Got Track but no Record, Much Thunder, Little Rain

The PM goes into Selangor as the opposition.

We must not forget that. While he is leader of this country, he enters Selangor as leader of the opposition in Selangor. UMNO is the opposition in PR governed Selangor.

A touch of bravado and testosterone- rushed talk.

A few weeks ago, PM Najib entered Selangor accompanied by thousands of motor bikers and declared, he will retake Selangor. Of course, you will Mr. PM. Could it be any other way? The UMNO president and PM mustn’t disappoint the millions and millions of UMNO ground troopers who will shout Hidup Melayu at the drop of a leaf, if you asked them so.

It’s a gamble.

And the UMNO president must not disappoint the punters too. In Kuantan, bookies are willing and bold enough to give 100:1 odds to BN. they are willing to give RM 100 to RM 1 if UMNO can win in some areas. That is surely a vote of confidence in the PM’s leadership.

With PM Najib at the helm; the future of the nation is being decided in accordance to the laws of gambling.

Got track, no record.

I want to take off from the point I left in an earlier article. PM Najib asked Malaysians to look at his track record and his seemingly bottomless reservoir of big ideas.

Let us begin at his track record. Why should we be obsessed at his track record? Precisely this is the way we can beat UMNO. Since his advisors have been selling Najib instead of UMNO, then, as a matter of strategy, in order to beat UMNO, all we have to do is destroy Najib’s credibility as a leader. That should not be too difficult. 
Najib enjoys, we are told, an approval rating of 69% while UMNO is languishing in the 40 percent range. The fact that nobody expanded on his achievement means people are already set in their perceptions. They don’t give a rat’s ass on what any surveys tell us now.

The Chinese have already made up their minds since 2008. Urban Malays and the Malay middle class are rejecting UMNO. If we don’t, then we Malays fall in the same category as that useful idiot Ibrahim Ali and his band of brigands. Are we Malays willing to be grouped in the same category as the illustrious Ibrahim Ali?

Nursery-rhymed ideas.

So, we will take on Najib on account of his claim on his track record and his treasury of nursery-rhyme type of ideas. Why nursery-rhymed? Because they are capable of only attracting kindergarten level thinking people as adherents. That is the only way I think to best describe the level of thinking that accepts wholesale, the association of Malay future with the fortunes of UMNO. Hence Najib and his band of desperate individuals go around the country admonishing Malays that if UMNO goes down, nobody will look after (1) the Malays (2) Islamic religion and (3) Royal Institution.

Malays do not depend on UMNO at all for their destiny. Islam certainly does not suffer if UMNO isn’t around. The Constitutional Monarchy is accepted by all races as long as it’s constitutional. Laws protect us. Our faith is protected by practising and continue believing in it. The same laws of the land, secures the Monarchy. 

Najib is the personification of a variant of the Dutch disease.

Najib isn’t the role model for Malaysians to look up to whom we can learn from his track record and his thoughts. What expertise does he have other than an overdeveloped penchant for making outrageous announcements of a slew of `initiatives’ coined in acronyms? Would we believe our economy can get better with changes in nomenclature? He has perfected or near perfected one art- the art of saying so many things but accomplishing nothing. He has translated into practice, the Chinese saying- much thunder, little rain.

He is the personification of the Dutch Disease- in which the manufacturing and now, knowledge based economic activities suffer because the economy over-depends on natural resource. The economy becomes one dimensional and becomes in turn uncompetitive.

How so with Najib? He suffers from a variant of that disease- over dependence on subsidized free passages. A person who over depends on scripted solutions, under develops his own thinking capability. Najib is a one dimensional type of leader.We cant depend on this kind of leader.

How can someone who can’t grasp simple and straightforward concepts be in a position to manage and lead a country? Just as Daim intimated to me on numerous occasions, Najib has lost the plot to run the country because he doesn’t understand the business of government. 

Najib’s dependence on natural political resources.

He has been where he is till now, because of his overdependence on fortuitous events that shaped his life. He became MP at a young age because Tun Razak passed away and the Pekan people, in an attempt to overcome collective grief, looked at Najib to continue Razak’s legacy. He became deputy ministers in 3 ministries because the PM then was his uncle. He became MB of Pahang at the age of 28 during which development in Pahang was practically barren. He became the number 2 in Pergerakan Pemuda because he rode on Anwar’s back (side). Who's zooming who baby? 
So all his political life, Najib is where and what he is, because of purely fortuitous outcomes. That is his natural political resource making him the foremost beneficiary of that resource. As a result of this over-dependence, he has become one dimensional. 

What happened to my-first-home scheme?

Consider for example PM Najib’s failed My First Home ownership scheme and the recent decision to scrap the controversial new civil servant remuneration scheme, apart from other flip-flops. What has happened to that much publicized my first home scheme?

Launched a year ago, the house-ownership scheme for low-income earners failed because banks are unwilling to hand out 100 per cent financing applicants earning less than RM3, 000 a month. How can Najib fail to grasp the fact that with a gross income of RM3, 000 a month, a person simply cannot have any spare cash to pay the monthly installments for the house? Surely, Najib must know that a person has also to pay for essentials such as food, transport and other expenses. And after deducting EPF and Socso, there is really nothing much to spare.

The scheme was meant to entice voters especially from amongst the young people. Najib was banking on these schemes to kick in because he has to win the next GE-13 by all ways and means. Yet, it has turned into a disaster.

80% of the participants of Bersih 3.0 are young people. Why should the young who have been promised so many goodies, turned their backs on UMNO? Can we explain away this irritable behavior of the young generation as biting the hand that feeds them?

what happened to civil servants' pay-scheme? 
It is the same with the Public Service Remuneration Scheme (SBPA) announced in February, whereby the disparity between the salaries of the top civil servants and those in the lower grades - who form the majority - is much too wide. This plan was criticized from day one and has finally been scrapped by Najib because it is too hot a political potato to hold onto. The SBPA too was meant to gain votes in the coming GE-13.

Could he save himself when he revised the SBPA? His hands were already exposed. He showed in the first place, he wasn’t thinking seriously about the matter in which top civil servants enjoyed increases of 30-40,000 while the lower rung obedient servants, who are not going to be civil anymore, enjoyed increments of RM 10-20? By revising he has shown he wasn’t sincere in the first place and didn’t know what’s happening on the ground.