DS Najib-Benchmarking his Leadership.

The choice of his cabinet members is the absolute prerogative of the PM. These few days, the PM has been meeting with political leaders. He has met with candidates to be inducted into his cabinet. Hopefuls must have been waiting with nail biting suspense with their hand phones. They are waiting for a call from the PM's office that will determine their political future.

In the last few days especially after the recent UMNO elections, we have read and listened to calls by many quarters as to the cabinet members whom the PM should choose. I have written about some of these 'pontifical' qualities' in an earlier blog.

I find them to be mostly unsuited being motivated by a basic desire to shut out KJ from a cabinet post. Such calls come from voices whose own saintliness is also questionable. These are exceeded only by an intensely united and politically murderous desire to overwhelm KJ and complete a conspiratorial humiliation of Pak Lah. In Malaysia, a dead horse is run over and over again. It happens only in Malaysia.

Even "L'Éminence Grise" of Malaysia, the great TDM has interfered by laying down the qualities of a prospective cabinet member. I can't remember Tun Hussein Onn laying down rules as to who his successor then (Dr Mahathir) must choose. TDM had absolute latitude.

Unfortunately TDM is not so charitable. Especially to those he thinks he created. Indeed he has been reported as saying that if DS Najib appoints KJ, he will not stop attacking the Najib administration and may be tempted to leave UMNO yet again. That, sadly to me is equivalent to holding a gun to Najib's head. The particularly frustrating feeling going through the assaulted head is the uncertainty in knowing whether such gun is loaded or not.

By doing so, TDM presupposes the PM's wisdom in choosing appropriate members of his cabinet to be inadequate. I say sans malice here, that if the PM succumbs to this soft ultimatum from our Malaysian Père Joseph otherwise known as François Leclerc du Tremblay, then DS Najib has, by default, turned himself into a Malaysian Cardinal de Richelieu (who was a Secretary of State- equivalent to the post of PM).

LET ME SAY THIS NOW SO THAT WE CAN FOREVER HOLD OUR PEACE- WHETHER KJ IS APPOINTED AS CABINET MEMBER OR GIVEN PUBLIC OFFICE IS NO LONGER MATERIAL AND RELEVANT TO ME. It's entirely up to DS Najib. What is now relevant to me is the leadership fortitude that DS Najib must display.

Dato Najib must begin with himself by establishing his leadership benchmark. He must be his own person. Part of forging his own leadership identity and dispelling the image of a political invertebrate at the same time, is to gradually free himself from TDM's shadow.

I have said this before that even though DS Najib must factor in TDM in his administration, the factoring in need not necessarily amount to complete capitulation. DS Najib must be his own man and he will not be accused of being disrespectful of TDM should he choose to project an assertive image and personality. After all, those are TDM's own qualities and imitation of those qualities is an unqualified homage to TDM.

TDM must give DS Najib a sporting chance to allow the latter create his own space. That space must not be incessantly and needlessly invaded even by someone who has permanently imprinted his mark over Malaysia as Tun did.

Perhaps TDM thinks his  22 years as PM has allowed him to build an inexhaustible reservoir of political goodwill. Alas, that reservoir appears to be drying up because it can no longer recall sufficient reserves to ensure victory in Perak and Kedah this recent week. DS Najib must not lose sight of the smoke signals here.