Horses' Mouths

Horses' Mouths - October 14

300% increase The number of newly registered voters for 2010 is 820,156 whereas for 2009, the number of newly registered voters was 276,621 and all this was processed in the same year. Nazri Aziz, minister in the PM’s Department 'Aim right' The weapon must be aimed at enemies. Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, PAS information chief, telling PAS members and supporters’ congress not to let themselves to be exploited by BN media Malaysiakini and UMNO There is no truth in the allegations that Malaysiakini will be sold to UMNO-backed interests. Premesh Chandran, Malaysiakini CEO, on reports claiming that Malaysiakini is working on a share exchange deal with media interests aligned to UMNO IC syndicate If you want to give them Malaysian citizenship, it should not be done in this manner, by shuttling them in a bus to a remote location. The standard procedure is to give citizenship to skilled foreign talents, not in bulk... this has raised concerns that there are syndicates involved in registering foreigners as Malaysians and attempts to include them as voters in the next general election. Salahuddin Ayub, Kubang Kerian MP, on an operation to grant citizenship to foreigners in exchange for votes We are not involved because according to the country's laws, you cannot simply grant citizenship. Jainisah Mohd Nor, National Registration Department public relations officer The six highways? Najib Razak must explain if these ‘high-impact’ projects are just part of a ‘wish list to impress’. It appears that the announcement has no tangible substance because the likelihood is . . . the highway projects announced in the current budget will not see the light of day. Tony Pua, Petaling Jaya Utara MP, on the six highway projects announced in Budget 2011 last year which have yet to be started Polls No, we didn't issue any directive. We don't even know when the election will be called. Kamaruddin Mohamed Baria, Election Commission secretary, denying a media report that schools had received instructions not to rent out their halls until the end of the year. MRT and votes …The deafening silence of the authorities on this would only contribute to a PR (public relations) disaster that is detrimental to the ruling coalition in the final analysis, more so in the advent of the 13th General Election. Ong Tee Keat, MCA's Pandan MP, on the alignment of the Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Burgeoning debt It is worrying that Malaysia’s debt has ballooned from RM200 billion in 2004 to RM456 billion in 2011. It is growing and within this budget (Budget 2012), an enormous amount of money has been outlayed. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Gua Musang MP and former Finance minister, on the Federal government debt-to-GDP