Saturday, April 18, 2009

A CASE of BALANCED BLUNDERING?

The DPM put both feet in his mouth when firstly he said that the Chinese were "unappreciative" and then followed it up with claiming that the Chinese press misquoted him.
Now we have the PM declaring in a malaysiakini article that Najib: Not the time for another by-election so I just wonder how he wants the vacancy filled.
If we look at the graphics (courtesy of the Star), you will observe that the figures for the Elections Commission(EC) and the Police(PDRM) vary quite a bit.
For the EC,the cost for each by-election varies from RM400k to RM600k and that can be explained on logistics and the size variation between a state and parliamentary seat.
For PDRM, the variation is more interesting:
The costs range from RM2.5m to RM11.5m for parliamentary seats and RM5m to RM7m for the state seats.
My wild theory is that the BN leaders did not work so hard in Permatang Pauh as they did not expect to win against Anwar Ibrahim.
KT was perceived to be a vital mission as it was the second by election after March 2008.
The question is why did the PDRM have to spend so much on by elections? If they have no budget they should tell the BN they cannot provide so much security for ministers etc to campaign.
Or are you telling us the BN pays the cost of such campaign security and not the taxpayers?
It seems to me that the PM's call to have fewer by elections as it is too costly is another case of foot in mouth disease.
You can read what malaysiakini readers have to say in Too many by-elections - 'Najib is right'

No comments: