Malaysia's most powerful woman

Two women fill me with incredible admiration. They are the very picture of dignity like a lotus standing out of muddy waters, tranquillity like the eye in a raging storm, and calm courage amidst a barbaric horde.

There’s none of the Jean d’Arc-like martyr in them and none also of the Mother Teresa piousness. The young would describe each of them as cool, but to me, they're most importantly down to earth people.

I am talking about Aung San Suu Kyi and yes, our very own Ambiga Sreenevasan. Both are their respective nation’s patriots, not the pariah pompous pseudo type claimed by Perkasa or that alluded to by our world-famous Defence Minister (who first attempted, unsuccessfully wakakaka, to politically stab Dr Mahathir in the back and then like a cornered rat, abandoned the ship named KD Anwar Ibrahim when the going got tough.

I congratulate the Myanmareans for their fortune in having a true patriot like Aung San Suu Kyi, and I have no doubt many Malaysians feel likewise, fortunate to have a new light in Ambiga in these troubled times.

Many have urged her to stand for the coming general elections which I have no doubt will sweep her into Parliament, but I urge her not to. We need her to be the politically neutral she is, to provide balanced and unselfish advice and leadership to us. If she has to enter into active politics then I urge her to stand as an Independent.

The Malaysian political landscape is too acidic, acrimonious and acerbic, with the principal personalities in a Bush-like state of ‘either or’, worsened by individualistic selfish interests that pay little heed to the rakyat’s benefits.

Today I would not be exaggerating to state that Ambiga Sreenevasan is the most powerful and popular woman in Malaysia. By powerful I mean her potential to significantly influence politics. Yes, she may not be popular to 100% of Malaysians, and really who is, but I doubt there is any other female, or even male, who can match her standing in the eyes of the Malaysian public.

Take for example, the UMNO moron who threatened her, no doubt verbally only, but which consequences might have turned the Indians away from BN. This potential outcome has been no better illustrated than by the immediate flurry of condemnations against UMNO MP Mohamad Aziz by the normally-obsequious UMNO-lapdog MIC.

Najib has no doubt torn off more of what is left of his sparse hair at the likely fallout from the very very (politically) expensive stupidity of Mohamed Aziz, that he (Najib) might as well be tonsured.

But what is Ambiga Sreenevasan’s message such that it sends UMNO quaking?

Clean and fair elections.

And what does this message imply in its truest meaning?

Ambiga has called for an election that is without cheating, dodgyness, institutionalized ‘hedging’, threats and intimidation or deliberate marginalization or disenfranchisement, one where each andevery eligible citizen is entitled to one voteeach.


But it means more than that.

‘Clean and fair’ elections also means no frogological innovations, no money politics, and no covert pacts a la 'The Illuminati’ to change the outcome of the official results of an election to the astonishment and against the choice of the voters.

dead political frogs

There are politicians who ride on the hem of her sari wakakaka, while there are politicians who hate her with a vengeance. But she must disown those who are riding on her popularity but do not subscribe in the least to her message of a truly ‘clean and fair’ elections.