‘C’ for PM Najib?

Najib thinks he is cunning but the year of the Water Snake is coming and the voters may bite him with the speed of a cobra.

COMMENT

In one of our local English dailies dated Nov 11 this year, in a short article pertaining to the comments made by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak on the American presidential elections, he was quoted as saying: “The voters there were given a choice – whether to allow President Obama to continue with his transformation programme or opt for change as pledged by his opponent Mitt Romney.

“The electorate there were not convinced by the new agenda brought by Romney but wanted continuity of Obama’s programmes. They didn’t want to gamble with their country’s future.

“In this sense I would like to ask whether Malaysian voters want continuity of the government’s transformation programmes or a change to an uncertain future,” our prime minister was reported as saying in his speech during the launch of the country’s third Rural Transformation Centre at Kuala Linggi in Malacca.

PM Najib’s main crux of the message was that the Americans wanted continuity instead of change.

Our prime minister is in fact technically wrong because the Americans had already voted for change four years ago in November 2008 when Obama’s slogan was ‘Change’. Now in 2012, Obama’s slogan is ‘Forward’. Therefore this simply means that after the Americans have opted for change, it is now time to go forward.

By plugging Obama’s name, what PM Najib is doing is called ‘using another person’s leg-strength’. This is a Cantonese proverb which means that we need to use another person’s name to get what we want.

For example, John who wants a 20% pay rise might say to his boss, “I think everyone in our department should get a 20% pay rise because we have all worked very hard to increase the company’s profits. Even Daniel said so.” This means that John is using Daniel’s name to lend weight to his own request.

Thus PM Najib is using Obama’s victory to propel himself to victory in the coming 13th general election but his usage is wrong because Obama represents change. So our prime minister has made a blunder there!

Gullible masses

Another blunder that he has made this month is in regards to the condominium project located too close to Batu Caves.

By declaring that BN will cancel the project should they get to recapture Selangor in the forthcoming polls, he is only showing up BN’s blunder as prior to his announcement, Selangor state assemblyman for Pandamaran, DAP’s Ronnie Liu who is also a member of the state exco in charge of local government has revealed that the project was in fact approved by BN’s people.

Is PM Najib thinking that the Indians will fall for this trickery and be deceived into voting for BN?

There has been too many instances of BN leaders thinking that we the rakyat are the ‘gullible masses’.

However the greatest example is the NFC cattle-breeding project. That is a RM250 million mistake and yet PM Najib is silent on this.

Another example is the outsourcing of road law enforcement via the AES cameras to two private firms.

Cows and cameras aside, what about cops? What has PM Najib got to say concerning the rape of an Indonesian national by three low-ranking policemen? These three policemen are a disgrace to the police force because as law enforcers they have transformed into law-breakers!

These three examples make us think of one more word which begins with the alphabet ‘C’ and that is ‘control’.

Is PM Najib really in control of the nation? Or is he still concentrating on choosing the ever-elusive polls date? When will he come to a conclusion for that matter? Is the delay of the polls date being camouflaged as a strategy because he lacks the courage to dissolve Parliament?

He had better get going in regards to administration proper instead of getting carried away with his transformation programmes. What has he done to curb crime and corruption? Is he trying to convince the masses with cooked-up statistics showing that the crime rate is under control while things are being swept and concealed under the carpet?

He certainly deserves a big ‘C’ on his report card. Is it time to choose an ‘A’ as in Anwar to helm the nation?

Cobra bite

The prime minister must wake up to daily realities. No point telling the rakyat to be thrifty or to change our lifestyle when he himself is lacking in consistency in showing leadership by example.

Obviously he is still in another cosmos. He is dancing the ‘cha-cha’ but the music is the ‘conga’.

He thinks he is cunning but the year of the Water Snake is coming and the voters may bite him with the speed of a cobra. Then it is curtains for him.

That is why the powers-that-be needs to be in cahoots with the Election Commission to stay in power.

Once the rakyat are fed-up of crooks, the winds of change or in this case the cyclone of change will blow BN out of Putrajaya.

Selena Tay is a FMT columnist.