It was an interesting historic debate between the Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek and PKR advisor Anwar Ibrahim.
I’d say that it’s unprecedented and thumbs up to Ahmad Shabery for living up the expectation as a man with gumption to face the charismatic PKR de-facto leader.
Eventually, we Malaysians are the real winner. My entire family was so elevated when it’s confirmed that the debate would go on as scheduled, in fact, we appreciate the fact that it’s a combination of the Anwar factor as well as the courage by Ahmad Shabery to take up the challenge when his (Ahamd Shabery) bosses (the PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the DPM Najib Tun Razak) were shielding somewhere.
God knows where.
Here’s a few interesting observation though:
- Ahmad Shabery appeared to take things personally when he started to critisizing Anwar personally (e.g. Anwar’s role during the 1997 financial crisis, his record as a Finance Minister, etc.). Not once, but a few times.
- While Anwar said the Petronas coffer will be left undisturbed and it’s only the tax paid to the Government that would be used to fund the subsidy, Ahmad continued to blame Anwar for using the Petronas’s money for the purpose of subsidy?
- Ahmad Shabery didn’t answer the question by Siasah editor Zulkifli Sulong on the government’s claim that the RM4 billion saved from the March 2006 fuel hike to be spent on improving public transport.
- While Anwar proposed to re-negotiate the lndependent power producers (IPP) agreements to recover RM2 billion and to use that to subsidise, Ahmad Shabery claimed that it’s Anwar who supported the IPP contracts before.
I hope more of such debates would be organised in the future, afterall, merely an hour to skim through such a complicated topic is definitely not enough.
Potong steam, indeed.
How about Pak Lah next? Only if a real leader can act and speak like a real leader.
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At least strawberry got guts to join the debate.
Forget lahlah, u may doze off..
"….as well as the courage by Ahmad Shabery to take up the challenge when his (Ahamd Shabery) bosses (the PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the DPM Najib Tun Razak) were shielding somewhere."
Kudos on Shabery and shame on our PM and DPM and the rest of the M’s
Either party has its flaws and at times missed some points, but indeed, it is great debate and a historical one. Encore, encore, encore!
i’ve read in another blog stating that the debate is just a "waste".i dont view it like that.i found it rather "informative",so to speak.it’s not really common for such debate to be held and telacasted over national.two prominent political figures standing up and debate about the title given.eventhough that there times they slip from the title.kudos to all that took part.would love to see such debate more.
No doubt the debate was fantastic but it was very sad that the Information Minister did not stick to the topic.He was shaky and his attack on Anwar’s personal matters was disgusting.
Anwar was well-prepared for the debate but this green horn of BN was out of focus.Anyway,credit should go to this chap as he got the courage to pit against him.I believe this is the final thing live on TV that we could see.
shabery tunaikanlah janji kau untuk letak jawatan…
No doubt DSAI was the winner all the way. He had better focus.
Anyway, the panel asking questions no doubt had pre-prepared scripts which were shown to Shabery and for which he already had answers. So DSAI was handicapped right from the start. And yet he did well!