BN, a tyranny dressed up as a democracy: This is how it survived

In a genuine democracy, a government so badly run as the Barisan Nasional’s could never have survived in power for more than 50 years. Malaysia has, in fact, been ruled by a succession of dictators since its independence from British rule in 1957.

The BN is a party like Saadam’s Ba’ath or Mubarak’s National Democratic Party. It is a tyranny clumsily dressed up as a democracy. Tyrannies are fond of playing dress-up like this; note the word ‘Democractic’ in Mubarak’s party. It was anything but that. North Korea’s calls his party The Workers Party. If he wanted to be honest, he would call it The Starving Workers Party.

How did the BN manage to do this when in 1957 it was envisaged that Malaysia, and for that matter, later Singapore, would be run as democracies? The BN destroyed democracy in Malaysia by systematically emasculating every institution that was supposed to function as a check on it. This included the Police, the Judiciary, the Election Commission. The BN also turned the Fourth Estate into its own propaganda machine, rather than allow it to fulfill the critical role that it was supposed to play. With all this in place, the BN was free to do anything it liked. And it did.

Taib in Sarawak

Democracy cannot survive without its institutions, and in Malaysia it withered. The BN leaders were fond of asking people who were unhappy to show their dissatisfaction at the ballot box, while fully intending to rig every election. They were well aware that elections are only limited means to show discontent. Until 2008. In 2008, so massive was disaffection with the BN and its arrogant leaders, that Malaysians in Peninsular Malaysia by huge majorities voted for the opposition. Even the BN’s large-scale cheating in the form of vote-buying and phantom voters could not stop the tide against it.

It was a different scenario in East Malaysia, where Sarawakians are deprived of any right to choose their representatives by blatant, unashamed voter intimidation and vote-buying. Ballot boxes are thrown into rivers and replaced by new boxes pre-filled with ‘votes’ for the BN parties. Every government agency is involved in the rigging of the Sarawak election, even Tenaga Nasional, which organizes blackouts to facilitate cheating. Even telecoms companies are involved in cutting off coverage to serve the purposes of the BN.

Instead of an elected government in Sarawak, Sarawakians have the corrupt, despotic rule of Taib Mahmud. Taib, a shriveled-up little old man, cuts a ridicoulous figure when he appears with his decades-younger new wife, but has hung on to power for decades. Taib does not even bother to deny the billions amassed by his children all over the world, preferring to take a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it approach.

Taib continues to rule Sarawak today, despite the losses his coalition suffered at the recent Sarawak state elections. Meanwhile Sarawak’s verdant forests are sold unsustainably for logs, its animals poached and its indigenous people like the Penan displaced from their life-giving forests. Vast tracts of Sarawak are now owned by the rapacious scions of Sarawak’s Taib family. Sarawak bleeds as never before.

In Sabah

Sabahans, meanwhile, are cursed with leaders who are perpetually on sale, lacking only price-tags on their foreheads. Nowhere can you buy an election as easily as you can in Sabah. When the people of Sabah threw out the arrogant Harris Salleh and replaced him with Joseph Pairin Kitingan so many years ago; Sabah appeared to shine a beacon of light for the rest of Malaysia to follow.

But that dream of freedom has long been suppressed by the machinations of the federal BN government. If there is any of the old Joseph Pairin left in him, it is time for him to make his stand against the BN, as must other Sabahans who love their land. Or Sabahans will only have once been warriors.

Rampant graft

Meanwhile, corruption runs rampant in the country, a black cloud enveloping all the land. The latest case of the NFC scandal, is brazen even by Malaysian standards. Taking a loan of RM250 million loan at a 2% interest from the government to ‘develop’ the cattle industry, Salleh Ismail then spends tens of millions buying condos in Bangsar.

Cornered, he quotes false rates of return based on impermanent cash rebates given by the developer. Not a cent of this ‘loan’ has been paid back to the government to-date. For all intents and purposes, Malaysia is out-of-pocket for RM250 million and BN Minister Shahrizat Jalil’s kin are richer by the same.

Najib vs Anwar

Najib Razak, the Prime Minister, grandstanding on Malaysia Day, announced that he would scrap the ISA. In the next breath, he announced that he would be replacing it with 2 new laws. Last week, the BN government arrested 13 people under the ISA, exposing Najib for a liar and a hypocrite. Instead of being ashamed, Najib will instead be tabling a ‘Freedom of Assembly’ bill in parliament next week. It will be a sham, to be certain.

Anwar Ibrahim, whose multi-racial PKR holds together a coalition consisting of the Islamist PAS and the Chinese-based DAP, is Malaysia’s best hope for freedom from the tyranny of the Barisan Nasional. And so, the BN continues to persecute him with blatantly fabricated charges, and tries to gag him on his speaking engagements. The BN wants to jail him before the elections, hoping that this will help them to win. It may well have the opposite effect.

Economy implodes while Najib twiddles his thumb

The economy is imploding, despite the false figures floated about by the BN. Inflation is spiraling, yet the BN claims it is at 3%. Any housewife, forced now to buy less of everything, could tell them different. Bank Negara claims the economy is doing well and then proceeds to clamp down on credit card and household loans, which will naturally affect both consumption and consumer confidence. Which will affect GDP negatively.

It is a pity they do nothing about the RM400billion debt run up by the BN administration. Instead it is compounded by a deficit budget this year, courtesy of the numerically-challenged Najib Razak.

In a free and fair election, the BN would have been thrown out of power in 2008. The election was, despite their losses, stolen by the BN. And so, for the past three years, Malaysians have suffered under the illegitimate rule of an increasingly despotic and corrupt BN.

We can only hope that the next election will mark the end of the BN, the party that has poisoned the political, social and economic life of Malaysia for so long.

Malaysia Chronicle