democracy in other countries such as U.S.A. and U.K. But, there are universal values which most people can see and understand. For instance, freedom of the press. Much as the Government would like to have us believe that the press in this country is free, the truth is quite different. Granted that there is no absolute freedom in everything and that the tolerance and mutual respect of all races should not be jeopardized. The people can see that the mass media are constrained; self-censorship is evident. Can Dato' Seri Abdullah, Dato' Rafidah and Dato' Hishamuddin examine the state of the judiciary. Despite the claims by the Government that it is independent, they should look at it in the context of the value system enunciated in their speeches. Maybe, they will come to the conclusion that the judiciary has to be reviewed. There are other aspects such as economy and education which have to be reviewed. Who is th say that there are no cronyism, nepotism, corruption and wastage? Despite the pledge to refrain from money politics, corruption politics and corrupt practices, the people would like to see that there are genuine efforts to eradicate these evils. It will take years.
Dr Tan Seng Giaw | |||||
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