Winners? Anwar v Shabeery?

I was impressed with Shabeery. Indeed he is a better choice compared to Zam. I find him able to hold his own but he seemed more interested in discrediting Anwar with personal attacks which is more akin to an election ceramah. He should have stuck to the arguments for topic of the day. His argument that the price increase is unfortunate as world prices is rising fast and Malaysia has no other option but to follow suit so as not to burden the government with astronomical subsidy and suffer other economic consequences. Great argument, but he failed to address the matter. With reduced subsidies, it merely means that there are funds to be channeled to other pressing matters which he has failed to mention.. because the government has not given any thoughts or having any plans to improve the situation. Out of the many issues that the public are concerned with, he merely touched on food security. The numbers do not add up... 78sen, save 50bil. Reduce 50sen cost 5bil. Eh? Do we need 50bil in food security? Not too long ago, we were told that 1.2bil would be spent on subsidy for rice while under 1bil will be spent on cooking oil.

1 hour is never enough to debate the matter. One should question who has more ideas in addressing the matter. I never agree that pump prices should be reduced. But, I do agree that leakages should be given priority. Sadly Shabeery did not touch on that. In fact, his Tonto, Tan Sri Dr. Ahmad Kardi made himself look stupid in his supplementary question. Instead of asking a question to put Anwar in a corner, he created a corner for Anwar to shut him up. Zulkifli Sulong fared a tad better but he also got shut up for not extrapolating the prices of petroleum after the 30sen hike. Both Tontos were made to look like fools that night.

I do not understand Shabeery, he has limited time to make it count for him to explain the government point as to why they increase pump prices, but he chose to attack Anwar on a personal level which Anwar I must say answered him in the most dignified manner in that he is there to debate the issue and not to attack a person personally. However, many of Shabeery's allegations fell flat except for the 1974 demonstration which left very much unanswered. But for the other attacks, it is either Anwar answered it well and Shabeery did not have the chance to counter, OR, our dear Information Minister was mis-Informed yet again on past. Allegations as to Anwar was part of the government when the IPP contracts were signed... to which I think Anwar scored great points here to say that Finance Ministry and Tan Sri Ani Arope objected to EPU and the Prime Minister then and thatTan Sri Ani Arope resigned as a result.... Shabeery must be blushing at his own mistake. Questions as to multi billion bailouts with public funds met with muted response. IPP soaring profits went unanswered. At least Sharir Samad gave a better insight when he argued that the profits will go back to TNB and not the government and that it is a temporary measure.. what about long term.... Damn... Sharir should be our PM instead of well...

Net importer by 2015! That was a topic but again Shabeery was made to blush. Anwar's answer was simple enough for man in the street to understand. The problem here lies not in Shabeery not being able to articulate himself well. He has proven that he can. Poise and confidence, he took Anwar head on, but he has precious little ammo to take him through. IF... only IF, the government has announced austerity measures ahead of the increase as well as put in place concrete plans for public transportation, education, health, infrastructure etc and THEN announce the increase for funds to fund these initiatives, it would have vindicated Shabeery. He was on the defensive from the word go and the only offensive he can offer were potshots at Anwar on a personal level.

Anwar on the other hand does not offer much either. But he did outline steps he would take to realize his "vision". Which I think is good enough for the time being. But he too failed miserably to talk beyond the price reduction. Maybe he wanted to stick to the topic of the day.

No winners last night but if it has been telecasted by RTM, more Malaysians would emerge winners as we see arguments from both sides for the first time on TV. A step in the right direction? I hope for more debates of this nature and hopefully the marshalls are not that zealous in breaking cameras, tripping people and hammering the journalists in scuffles after the debate.