DPM's flaws exposed by shoot-from-the-hip stance

These days Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's woes, imposed or self-inflicted, have combined to call unflattering attention to his competence for the post the public assumes he is ambitious for and likely to gain after the 13th general election's results confirm Prime Minister Najib Razak as a one-term Umno president.

The smart money says Najib will not be able to improve on predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's performance at the last general election which would make the incumbent Umno president a lame duck going into the party's triennial poll to be held after GE13.

The fact that Najib has offered each BN MP a RM1.5 million sweetener that would have to be budgeted into the national accounts for 2013, thus rendering more forbidding the country's 15th straight annual deficit, is indicative of desperation in the PM's survey of his coalition's electoral prospects.

His boosters, citing opinion surveys of doubtful methodology, have told him that the Malaysian public is apt to think more highly of the PM than of the party and coalition he leads.

This is probably why he is plumping for their acceptance of his coalition through the hoariest of methods - profligate servings from the gravy train which the country's finances, in the reckoning at least of one of his ministers (Pemandu chief Idris Jala), can no longer afford.

Apart from the RM1.5 million spending allocation to each BN MP, it is said there is likely to be another round of a RM500 handout to 2.5 million hard-strapped households in the country.

The fiscal implications of these pork barrel measures bolster the view that when the Najib administration bandies about the term ‘Economic Transformation Programme', it does so with Humpty Dumpty in mind ("A word is anything I say it means").

Embarrassing volte-face 

Fiscal irresponsibility aside, the reality of a lack of contending and constructive visions in the top-tier of the Umno leadership is reflected in Muhyiddin's gyrations.

Unless of course you accept that a reflexive occupation of positions to the right of Najib, on issues of race and the economy particularly, constitute a viable stance for a contender for Umno's top post, the current DPM is on a hiding to nothing.

This was amply demonstrated by Muhyiddin's alacrity in defending the decision to suspend loans to Selangor recipients of PTPTN (Higher Education Loan Fund), a position that blew up in his face when the move was rescinded within days of its announced implementation.

The slap dealt Muhyiddin by the government's embarrassed volte-face on the issue ought to have given him pause.

But an ingrained reflex is hard to trump.

Taking the cue from the rabid Utusan Malaysia, Muhyiddin sailed into another controversy, this one about opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's alleged maintenance of bank accounts reputedly totaling RM3 billion.

Muhyiddinchallenged Anwar to clarify the matter. The opposition leader was swift on the uptake: he said he was willing to open all his bank accounts provided Muhyiddindoes the same.

For credibility, a challenge such as the one Muhyiddin issued Anwar, if met with a counter, requires that the challenge-poser and the challenged engage in a duel of self exposes.

But all that is forthcoming is a deafening silence at the DPM's quarter. Moral of the episode: glass house residents should not throw stones.

Muhyiddin's man also took hit

It was not only Muhyiddin who took a hit on the PTPTN issue. Higher Education Minister Khaled Nordin was similarly bloodied by the government's about-turn.

Khaled approved the suspension of study loans to Selangor recipients on the grounds that it would test the Pakatan Rakyat government's ability to deliver on the coalition's pledge of free university education for qualified students.

In succumbing to the temptations of one-upmanship, both Muhyiddin and Khaled (left) made an unconscionable error: the interests of affected students must not be held hostage to partisan political maneuvering.

Khaled, backed by Muhyiddin, is on course to be menteri besar of Johor but Najib has obtained the Sultan of Johor's understanding for a two-year extension of tenure for incumbent MB Ghani Othman after the coming general election.

This was secured on the grounds that veteran Ghani has got to be around to see the big projects in the pipeline for Johor are on to a more even keel.

This is unfavourable to Muhyiddin as Ghani, hardly an admirer of the DPM's, will be in charge of a state that will send the largest number of delegates to Umno's triennial party polls that must be held after the general election.

All of which goes to show that a reflex-driven and opposition-for-opposition-sake attitude is not a viable platform on which to sustain a claim to the top position in party or country.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.