PERSATUAN BEKAS PEGAWAI TINGGI KERAJAAN PENYOKONG UMNO

To the Malays it is about DAP being in power if Pakatan Rakyat comes in. To the non-Malays it is about PAS being in power if Pakatan Rakyat comes in. So, to one group, it is about the fear of the erosion of Malay dominance while, to the other, it is about the fear of the rise of the dominance of Islam.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Yesterday, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak delivered his budget speech in the Malaysian Parliament. It is without a doubt an election budget speech, meant to win over the people of Malaysia and entice them to vote for Barisan Nasional in the next general election that can be expected not too far away.

Najib has done his homework. He realises that the Barisan Nasional government is not having the people’s support. He also realises that the government is not getting support even from the civil servants and members of the security forces.

The Special Branch has told Najib that the majority of the civil service is not with the government, so says my Deep Throat in Bukit Aman. The Chinese are extremely angry with the government and are going to punish the MCA and Gerakan and bury them for good.

The Indians are also angry with the government and are already punishing the MIC after burying the PPP and sending the party into oblivion. The Chinese and Indian component parties of the Barisan Nasional coalition government are trying very hard to make amends with members of their respective communities.

And that is not too difficult to do. All they need to do is to blame everything on UMNO, which is believable seeing that Umno has not learned its lesson of 8 March 2008 and still remains arrogant gila.

To add to Umno’s problems, the Malays are also very angry with the Barisan Nasional government. But who are they going to blame? Perkasa is already saying that Umno is selling out the Malays. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself said the same thing many times since 8 March 2008, which you can see from his videos on YouTube.

Najib is trapped. His 1Malaysia is being criticised by both Perkasa as well as Dr Mahathir. His 1Malaysia is not even getting the support of his Deputy, Muhyiddin Yasin.

However, all is not well with the opposition either. So Barisan Nasional will most likely win again in the next election -- not because Barisan Nasional has become popular but rather because the main component of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition, Anwar Ibrahim’s PKR, is showing the same sickness being suffered by UMNO.

And PKR has not even come to power yet. Imagine what it would be like if Pakatan Rakyat comes to power and the sickness in PKR is not just symptomatic but is in fact inherent in all the opposition parties.

It would then make no difference whether the people vote in Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat.

On another front, Najib has obtained intelligence reports from CUEPACS that only 30% or so of its members support the Barisan Nasional government. 70% of its members, who represent the civil service, are clearly against the government. And the Special Branch agrees with this finding because Bukit Aman too has come to that same conclusion.

This is a very significant number and is very worrisome to Najib. In the absence of Chinese and Indian support, he will therefore need the Malay vote. And if even the Malay civil servants do not support the government then what hope does Umno have?

According to Tan Sri Aseh Che Mat, the former Secretary General of the Home Ministry, people of his rank -- the senior civil servants, the KSUs, TKSUs, KPs and TKPs -- can do something to arrest Umno’s sagging support. These people have headed the various ministries and departments and they would know how these civil servants behave and think. They know what it would take to recapture the support of these government servants.

Aseh and gang have formed a club or association called “PERSATUAN BEKAS PEGAWAI TINGGI KERAJAAN PENYOKONG UMNO”. And they have promised to help increase Najib’s and Umno’s popularity.

So, today, 16th October 2010, Najib will play host to 600 of these ex-senior civil servants at Sri Perdana to demonstrate that they endorse Najib and that Najib in turn endorses the Persatuan.

PKR, DAP and PAS had better wake up and beware! The race card is going to be played to the maximum. These senior civil servants are going to be told that if Pakatan Rakyat forms the next federal government then DAP is going to be very dominant. And once DAP ‘controls’ the federal government the Malays are going to be sidelined and become second-class citizens and slaves in their own country.

The Chinese and Indians are of course being told the same thing. Only this time it is the religion card that is being played. And they are being told, like what MCA said a few days ago, that once Pakatan Rakyat forms the federal government PAS will become dominant and Islam will be the law of the land.

To the Malays it is about DAP being in power if Pakatan Rakyat comes in. To the non-Malays it is about PAS being in power if Pakatan Rakyat comes in. So, to one group, it is about the fear of the erosion of Malay dominance while, to the other, it is about the fear of the rise of the dominance of Islam.

This is a win-win situation for Umno. If they can put the fear of race into the Malays and the fear of religion into the non-Malays then they get the support of both sides. The British call this the strategy of divide and rule. And the British has successfully used this strategy for hundreds of years.

Expect today’s meeting with Najib to be seditious and malicious. The warning of May 13 Version 2 is going to be bandied about. They are going to be told of the conspiracy by the non-Malays to rob the Malays of their own country. The Malays are going to be told that they will soon be reduced to what the natives or Blacks of South Africa once were in the days of Apartheid. They are going to be warned that their rights and privileges are going to be eroded if not abolished. They are going to be cautioned that even the monarchy may be abolished and Malaysia turned into a socialist republic where meritocracy will prevail and which will spell doom for the underprivileged and backward Malays.

And they hope with that Umno will regain the support of the Malays in the coming general election. And they hope with that Pakatan Rakyat will be denied the next federal government and the states currently under Pakatan Rakyat will return to Barisan Nasional. And they hope that Pakatan Rakyat will remain sleeping tonight as Najib and Umno does its song and dance routine and play host to 600 senior Malay civil servants who will be Barisan Nasional’s lifeline in the coming general election.