Thursday, September 18, 2008

Living It Up

courtesy of thenutgraph.com

Hey, an article I wrote for The Nut Graph finally got published! ;-)

I was told to be more personal in approach, so my first article "Living It Up" took a snapshot of my typical weekend nowadays, sometimes better, sometimes worse.

After reading the post, "you would understand the absolute need to be disciplined when it comes to the number of appointments I accept; otherwise, it would never end. Not only would my role as an MP be compromised by insufficient research and attention — I also wouldn’t get to spend precious moments with my family, who are my pillars of support.

And the discipline must be kept regardless of how demanding certain voters may be to secure “face time”. It has barely been six months since the general election, yet already there are those who complain they haven’t seen me around. There are more than 76,000 voters in my constituency, and if all of them expect me to go around meeting people with the same frequency as I did during the campaign period, it would certainly defeat the purpose of electing an MP in the first place.

It’s a case of working hard and working smart, to ensure that I can make a real impact in the constituency as an MP."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Tony.

You are doing a good job bringing up issues and providing serious input on important areas of national interest.

We don't need you to be eye candy around our neighbourhood... :)

Thank you for your good work.

Regards,
CPK, Damansara Utama

Anonymous said...

YB

Just wanna let you that you have a fan in Singapore and that's me. Keep up the momentum!

Anonymous said...

Know the Difference: Transition, not Handover.
For the moment, the UMNO leadership crisis appears to have been averted with the announcement of the cabinet portfolio swap between Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his Deputy Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak. As recently as last week, analysts and commentators were anticipating Najib to make a move on the Presidency before the year’s end. And why would they not? After UMNO Vice President Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin rekindled the debate about Abdullah’s position, Najib appeared to position himself for an assault on the post when he remarked that the divisions should decide for themselves when the transition should occur – essentially informing that he was more than ready to receive nominations for the post of Party President.

But with the portfolio swap, Najib may not see a need to gun for the Presidency – and by implication Premiership of the country – so soon. Notwithstanding the fact that a transition of power is, as Abdullah quipped, a process and not something carried out overnight, Abdullah must be credited for such a bold move. Skeptics have characterised it as a calculated political decision to neutralise any potential threat from Najib. Political considerations there definitely were, but by paving the way for Najib to take helm of the Ministry of Finance, Abdullah has also demonstrated magnanimity and sincerity to groom his successor for the top job in 2010.

Being Prime Minister with little experience in managing the country’s economy will likely prove a mammoth task for anyone. And as it turns out, Najib is no ordinary figure with an ordinary past. With ample ammunition for the Opposition to take aim at his credibility – the SAS (Sukoi, Altantunya, Submarine) scandals spring to mind as illustrations – a Najib administration could use a head-start in spearheading economic recovery at a time when global financial uncertainty is affecting countries in this region, too.. It is further also to Najib’s convenience that the Budget for the year 2009 has just been announced with much of the implementation left for him to oversee. As such, Najib does not have the baggage of others’ inefficiency to contend with – a prevalent concern whenever an economic plan is carried out.

As things, at least for the time being, cool down with regards to any contest for the Presidency of UMNO, it would be interesting to see Tun Dr.. Mahathir’s next move. Commanding a yet formidable following, his end-game for quite a while now is to unseat Abdullah as Prime Minister. His peculiar friendships with Tengku Razaleigh, Muhyiddin and Najib are telling – those individuals are all nothing more than instruments to his ultimate goal: the downfall of Abdullah.

Ultimately, Abdullah’s supporters will hope that the PM’s move will be repaid with loyalty by Najib. Even to many who may not be Abdullah’s biggest fans are wary of the damage that an open contest will cause the party. Even they would gladly take two more years of Abdullah over the prospect of an internal split that will likely occur should we witness a repeat of the embarrassment suffered by the late Tun Ghafar Baba at the hands of a ruthless Machiavellian by the name of Anwar Ibrahim.

Anonymous said...

Just seen the following at http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/bnm/20080919/tts-teresa-release-bm-993ba14.html?printer=1

TERESA KOK RELEASED FROM ISA DETENTION

Bernama - Friday, September 19

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 (Bernama) -- Seputeh Member of Parliament Teresa Kok Suh Sim was released today after eight days of detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

The DAP national organising secretary was released at the Jalan Travers police station here at about 1.30 pm.

Her parents, father Kok Kim Tong and mother Poh Seh Kwon, and her lawyer N. Sankara Nair were at the police station when she was released.

"I am happy that I have been released and I'm OK," she told reporters gathered at the police station.

To a question, Kok said: "I do not know why I was released today, just as I do not know why I was detained."

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Thanks to those who petitioned for her release and came to her defence. :)