Promise Broken, Najib and Big Government

It’s not a big deal, BN delays the elections.  Even if some state legislative assemblies expire naturally. It is permissible under our laws. When assemblies expire, we have 60 days to hold election. Najib the UMNO president waits until he sees he has strategic advantages. He sees whether (1) all the money is in (2) he sorts out the candidates (3) phantom voters are strategically placed (4) must ensure that his people outnumber Muhyiddin’s. and most important of all (5) not before he has inked some juicy agreements at LIMA. But when sending our military boys to Lahad Datu, we didn’t have military transport planes!

Then he holds elections. He will dissolve parliament in April. He has run out of time and must make the most of it, ready or not. Ready or not, he can’t avoid the inevitable defeat of UMNO. It’s UMNO- the rest of the gang is almost finished. Kaveas can give guarantees about the number of votes he can deliver. Najib likes that kind of pandering. Kaveas is an unrepentant rah rah boy.

Tun Daim must be recoiling with embarrassment; his attempts to shore up support for Najib and UMNO come a little too late and too little. Except for the jubilation from the UMNO yahoo boys and the usual suspects, reception to his interviews was lukewarm and in general, indifferent.

The UMNO people must have skins as thick as a rhino. Daim’s predictions and thoughts were dismissed with impunity in 2008. He was called a person past shelf life, a pensioner and a tattered Quran. A tattered Quran is not readable any longer, but to throw it away is sinful. So it’s usually wrapped up nicely in cloth and stored at a high place in the house.

Daim was like an Old Quran- to read is impossible but to throw it away is sinful. So why should any attention be placed by UMNO people on what Daim said? Has he been resurrected and will now reveal himself more often to his UMNO apostles? Holy Mother of Jesus!

Much mountain has been made of the molehill interviews with Tun Daim by several newspapers. The UMNO people and its supporters are going to town painting it red celebrating Daim’s somewhat taciturn endorsement of Najib. Why taciturn?

It’s an endorsement more based on normative thinking. This means, Daim says something that ought to be. His predictions are based on what UMNO people want Daim to say. It’s not based on positive thinking arising from factual observations.

When Daim told me that he is going to give some interviews to the papers, I said surely you are asked to give endorsements to Najib. And he said- that’s what they want me to do, so I do lah. But I give them so many caveats and am sure, these UMNO people won’t bother about them. They just want to listen to the win part.

And Daim this time has either been out of touch or because of rightly reading the Richter scale is forced to redeem the situation by giving misleading answers. His interviews are damage control coming in too little too late.

The Daim in the Sunday Times Interview isn’t the Daim whose thought process I personally know since 2008. I cannot reconcile his position from Najib does not have what it takes to run this country to Najib is more fitted to be the PM of this country. Duplicitous and double talk from the wily Daim? Or consternations from a man picturing the defeat of UMNO come to reality?

Especially on Daim’s endorsement of Najib as more preferable than Anwar Ibrahim. That was his personal opinion which has to be validated by the people in the 13^th GE. But it was also an indirect acknowledgement that the other possible candidate for PM is Anwar Ibrahim. That- given the stock of information and knowledge that he has.

Daim’s rejection of Anwar is primarily based on that nebulous perception of Anwar being unfit. Unfit because of what? Because of personal knowledge about Anwar’s private life? Actual or some forced truths based on personal animosities toward Anwar the man?

Daim hides what he hasn’t revealed in the interview by saying Anwar will follow the dictates of America, IMF and World Bank. Well, most of the countries that followed variants of what America, IMF and World Bank proposed have done better than Malaysia. Isn’t Najib doing the same thing- wasting no time in kowtowing to America and doing all he can to ingratiate himself to America? Najib is Uncle Tom to other Uncle Toms.

Is Najib more morally acceptable than Anwar in terms of whatever measures one defines as being fit for office? Because when it comes to dalliances of the sexual nature, Najib isn’t that far down the scale compared to anyone including Anwar.

That can a subject of an interesting and extended debate, which I am not going to play host on.

How much credence do we then attach to Daim’s revelations through his snapshot interviews? I say snapshot because the journalists from NST and Utusan Malaysia and several other Chinese papers meet Daim- what? Once a year or maybe once every 2 years?  Now compare what I can say about Daim’s thinking as though it’s a video play and the interviews given by the papers which we can regard as still photos.

I want to say it as a matter of factly- I meet Daim on a regular basis since 2008. On average maybe once a month. Since the last 3 months, I have not met him because either Daim is recuperating from an illness (which he doesn’t want to divulge) or he has been on extended trips overseas. I met him again on the 23^rd of March 2013, on Saturday at his office in Jalan Syed Putera, formerly known as Lornie Road, I think.

I want to invite readers to decode what Daim actually meant.

How can anyone justify supporting UMNO and BN? Supporting it means we move nearer to statism. That is not good.

Why? Because Najib the wimp wants to own the state believing that his government should control either economic or social policy, or both. That was why a few days ago, he was asking for more power. Why should we give him that power so that the elite will continue to plunder and pillage the country? He wants a totalitarian state.

Needle him on this. He was lying to us all this while. You will remember that when he took over from Abdulla Badawi he proclaimed that the age of big government that knows best is over. He is a bloody cheat. Why is he giving all the BR1Ms and showering everyone with money? So that he can buy a Big Government.

A few days ago, the Star newspaper on its front page used hand signs to explain the reasons for Najib postponing elections. Ironically that symbolises how the government looks at all of us- dumb mutes communicable only with hand signals.

A vote for UMNO means, giving power to another Mahathir clone using political power to force policy on a resisting society. By now, we know we are a resisting society. 3.7 million Malay voters out of 5.7 million Malay voters resisted UMNO in 2008. UMNO lost in Peninsula Malaysia and was saved by the passive society in East Malaysia. Now East Malaysians are awoken by the overweening state power asked for by Najib. We must resist him. 85% of the non-Malays especially the Chinese are rejecting UMNO.

What Najib wants is to enforce UMNO’s brand of authoritarianism on us and will legislate or enforce morality and cultural practices. He and UMNO will big-brother us all. The ideology of statism holds that sovereignty is not vested in the people but in the state. This is why Najib must have a big government. He wants absolute power. He wants to wield authoritarian powers. He believes that all individuals exist only to enhance the power, prestige and well-being of the state. So, we have ‘we love PM’ everywhere. Even the UMNO people feel uncomfortable with Najib’s cultish style. Even in campaign style, it is Najib who faithfully follows and apes America.

Once he gets absolute political power, Najib will muscle in into the economy. He will continue what Mahathir has always done which is to ensure the state has a major and unbridled role in directing the economy. That is big government in the economy.  

The people, especially the pliant Malays who have been brainwashed by UMNO for ever so long, will lap up the Najib’s government knows best. Najib will carry out the agenda of more plundering and pillaging, more cherry picking and harvesting of the low hanging fruits either directly through state-owned enterprises and other types of machinery of government, or indirectly through economic planning.

Under Najib’s vision, contrary to what he promised there will be large amounts of government intervention, regulation or influence in the economy. Is that good? Of course not because it will allow Najib and his gang to steal and plunder in the name of the people. He will do these surreptitiously through close doors and hides behind the techniques known as closed or selective tender to rob Malaysia. Then we have another 1000 Puspahanas, another 1000 Scorpene , another 1000 UMNO- driven costing of projects.

All done in the name of the people.