Good morning.
Malaysiakini would like to wish our readers a Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
We will be taking a short break this long weekend, and be back with the Kini Morning Brief on Tuesday.
But for now, here are our important picks for today.
Key Highlights
Deputy speaker contest decoded
MB missing amid floods
Medical exodus: UM sows, S'pore reaps
Deputy speaker contest decoded
Oddly, two government candidates in the race for the deputy speaker post garnered a different number of votes in Monday’s election, with Ramli Mohd Nor (BN-Cameron Highlands) bagging 148 while Alice Lau (Pakatan Harapan-Lanang) got 146.
This led to the assumption that two government MPs did not vote for Lau.
But Malaysiakini was informed by several lawmakers, on the condition of anonymity, that two members of the August House were actually absent during the voting process.
Malaysiakini later discovered that one of them was MIC deputy president M Saravanan, who claimed to have returned late from lunch and was unaware the election would take place right after recess.
However, it remains unclear if the other government MP - who has not been identified - was absent or had abstained from voting.
On the other hand, the same lawmakers who revealed the absence of their peers claimed to have been informed by parliamentary staff that Ramli’s two additional votes came from undisclosed PN MPs.
MPs were allowed to vote for either one or two of the three candidates. The third contestant Mas Ermieyati Samsudin (PN-Masjid Tanah) received 74 votes.
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MB missing amid floods
Terengganu Menteri Besar Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar has been accused of vacationing with his family in Auckland, New Zealand, while the state is inundated with floods.
The claim was made by former Umno supreme council member Lokman Noor Adam, who claimed that Samsuri and his wife departed for Auckland on Dec 11 and are set to return home on Friday (Dec 23).
State executive councillor Hanafiah Mat later claimed that flood management in the state was not affected by the menteri besar’s absence.
Speculations about Ahmad Samsuri’s whereabouts intensified as he was not seen when PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, and later Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, visited several flood evacuation centres in Terengganu.
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Medical exodus: UM sows, S'pore reaps
Universiti Malaya’s former dean of medicine Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman revealed that on average, at least 30 of the institution’s best medical graduates seek employment in Singapore because of unresolved healthcare worker issues at home each year.
“Each year, UM loses at least 30 of our best and brightest to Singapore. Remember, it costs us almost RM1 million per student to train.
“And now, we are also apparently going to help plug the (UK’s) National Health Service’s (NHS) shortage by also sending our medical officers to the UK,” she vented her disappointment on Twitter.
She was referring to an agreement between Malaysia and the UK, which allows Malaysian healthcare workers to train in the UK and work for the NHS.
She added that many of them headed abroad because there is a lack of posts and clear training pathways in Malaysia for fresh graduate doctors and medical officers.
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Views that matter
 | By S Thayaparan |
 | By Fa Abdul |
 | By Francis Paul Siah |
Other news that matter
Keeping with tradition, Malaysiakini provides its readers with the opportunity to vote and decide on the Top News and Newsmaker for the year.
Recalling how several DAP elected representatives were detained for purportedly having links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Lim Kit Siang has called on the government to prioritise legal reforms to ensure that the abuses of the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) in the last decade are not repeated.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has assured that he is ready to work with all parties, including the opposition-led states.
He said the matter was translated through his visit to Kelantan, the first state he visited since becoming the prime minister.
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