Political Leadership and Development Plans; From half-past six to Tiga Suku

This is a verbatim reproduction of comments posted by the visiting blogger Walla. As always, his incisive analyses are always appreciated. The entire comments are as follows:-

We no longer have the politics to make the economics of 11MP successful.

For all the shameless mainstream spin by the Umno leadership, people have already withdrawn all trust in the N government. Except for the three thousand or less putting on their powdered faces of support for photo opportunities with view to the next set of Umno-spawned kickbacks from projects funded out of taxes paid by long-suffering rakyat, the millions of other lowly members are disenchanted in the same way they have been disenfranchised.

Without widespread national trust, there will be disbelief in the numbers churned to show the economy will remain fundamentally healthy and on track to achieve V2020; as a result, more investors will shy away, and programmes will not be followed with the energy and focus needed for the last leg towards 2020, a vision now a mirage but for the shifting of the per capita income goalpost that is said to signify developed status however by mere aggregation of incomes without doing any justice to the way incomes have been lopsidedly distributed down the pyramid of the populace.

Today that statistical distortion is further magnified by price hike pressures from the GST regime and it shows the Umno government did not pay heed to better counsel that prices will go up beyond six percent because the market distribution system here is layered with no equivalent redemption for the final end-consumer.

The corrupt inside that 20 percent of Umno destroys all of Umno in much the same way the full entity of Umno as 20 percent of the Malay populace is destroying the entire Malay community, what more the whole country. Same ratio of destruction.

Why is there no more progressive politics in the country?

On the one hand we have a trouble-making Umno engaged in internecine war between two camps cut from the same mischief-making cloth, fashioned by the same hands of corruption, moulded by the same apa-salah mindset of unbridled no-conscience power chase. As a group they have made some progress. Before, they were all half-past six politicians. Today, three-quarter past six. All tiga-suku.

On the other hand, we have a group of pre-pubescent i-have-claws luminaries who can lie in the name of the Almighty and yet petulantly crave for ranking respect by sheer expedient of ignoring the principles behind the reasons why their leadership was criticized.

If a leadership cannot take constructive criticism that unearths shallow mentality and low emotional quotients, how can the leadership become better enough to lead properly and progressively for all, especially when everyone knows the constitution does not provide for any federal government to subrogate secular law to theocratic law not subscribed by all? It is bad enough as it is for the present batch of judges on the secular bench to recuse themselves from their sworn oaths to uphold federal justice whenever they encounter provincial cases where theocratic issues are presented.

And here we are lima tahun to Visi 2020 but over the bodies of the progressives. That issue is just a feint for the bigger cause of galvanizing unthinking support towards overturning the very consensus that had laid the foundation of this nation. But the last anyone checked, that nation is still diverse, multi-racial, plural, multi-faith. Fundamentally, rich in humanity. So isn't it stupid to test Him over something that was not even scripted for this age and place in order to win votes that will only splinter off the two fixed-deposit states?

So these two groups of our Melayu brigands and braggarts are locking horns over a turf destroyed by one, inundated by the other. And some people are still snarky whenever such remarks are made. They sneer at complaints and ask for solutions. But in all honesty, are they saying the solutions must still be Umno-branded or PAS-burnished when all already know no real solution can ever be found from the cause of a problem?

There was one time the Saudis were a wheat-exporter. They wanted to be self-sufficient in food. It was indeed a blessing finding that cache of subterranean water reservoir. They mined it and lost no time to pay their farmers five times the global market price for their produce; of course the transport fuel was also made free. In no time, the water reservoir was exhausted and they have returned to the desert.

A developed status for an economy is not what happens in the country alone. More than infrastructure and buildings and farms, it is what happens inside the minds of its citizens. Because if they are right-minded, they will ask themselves first how do we sustain progress? And then act on their reasoning. No point chasing self-syioking single successes at ruinous cost.

Our policy-makers have no long-horizon vision. Same with the Saudis. And part of our foreign policy is to beat a path to them? If the retort is that we want more haj quota so that more can fulfil the moral obligation, how does that sync with selling TH a radioactive asset that would denude its fund in the same way Felda's share assets have been depleted to the utmost pain of farmers who have borrowed money to buy them?