Anwar Vs Strawberry.

With all respect, I love this new Information Minister. Thanks for this Debat - (the butt?). Hope for more of this to come. It is a huge step forward for the maturity of politics in the country. Well done.

Overall, the debate was thrilling, informative, and healthy. No misbehaviour from both side, oh, probably a few personal attacks from Shabery on Anwar, but that was nothing serious. Anwar must be expecting this, with his long history in politics.

But, there are a few things I found interesting, the blunders....

1. I think government sent the wrong guy to debate. I felt that Shabery is not the best minister to represent the government on this matter. We are debating on petroleum prices and the national economy, and I think the best person to talk about this on behalf of the government would be Domestic Trade Minister Sharir Samad, or Finance Minister Nor Mohammed. (if not Pak Lah or Najib). Then probably we would have some better arguements.

2. I think the whole point of fair debate was completely defeated upon the first question for Anwar from the chair. He asked him on his views about the fact that major player of consumer petroleum in Malaysia are the likes of Shell, Exxon etc, and thus a huge subsidy from the profit of Petronas would hurt Petronas and would benefit them.

His second question was on why Anwar needs to be PM in order to save the rakyat, but instead if he is so berjiwa rakyat, he should share his expertise with the current government now. Both questions are one-sided in nature with sense of negativity towards Anwar.

3. The BN cheering crowd. I think this is a huge blunder on the BN side to have the ever cheering crowd among the spectators. These people were cheering on random points for Shabery, especially when he was making personal attacks on Anwar. I can tell you that this was not helpful as Shabery would be more inclined to make more of those immature attacks. Besides, the cheering crowd was a little bit of nuisance. PR crowd was much smaller, and thus not so irritating as those cheering for Shabery.

4. The assistant that Shabery brought with, Tan Sri Nordin Kardi. Why? Why not some big shots in the EPU or Khazanah or Petronas? A VC of UUM with background of counselling, talking to Anwar on premises of politics and economic management, just doesnt go well with me, and I hate that dude.

5. Anwar is the most articulate Malay leader in the modern times. No one can deny that, and to challenge him in a debate is almost single handedly presenting him with an opportunity to be more popular. I believe this would be the historical first, and dramatic last, of an open political debate in Malaysia.

6. Overall, I would think that, objectively, Anwar argued his case much much better than Shabery.