Stop rambling, bring on the polls!

It is high time Najib matched words with deed and call for the polls immediately instead of displaying empty bravado.

COMMENT

A local English daily recently reported that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had advised Malaysian citizens to beware of the opposition due to what he had labelled as the opposition’s three bad teachings: not necessary to settle debts, no need to remember good deeds and no need to fulfil promises.

As the three bad teachings seem like a child’s kindergarten vendetta, the prime minister has definitely hit a new low in promoting BN. This brutish, abrasive and aggressive style of campaigning shows that Najib is lacking in finesse and shows him up as a suitable leader for a Third World nation.

It is high time for him to match words with deed by calling for the polls this very instant instead of exhibiting empty bravado.

He has given silent acquiescence to MCA to employ the use of sewer politics to attack DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and also the Penang and Selangor state governments. Also, do not forget his silence when his goons sold burgers and performed butt-exercises in front of Bersih co-chair S Ambiga’s house.

Do all these incidents mean that Najib is no longer fit to govern? Why is he still dragging on the polls date by giving the lame excuse that the rakyat is accepting all his transformation programmes and hence he requires time to implement them? If that is so, then there is absolutely no excuse to delay the polls in order to obtain a strong mandate to carry out his programmes.

Perhaps, the business community can pressure him to hold the polls in September due to the prevailing economic climate.

He has said that he can win 14 seats, oops, sorry, 14 states so why is he still hesitating with regard to the 13th general election? This proves that he is a magnificent flip-flopper. Currently, investors are holding on to their capital and people cannot make decisions due to this uncertainty.

“Perhaps the polls delay is to give time to certain quarters to plunder the nation’s coffers and transfer these funds abroad,” opined Nizar Jamaluddin, the PAS MP for Bukit Gantang, who is also of the view that something evil may be afoot.

Nizar had also mentioned that he had warned Pakatan Rakyat supporters to be very, very patient in the face of abnormal events such as the butt-exercises and hooligan attacks during Pakatan’s ceramahs.

“If we retaliate, then there may be planned incidents causing more uncertainty. We must therefore be calm and not fall into the enemy’s trap,” said Nizar.

Is Najib all rhetoric only?

In the meantime, the world economic situation has a worrying forecast although this does not seem to concern the prime minister who is too busy carrying out his own Pakatan-bashing agenda.

Although the rakyat may enjoy the crumbs thrown at them by the BN federal government now, once they win another mandate you can be sure that the gift-giving to the rakyat will be stopped with immediate effect.

Till today, there is still no economic blueprint for the rakyat except Kedai This and Kedai That. These are all piecemeal efforts that do not genuinely solve the problem of the low-income group whose real take-home pay is diminishing by the day.

Is Najib all rhetoric only? The delay in calling for the general election is an obvious indication that either he is afraid of something or is not in control of the situation despite all his bragging.

“He is afraid to hold the polls because of the victory of the Islamic party, Ikhwan Muslimin, in Egypt. Najib is afraid that due to Mohamed Mursi’s victory in the Egyptian polls, the Muslims here may have the same idea to vote for an Islamic party like PAS. It does have a bearing but we can’t say to what extent. I have also noticed that Malaysia was slow to congratulate President Mursi,” said Khalid Samad, the PAS MP for Shah Alam.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media is having a field day in carrying out Najib’s agenda of bashing the Penang and Selangor state governments while lavishing praise on him for his transformation programmes that are said to be able to generate wealth for the nation and the rakyat. Is the mainstream media now a tool for glorifying the prime minister’s words and deeds?

If he is so great as he has been portrayed, then he should dissolve Parliament immediately. Instead, he is relying on the secret date strategy to catch Pakatan by surprise in the hope that Pakatan will run out of steam by then.

It is obvious that BN’s present agenda is just to whack Pakatan. The former will continue to do this till it thinks that it has enough support and then it will call for the polls.

BN hopes to tire Pakatan by putting Pakatan on the defensive 24/7. But this tactic could backfire on the ruling coalition as people could get so fed up of its underhanded antics and are just waiting for the general election to vote BN out.

Perhaps the BN strategists and leaders are so devoid of constructive and intelligent ideas that they have to resort to hitting below the belt and hoping that people will not see through this. At the end of the day, can BN still win? And if it does, is it because of the “weird” electoral rolls which has many discrepancies?

Selena Tay is a FMT columnist.