vox populi big thumbnail ‘His hour of greatness is at hand. He can carry out all the promises he has made but which remain unfulfilled. Will he be our Bapak Reformasi Negara?'

Ong Chin Ghee: With March 2009 as the deadline, Pak Lah can turn from zero to hero by carrying out all the promises he has made but which remain unfulfilled.

Ignore what the previous PM's advice on what a lame duck PM should or should not do. Reform the police and judiciary, bring the corrupt to court and abolish the ISA, Universities and University Colleges Act, and Printing Presses and Publications Act.

Pak lah would go down in history as having restored the freedoms neutered by successive BN governments. His hour of greatness is at hand.

Can he bring himself to act boldly for the future of Malaysia? Can he be our Bapak Reformasi Negara?

Maniam Sankar:

Pak Lah as the outgoing PM thinks it is possible to carry out his promised reforms in five months. What he could not do in the last five years.

And especially as he is hoping to leave the government to his ‘tried and trusted' lieutenant, DPM Najib, who also must have complicity in the last five years of inaction.

Let's hope it's a case of the exit concentrating the mind in Pak Lah's case.

And let's then show Najib the exit after a few months, again to concentrate his thus far relaxed mind.

And lets hope Najib's deputy is Mat Taib of the ‘ no cakap England ' fame who can then lead us on to greatness.

Then only can the fairytale be written of a once great party called Umno which...

One Malaysia:

AAB had years to implement what he promised since the beginning of his tenure as PM. Now, at the last hour, he still dream to accomplish them.

This is clearly a state of denial and just as possible of pushing a camel through the eye of a needle.

However, AAB can still do something major if he is dead serious and will long be remembered for it.

AAB can just abolish ISA and release all those detained under it. That is it! AAB will do Malaysia a great favour by doing that and he can then retire in peace.

On Picking the right chief j ustice

Lim Keat Hoe: The PM has a golden opportunity to prove that he can walk the talk in this instance.

But the million ringgit question is, ‘Will He?'

If one is to look at the history of his tenure as PM, there really isn't much cause for optimism.

Yet, I will like to believe that beneath all his ineffectiveness as PM, he really does care about the future of our nation.

He might have parachuted Zaki into the current position on the premise he will be the PM for some years to come, but that is now of no consequence.

So, Mr. PM , please do what is right and proper for the nation , you can undo a wrong and an injustice to more senior members of the judiciary, you can recommend the appointment of a new CJ who is ‘above and independent of any political alliances or influences'.

I hope so.

On PM not contesting, to quit in March

DrraviMD: After 40 years, another Umno president and PM steps aside succumbing to internal party pressure. He enjoyed his stay in office while helping to make his family rich, he flip flopped, he was too liberal...

Absurdly, many of this reasons are trendy in BN yet he becomes the sacrificial goat an the hands of those who also laid to rest to the first PM. Why should only Abdullah be blamed for BN's March 8 loss?

What about Najib, Samy, Ka Ting, Tsu Koon and the whole BN regime? Pak Lah is a good man in a wrong place. He started of with good mandate from the rakyat in his effort of liberalising, democratising and cleaning out the government.

However, this really disturbed the elite and the aristocrats in Umno He was up against warlords.

Realising the challenge, he wanted to create his own band of warlords ie, his son-in-law and son and their knights but this backlashed and instead shook his own credibility.

Without democracy within the party how can these people lead a democratic nation? They have now forced out their PM, the very man who asked them to work with him and not work for him.

Where are the promised knights of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at this time when their leader needs protection, or Dollah are you just going to leave without fighting and be known as a sacrificial goat?

On Do it Pak Lah, call for snap polls now

Haji A Wahab Ghany: Big people should act with great wisdom. There is no need for Pak Lah to call for a snap election. We just went through a general election. Elections are very costly.

Snap general elections are a waste of public money which could be put to better use for the little people. The writer cannot speak for 26 million Malaysians because I am not one of them.

If Pakatan wins, who is going to be the prime minister?

It is not strange people still support BN/Umno because the ideological differences between the Pakatan components are wide. If both BN and Pakatan are devils, vote for the devil you know rather than the devil you don't know.

If you know for sure it is a wolf, you can at least be prepared to defend yourself but you would be caught defenceless if you are attacked by a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Pakatan's self-proclaimed PM (-in-waiting) boast has started to stink after Sept16. You got to have bad nose if you can't smell it.

On Is banning Hindraf the solution?

Densemy:

Hindraf is Umno's whipping boy. Hindraf is living proof of what awful leaders we have in Malaysia today

Now they want to ban Hindraf. Banning is a Malaysian thing.

Ban anything you can't deal with. Malaysians would ban water to reduce the number of drownings rather than teach their children to swim

On Koh: Take baby steps towards full BN merger

Peter Yew: No, no, no! The solution is not in reorganising BN into a single party where the minorities lose their voice and get crowded out of the big picture. In the event that happens imagine what recourse they will have if their interests are not taken care of.

The major components will again dominate and the troubles will be worse than now - they will have no platform, no bargaining power, no identity to express themselves.

My appeal is look at the root cause of the problem which is the failure of Umno to recognise and respect the minority interests and give them their just rights as citizens of the land.

Whether we are Malay, Chinese, Indians, Punjabi, Iban, Kadazan, etc we are all equal under the constitution of the country and deserve equal treatment and not be sidelined. I don't question the special Malay rights but please remember the other races need their rights too.

Many unhappiness which are the causes of racial disharmony have arisen because of how the BN government treats one community better than the others. This must be rectified quickly.

The BN structure can stay as it is. There is nothing wrong with that. It has proven to be workable for probably 30 years until recent years. No one complained then.

What need to change is the mindset of the various leaders, in particular Umno leaders, in looking after the welfare of the other races with justice and fairness.

On Anwar: Don't question my credibility

Guilbert Ho: I have no affiliation to any political party. I am just a simple layman trying to understand the unusual way Anwar Ibrahim is trying to gain power.

Anwar is forever saying indirectly that the PM is not accommodating him to take over the government of the country. Is he that naive to think that his unorthodox way of trying to gain power will not meet obstructions from the governing parties?

Does he think that the government of Malaysia will be handed to him on a silver platter? The politicians were elected by the people. Should not these people consult their constituents first before crossing the floor to the opposite side?

Anwar Ibrahim and his coalition parties did not win the March 8 general election. The people of Malaysia had decided. Why can't he accept this and carry on his duties as a good and efficient opposition leader?

Why must he continue to threaten the governing parties who have to be looking over their shoulders constantly and neglecting to fulfill their duties to govern the country?

Is this a ploy to disrupt the government? If it is, then the people of Malaysia need to be pitied.

Assuming there are crossings over to the other side. Cannot this game also be played by the then opposition Parties? If this game is played continuously, can the government of the day do any governing at all?

On Perak may 'seize' ISA detention camp site

Vincent Chun: I plead with Perak Executive Councillor A Sivanesan to re-consider his suggestion. What the people want is the abolishment of the ISA, not the seizure of the Kamunting camp.

What the family of the ISA victims want is the full support of the Perak government to help/ facilitate them during their loved ones detention at the Kamunting camp. At least, what Perak government can do for them are, among others:

1. Provide free accommodation for visiting family members at state-owned houses/hotels.

2. Provide free transportation.

3. Arrange for demo site outside the camp on state-government land.

4. Approval for the anti-ISA banners and posters outside the camp (at least the Pakatan- controlled local authority will not tear them down).

It would be worse if the federal government be forced to shift the Kamunting camp. They may, out of spite, shift it to Sarawak. The victims' families would be in even more difficulties.

On Black Friday for Asian bourses, KLCI down 3.6 pct

JK:

For the last few weeks Malaysians are seeing the reality surfacing in our stock market which mirrors the state of our economy. Of course, it is a global issue and Malaysians can't escape from it but the damage can be controlled if our leaders pay sufficient attention to address the problem.

At least many Malaysians can slowly realise now that DSAI is not to be blamed for the so-called ‘running away of investors' or that his democratic initiatives are the cause of the current state of our economy.

Before reaching the `ground zero' level, the country seriously needs capable hands to elevate itself and that can only be done by a leader (and his team of experts) who has the expertise and experience.

Someone who has been pro-actively voicing and speaking out prior to March 8 and thereafter.

Dr San Oo Aung:

During 1998 Asian financial crisis, Dr M slashed interest rates or the BLR against the repeated advice of the IMF or the World Bank. Dr M was thinking out of box and successfully pulled out Malaysia from the turmoil faster than other countries and our neighbours.

In the current global credit crunch, America is taking the 'medicine' invented by Dr M. They are resuscitating the big financial institutions with Dr M's treatment regime. Moreover, the central banks around the world are reducing their BLRs.

If Bank Negara had decided to raise our BLR then, against Dr M's guided BLR reduction, numerous people could have been bankrupted in Malaysia.

At present, Bank Negara endorsement of banks increasing their hire purchase loan interest rates looks rather like a foolish act.

New and used car sales have dipped and the whole automobile industry is slowing down. Banks and finances companies are also almost at a standstill.

This is affecting not only car buyers but it could affect all other consumers throughout Malaysia and slow down the whole economy even further.

On All China milk products banned

Datuk Marimuthu Nadason:

Very recently, the health minister announced that a Level Four check (under the FoSim system) will be applied to all food products, whereby samples will be taken for safety analysis before release to the market.

While it is reassuring that certain preventive steps have been taken by the MOH, the scope of imported foods is so vast and falls under the purview of other governing authorities as well. Effective inter-agency collaboration is very critical to ensure public safety.

The presence of melamine in fruits and vegetables, possibly due to the usage of the pesticide cryomazine has already been detected. While cryomazine is a commonly used pesticide in China, the bigger question is, do our farmers use it as well for our local produce?

This is particularly critical since melamine screening is only done on imported foods from China, and if cryomazine is also used locally, then the contamination could be severely underestimated.

Apart from that, imported fruits and vegetables are mostly without labels for country of origin.

This makes it extremely difficult for consumers to make well-informed decisions before buying such products besides createing anxiety among consumers on whether their food is safe or not.

The absence of labeling fundamentally violates consumers' right to information, choice, and safety. Since only the retailers would know the origins of the imported foods, all supermarkets, hypermarkets, and even fruits and vegetable sellers must provide this basic information on their products. ( The writer is Fomca president ).