a plan to oust Najib. If Najib can’t read this, it will be the end of him. If Najib wants to continue as PM, he has to counter all the propaganda created by his enemies within Umno to affirm his party position.Why this rage? Why this sense of injustice stemming from angry Malay against Najib
Every good drama needs a few sub-plots whirling through the mainframe. The most captivating within our current political theatre is surely the joust that Muhyiddin has begun with Najib. On surface level, it is not much more than a claim for primacy between a politician who will inherit the Prime Minister post as his birthright, and the outsider who learnt life’s lessons in a teashop. But no story-within-a-story is worth the price of admission if it is limited to the obvious.
If you were cooking up a formula for an ideal prime minister, the mixture would surely be a base of Solomon’s wisdom, with one ladle of Alexander’s strategic skills, topped off by the confidence of David, who slew heavily armed giants with a single sling-shot. But no recipe works without salt. Salt is luck. Corruption is a slippery slope for anyone in power. Mahathir should have stuck to its familiar narrative of populism and stability, for such advertising can be backed by evidence. The parallel assault on Anwar’s persona could also boomerang, since UMNO members considers Najib can-do-must-do methods to be strength rather than weakness.
This political game to highlight Najib's weaknesses and greed seems to cover Mahathir’s earlier bigger weaknesses and greed. None of these Umno leaders are interested in the welfare of the Malays or the country - it is just their greed for power and personal gain.
In bemoaning the inadequacy of not giving and doing more for the Malays, he seems to be totally unmindful of the huge deficit in equitable distribution of wealth even among them, especially in the last 25 years of Umno's leadership.
In marked contrast to the promise of radical change raised by Najib when he became PM, there is a palpable sense that conventional power dynamics has returned. The prime minister’s juggling a variety of race and regional equations is geared to consolidate and further expand his mandate. This means that he has settled for a more down-to-earth approach to politics rather than chase for a brave new world.Prime Minister Najib is going to be his own man, not yielding to pressure of any kind whether from Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad If there was any doubt on this score, it was laid to rest when PM Najib has left little doubt in the minds of his colleagues that he intends to be a hard taskmaster, will sack Muhyiddin Yassin and set clear targets Muhyiddin must shed his reputation of being a racist and that its leaders had to lead a moderate lifestyle.
Prime Minister Najib is going to be his own man, not yielding to pressure of any kind whether from Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad If there was any doubt on this score, it was laid to rest when PM Najib has left little doubt in the minds of his colleagues that he intends to be a hard taskmaster, will sack Muhyiddin Yassin and set clear targets Muhyiddin must shed his reputation of being a racist and that its leaders had to lead a moderate lifestyle.
Muhyiddin insists he was not being racist when he said he was Malay first and Malaysian second.Muhyiddin said he was merely evaluating the position of the Malay race in society, and stressed there was no need for him to be apologe“Although there are some who label me an ultra for saying that I am Malay first, I am no racist,” The Star quoted Muhyiddin , as saying.
Muhyiddin , who is also the Education Minister, further said there is still a lot of room for improvement of the country’s education system, not just for Malays, but for all Malaysians.Even if we address problems on a need basis, the target group that we cannot neglect is the majority (the Malays) Malaysia’s Najib Faces UMNO Party and Mahathir Protest
Najib will not be missed as PM. Peter’s Principle (1969) states that bureaucracies promote people to the level of their incompetence. Nothing could be truer than this in Najib’s case, and almost never listened to. Liberation from the extended coalition dharma of UMNO 1 spelt his doom, as power effectively passed to the inner political core of UMNO. Najib’s expertise has always been in managing to walk the mean between economic fundamentalism and democratic acceptability. The art of the possible. This is what makes him an exceptional . His credibility overseas is far higher than his domestic ratings. He would make an exceptional, high level diplomat for spreading knowledge on the magnificent success ofMalaysia economy, using the time honored instrument of Malaysia. A combination of problem solving skills based on the ability to spin interventions, which have no immediate international precedents, but fit the extant environment and adhere to basic economic principles.said
If BN cannot get back Selangor which many (excluding UMNO) believe, then thats the last nail in the coffin. BN and UMNO especially must get the support of the 40% Malay voters that had gone to the Opposition back. If tha % increased in PKR favour, then BN is doomed. Forget Chinese and Indian voters. They have made their minds long time already not to support BN not for anything else but just to TRY what PKR can do by giving them one term just one term. There is no risk there. IF PKR fails to perform, kick them out. But voters will judge how the Opposition perform in Penang, Selangor and Kelantan. So you see the Chinese and Indian principle is very straight forward unlike the Malays., who have to think of the Ketuanan Melayu, Islam some more and many other variables in the Voting equation which to the Chinese and Indians are of very little or no significance.
Noh, the Selangor Umno liaison chief, hit back at Dr Mahathir last week, asking him to explain Umno's image as a corrupt party and when the public began
when Tun Mahathir saying that it is up to Najib to accept the blame or not. In this case, I don't see that it is the fault of Najib. We cannot judge a failure of a party, only with the regaining of a state. How about the achievement of government in maintaining the rest of the state?
True to form Mahathir is at his usual ruthless and sarcastic self when he said "It is up to him (whether he wants to accept the blame for the dismal performance in the polls)." He just stabbed Najib in the back, twisted the knife and gave Najib another back hand slap. And true to form, Najib will remain silent and let his ministers defend him.Mahathir better understand, that no matter who takes the lead in Selangor, whether Pakatan or BN, get rid of CORRUPTION. Period.Who ever is corrupt free, they will lead. BN can never be clean, as long as SCUMNO is involved. They are corrupt to the core. Mahathir is the one who led the pack.He destroyed civil society. And, now he is pointing fingers at everybody and pontificating. The very people he is pointing are, his own, handpicked people. I suppose his conscious is now troubling as he prepares to meet his maker.
After an uncommon fight on the anti-corruption plank and disrupting the political landscape of the country That’s playing to the gallery. With a handful of populist acts of late, which political parties often resort to in their desire to curry favour with voters, Najib has already taken a handful of populist decisions lately which include free kangkung PM has “landed himself in the kangkong soup” after he hit back at the people for criticising the government following the increase in the price of goods. all leading to a higher subsidy burden for the government. Subsidies don’t come from thin air either. The common man should understand that it’s taken back through taxes on other goods and services, which they only have to pay. a bogey taken up by a section of politicians seeking to play to a certain vote bank. In this case the vote bank are the rich traders, who have been historically UMNO sympathizers and who also contribute generously to the party funds. It’s got nothing to do with people on the fringes as it doesn’t impact their lives. Earlier, the favourite whipping boy the bogey publicised by some such PAKATAN politicians
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak enters 2014 beset by growing hostility from both the public and within his own political party, the United Malays National Organization, characterized by a deluge of New Year messages across cyberspace celebrating the “year ofbarang naik,” Malay language for rising prices of items.
That is a play on the initials BN, for Barisan Nasional, the national ruling coalition. It has become an opposition battle cry to the point where Najib mentioned it himself in a recent speech
Najib is making an astute move now, after national and intraparty elections have been completed, taking on the necessary but unappetizing task of dismantling decades of subsidies that have driven government debt close to the statutory limit of 55 percent of gross domestic product. In the wake of both sets of elections, he is temporarily invulnerable to both opposition and intraparty assaults.
However, electricity tariffs have risen by 15 percent, sugar subsidies have been cut. Last September, Petronas, the national energy company, cut fuel subsidies in a move that it said would save the government RMB1 billion annually. Public anger at the cutting of the subsidies is substantial and growing
In addition, many in the party rank and file are still furious over widespread spending to keep the current leadership in place in the September intraparty elections.
That has brought the prime minister under unprecedented attack from bloggers aligned with the wing of the party controlled by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who are delivering an extraordinary onslaught on his lifestyle and that of his wife, even going so far as an unprecedented call for attention to corruption within UMNO itself. The attacks had been expected from the time Najib blocked Mahathir’s son, Mukhriz, from becoming one of the party’s three vice presidents in the September polls.
Najib has sought to deflect criticism, saying the price hikes have been caused by factors such as the global economy and extreme weather that cut into the fish catch and drove up the price of vegetables. The government has also sought to spread the pain by cutting government ministers’ allowances by 10 percent, banning civil servants from business class flights, restricting expenses on official government functions. However, that hasn’t mollified voters, who staged public protests over New Year’s.
Najib also enraged voters by leaving for most of the holidays, going to Las Vegas and other watering holes with his wife, Rosmah Mansor, whose free-spending ways have alienated large swaths of the conservative Malay Muslim community. He is being called “Mr Nowhere” because of his absences from the country.
“A putsch is in the air, definitely, as the frustration with Najib’s free spending and extravagant lifestyle increases,” a Malay businessman told Asia Sentinel. “Najib is in the weakest position any prime minister in Malaysia has ever seen.”
Calls have been rising to have Mahathir come back to the government administrative center of Putra Jaya as an “adviser” to right the ship, something that appears highly unlikely. Mahathir himself made light of the idea.
In the meantime, bloggers who have been described as aligned with Mahathir have been raising their game, making broadly based attacks on Najib and even other UMNO officials, calling attention to what appears to be corruption in the award of highway contracts.
Kadir Jasin, a former New Straits Times editor and close longtime Mahathir ally, wrote recently that “To many UMNO leaders, the measure of the party’s success is big cars, big houses and expensive watches whose names they can’t even mention.” In particular, Rosmah has been criticized repeatedly for her taste in vastly expensive watches.
Kadir also called attention to “people with no formal appointments and duties (who) are known to use government on pretext of serving the country,” an apparent reference to Rosmah’s November commandeering of an official government jet to fly to Qatar to attend an international forum.
“Do they know that even the Queen (of England) uses trains and charters planes when travelling overseas? They should because many like the PM studied in the UK. Air transport for the British Royal Family and the government of the UK is provided, depending on circumstances and availability, by a variety of military and civilian operators. But most often they fly using scheduled commercial flights, normally the British Airways.”
“We are complaining about the wrong things he is doing in accommodating the wishes of his wife,” Kadir wrote. “We are asking the government to be accountable. The PM should answer these allegations. The way he bragged about his wife in public, he was in fact saying that his wife has more influence than him with foreign leaders.”
“Outsyedthebox” suggested that Najib, who had never finished his economics degree, actually “imbibed from the “Proton school of management” (the money-losing national car) “where it is a good thing to buy something high and sell it low. Or buy something high and then sell it even higher to people who have few options.:
“Mahathir’s and (former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin’s) hands are all over the place but the point is that Najib and his wife are providing all the ammo,” a source said. “Without the ammo, Mahathir would be hard pressed to rally his troops against Najib.”
Everything “down to the price of ice has increased in a manner of two weeks,” said another UMNO loyalist. “Everything in Malaysia shot up in one month without notice. The government keeps the ringgit so weak against the US dollar, the cost of living keeps bouncing, salary increases are nothing. Crime is up, corruption is up. People are getting really upset.”
During the waning days of the premiership of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, as the rank and file sought to push him out, “similar contempt was restricted to some segments of UMNO and the ruling elite,” a source told Asia Sentinel. “With Mahathir, it was disgust and contempt from intellectuals and rights groups. But with Najib – it’s across the board and it extends to his wife and friends.”
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