Top blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin today announced that his “third force” called the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) is not going to steal votes from Pakatan, but instead aims to “fix” what’s broken with Malaysia.

“What is the MCLM? Well my answer is KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. We are a bunch of repairmen. And you say that some things are broken in Malaysia, like the parliament. We will fix it,” he said during a live webcast from London this evening.

raja petra Live telecast of the MCLM Forum in London Raja Petra ( right ), popularly known as RPK, was speaking at a forum organised by MCLM to explain the group and its mission.

According to him, MCLM is a group put together by him and others based in Malaysia, such as lawyer-blogger Haris Ibrahim, who have been moving for a third alternative to Malaysia's current two main political coalitions.

RPK helms the movement, with fellow overseas Malaysians Yolanda Augustines ( below ) as the secretary and Farouk A Peru heading its information initiative. Harris and others make up the rest of the committee.

The movement says it will soon be starting a campaign to educate Malaysians of their civil liberties, that will also include an official newspaper that will be distributed to the people.

yolanda augustine raja petra Live telecast of the MCLM Forum in London RPK argued that instead of being the “vote-stealers” that some parties have voiced concerns they will be, MCLM will help all political parties to field better candidates by giving suggestions of viable persons who can serve and educate the public.

"They complain that they cannot find good candidates. Well, we are giving them good candidates," he sniped.

This, he believes, will “fix” the situation in Malaysia whereby candidates who serve in Parliament are of poor quality.

"Our aim is not to win the elections. Our aim is to reform the political system," he stressed.

Malik Imtiaz a 'worthy candidate'

RPK explained that the problem with the Malaysian Parliament is that it has ceased to be a House of representatives of the people, but is now but a collection of representatives of political parties that short-circuit the electoral process and sideline the people.

He reasoned that introducing a higher quality of candidates to serve in parliamentary seats will improve the Parliament and ensure that candidates look after the people who voted them in, as opposed to those who just toe the party line.

dap islamic state roundtable 100807 malik imtiaz As an example of a worthy candidate in their eyes, RPK and his posse named veteran lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar ( left ).

The controversial blogger assured those assembled at the event and the roughly 170 odd following it online, that they will offer their list of viable candidates to both sides of the political equation and will not favour any party.

 

However, RPK stopped short of giving a full list of people he feels is qualified to be MPs, saying that they will add more to that 'exclusive club' of candidates they are 'offering' to political parties as time goes by.

The aim, he said, is to make sure their candidates are viable and will not repeat the many 'mistakes' shown by some Pakatan candidates, amongst whom he cited Port Klang assemblyperson Badrul Hisham Abdullah and Kulim Bandar Baru MP Zulkifli Noordin, turncoats who defected from the opposition to become ‘BN friendly’ independents.

"But if they (political parties) can find good candidates without involving us, then we have done our work in reforming the system," he concluded.