Exactly what is Najib banking on to win GE-13: Is RM100mil enough?

Regardless of when the 13th general election will be held, there are 222 Parliament seats to be contested and several past leaders such as former Finance minister Daim Zainuddin have predicted a win by a simple-majority for UMNO-BN.

But very tellingly, they could not be sure if Prime Minister Najib Razak would be able to improve on the 2008 electoral results achieved by his predecessor Abdullah Badawi that were deemed to be disastrous as it was the first time ever that the UMNO-BN had conceded their two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Najib too seems to be quite confident that UMNO--BN can win but still refuses to announce the date for the ballot. This in itself is quite telling. If he was truly confident, he would have called for elections long ago and consolidate his grip on UMNO and Malaysia.

The fact is the 58-year-old Najib - rated as being the worst of Malaysia's 6 prime ministers so far - has been forced to scale back his ambition of snatching back the two-thirds majority, which if he succeeds will ensure his survival in UMNO and allow him to continue to be the prime minister.

"We would love to have two-thirds [majority], I will be lying if I say we don't want to. I do want two-thirds but it will be much more challenging now," the Prime Minister said at the recent opening of the Foreign Correspondents Club in Kuala Lumpur.

Najib to be history soon?

Najib now seeks only to improve on the 2008 results. Otherwise, he will be history and as Daim warned, either deputy Umno president Muhyiddin or some other 'new challenger' will move up.

In 2008, the Pakatan Rakyat led by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim won 52% of the popular vote, but because of severe gerrymandering and tilted balloting, ended up with only 82 seats compared to UMNO-BN's 140 - which was 8 seats of the two-thirds minimum.

UMNO-BN says it is confident of winning all the parliament seats that it controls in states such as Sarawak-29, Johor-25, Sabah-22, Perak-13, Pahang-12. That comes up to 101. Add in the contribution from the Federal Territories, Najib believes he has 110 seats under his belt.

For him to match the 2008 tally of 140 seats, he needs another 30, and to regain two-thirds, he needs 38. For these, he is looking to the Federal Territories, 10 seats each from Selangor, Kedah and Kelantan and 5 seats from Penang. The balance could come defections or by persuading Independents to join the BN coalition.

This may be easier said than done. Pakatan is expecting to increase its tally of one each in Sabah and Sarawak to a total of 10 from these two states alone. Johor is another state where it expects to improve on its previous dismal tally of just one parliamentary seat.

At least RM100 million, will be needed

Given that the tussle is by no means settled, UMNO insiders say that even with 110 seats "more or less secured", Najib would still need to spend  at least RM100 million to 'buy' the remaining 38 seats. Actually, RM100 million does seem a rather conservative estimate, with many pundits putting the figure at RM500 million at least.

They expect the UMNO-BN to approach all opposition candidates who win in the GE-13, especially the ones accused of some wrong doing or other and therefore vulnerable to blackmail. Indeed, money and a skeleton or two in the cupboard are very strong motivators and Najib knows this well.

Najib also needs to have access to plentiful cash to buy the goodwill of his own UMNO members so that they will not sabotage him if they or their division chieftains do not get selected to be candidates to contest in the seats.

The party grapevine has it that his advisers have made it clear that whatever goodies handed out, those who receive must know that it came from Najib, and not the people, or the party's supreme council or top leadership. This is to ensure that recipients will know who they need to be grateful to and repay when the time "is ripe".

Not easy to remove the propaganda of the past 5 decades

The Election Commission, long regarded as UMNO's lap dog, also know their role only too well. Therefore winning by a simple majority is not that tough as UMNO-BN does have a 'fixed deposit' of votes in all the states they control. It is much easier for UMNO-BN to maintain these seats and much more difficult for the Pakatan to maintain theirs.

Like it or not, UMNO-BN voters have been brainwashed by decades of propaganda, turning them into 'robots'. As such, despite Najib's huge personal scandals and those of his UMNO colleagues including Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Jalil's RM250million corruption debacle, die-hard UMNO-BN loyalists will continue to vote for him and his tainted team.

As some pundits have pointed out, the rural folks do not care about the Scorpene submarines for which Najib has been accused of receiving a bribe of RM570million to buy. Many would not even know what the complex case was all about, and what is this thing called the corruption index, they may even ask?

So to the UMNO-BN strategists, what the common folk really want is another RM500 and if this can ensure UMNO-BN wins, Najib would be only too willing to announce another RM500 largesse just before he dissolves Parliament. The people will surely be swayed by the latest handout and may even be extra happy to vote for UMNO-BN. Najib has got nothing to lose either way; it is not his money!

Banking on the weakness of the opposition

Meanwhile, the opposition is still new, just about 4 years old, although it has made huge strides since winning 5 of the country's 13 states in 2008.

Yet the arguments by the BN that Pakatan is still immature and cannot govern no longer hold water with the masse , not when Penang and Selangor consistently top the list of best-managed and best-invested states.

Pakatan leaders have also become popular with the people, who enjoy their well-researched and well-argued statements, especially in the urban areas where they can access the alternate media on the Internet.

So for these reasons, Najib knows he is not as comfortable as before. It will not be easy to improve on the 2008 results, even though he has the money and is ready to splash it all around.

And this is why he is dragging his feet, looking for the 'perfect storm', the perfect moment to hold GE-13. Sorry to tell him, he may have to wait for another 55 years!

Malaysia Chronicle