Sugar, spice and everything nice...

NEVER mind if it was only for a week but the voters in sleepy Hulu Selangor have never had it so good. Malaysians would know by now that a by-election is the best thing to happen after a general election in this country.

In a general election, the campaign is spread out across the 222 constituencies and media attention is focused only on certain areas, those regarded as hot seats with key personalities. Thus, a constituency like Hulu Selangor would not be on the media radar screen.

To follow the rest of my column, click here.

To follow live the Hulu Selangor by-election today, click here.

Treat the verbal diarrhoea

MALAYSIA is spending millions of ringgit trying to repair its image overseas but plenty of taxpayers’ money can be saved if our politicians exercise some self-restraint with their statements.

The foot-in-the-mouth disease seems to be rampant and many of us wonder why they even make these statements in the first place.

We are talking about politicians from both sides of the political divide whose astounding statements often make world headlines for the wrong reasons. Little do they realise the serious implications involved, including loss of foreign direct investments.

Read the rest of my column here.

Why harp on a non-issue?

IT’S strange that some of us should find it difficult to identify ourselves first by our nationality and then only by our ethnicity. Yet, when we are overseas, none of us, including the politicians, have any qualms calling ourselves as Malaysians first.

When we fill up the immigration forms before we enter a foreign country, they only want to know our nationality and the passports we carry.

Really, they don’t give two hoots about our race or religion. They may want to know our gender or marital status but beyond that, no country, Malaysia included, really wants to know more than is required.

This is from my On The Beat column today. To read the full comment, please click here.