International: Return of "Baby Doc" Duvalier to Haiti
Making the international headlines this week would be the surprise return of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier's from his self imposed 25 year exile. Upon arrival, he was arrested by the Haitian police the next day. He was formally charged with corruption, theft and misappropriation of funds on the 18th of January and would be subjected to a court date some time later.
Many human rights groups and Haitian communities through out the world in particular have openly expressed their outrage towards the dictator's return, as he was responsible for the many deaths and tortures of Haitians. He was also the reason why many fled the country in the first place back in the 80's.
As for the purpose of his return, he claims that he returned simply to help the reconstruction efforts of Haiti and that he's not there for politics. Many speculate on his actual reason for return due to his timing; he arrived on Sunday the 15th, which was the day Haiti was supposed to hold a second round of elections to elect the successor to outgoing President Rene Preval.
Sources from BBC news, Al Jazeera, NST, and The Malaysian Insider
Local: Tenang By-Election
Locally, the the Tenang By-Election seems to be the most featured news item. It will be a straight fight between BN candidate Mohd Azahar, 39, who is the former Rengit assistant land administrator in Batu Pahat, and PAS’ Normala Sudirman, who is PAS' Labis Muslimat chief and a former teacher. This will be the 14th by-election since the 2008 "political tsunami", but the first by-election in Johor since the 2008 general election. The by-election was called after the seat's incumbent, Datuk Sulaiman Taha of BN passed away on the 17th of December 2010. This event in particular has the most effect on the locals of Tenang who want to see more development and job opportunities available. On a nation wide scale, the result of this by-election would most probably determine the date of the next general election, depending on BN's success or failure.
As it has always been, political news tend to dominate the front pages of our local newspapers and news sites. "Why politics?", one might ask. Well for a start, as much as some of us would hate to admit, politics determines the effectiveness of ruling policies and systems, thus determining the well being of a society. We as Malaysians in particular are a very politicized society. Contrary to popular belief I think most of us know our rights as a citizen, our rights to vote and our rights to demand change for the better. Particularly after the 2008 elections, more and more people are starting to voice out their frustrations with the current ruling government. However one thing that still plagues most Malaysians(including the highly educated) is the tendency to be strictly partisan to one's own party. To me, this is a problem because there are honestly good ideas and good people from both sides of the political divide.
Another reason would be due to the fact that mainstream media in Malaysia are very controlled and tightly regulated by the government. In a way, mainstream media is pretty much the ruling government's personal "twitter account", updating the public about their progress and their latest developments. Hence the media are abuzz when elections are around the corner. In order to win more votes they would highlight their recent achievements and play the blame game with the opposition. On the other hand, since the aforementioned politcal tsunami of 2008, opposition parties now have a much louder voice in the media than before. Particularly with the rise of credible alternative news sources, they too now play the blame game; revealing every single mismanagement and inadequacy issues the government had neglected to mention. Due to this, almost every issue is politicized at some point, especially the so called "sensitive issues" pertaining race, religion and socio-economical distribution. Politics in Malaysia are often overly dramatized too by both sides of the political divide to gain sympathy for their causes.
One of the issues recently highlighted was PAS representative Normala's insistence to not shake hands with men. Many politicians and observers are harping on this idea, suggesting that it would be hard for the people to trust her. To her credit, it's her own personal belief. You can't really fault anyone for something as trivial as that. It would be better for us too focus more on how a candidate performs and what they will bring to the table, rather than their personal choice of etiquette.
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Sources from NST and The Malaysian Insider
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