Political blockbuster: Dragon vs Dinosaur

Are Najib's ideas Jurassic and unlikely to bring the nation or its people forward?

COMMENT

At the recently concluded Umno general assembly, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was reported by a local English daily dated Dec 2, 2012 as having made the statement that “a vote for DAP is a vote for the oppression of the Malays.”

This statement is racist. Is it therefore meant to provoke Malay anger against DAP?

Asked for his comments on Najib’s statement, PAS Kuala Selangor MP, Dzulkefly Ahmad remarked that “PM Najib’s statement is the epitome of a siege-mentality because he is stuck in a racial construct and it is obvious that he is very fearful of losing power to Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

“His statement on DAP does not even contain an iota of truth. Najib is oblivious to the positive political development of New Politics that has debunk racial politics, hence his insistence in sticking to racial politics. Therefore he is hellbent on inciting the Malays to fear DAP.”

Dzulkefly also noted that despite the enormous window-dressing given to Najib’s transformation programmes and his 1Malaysia slogan, the latter has turned into a ‘dinosaur’.

“Najib’s style of politics is antiquated and dull. He has no place in the political construct of a New Malaysia,” commented Dzulkefly.

It is clear then that PM Najib is still stuck in the pre-historic times. His ideas are Jurassic and will not bring the nation nor its people forward.

As for Khalid Samad, the PAS Shah Alam MP, his view is that “Najib is plainly talking rubbish because the ones who are oppressing the Malays are in fact Umno as in the case of the Umno-BN government’s failure to pay the oil royalties to the people of Kelantan, the majority of whom are Malays.”

Khalid also opined that Umno wants the Malays to be dependent on Umno as crutches because if the Malays are no longer in need of Umno, then Umno will lose power.

According to Khalid, Umno wants the Malays to be weak and ignorant so that Umno can pretend to champion the Malays.

“It is certainly not DAP who is denying the oil royalty payment to the PAS Kelantan state government,” added Khalid.

At the end of the day, it can be seen that our prime minister is instigating the Malays to hate DAP whom the compliant mainstream media has labelled as a Chinese-chauvinist party.

This whipping-up of racial sentiment and racial hatred has truly shown that PM Najib’s 1Malaysia slogan is nothing but rubbish coined to hoodwink the rakyat.

Najib’s flaws

PM Najib’s cling on to power is also obvious from his reluctance to call for the polls. He seems to be going into full-term using the tenure of former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Therefore PM Najib is clearly using another man’s strength, so goes a Cantonese proverb.

It must be noted that when Abdullah took over from the fourth prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Oct 31, 2003, Badawi obtained his own tenure less than half a year later when he called for the polls on March 21, 2004.

Therefore the current prime minister is weak in leadership skills but not only that. His skills in economics is also questionable.

Let us compare his record of achieving economic growth for the nation with that of Anwar Ibrahim’s record:

Anwar Ibrahim:
1992 : 8.8%

1993 : 9.9%

1994 : 9.2%

1995 : 9.8%

1996 : 10%

1997 : 7.3%

PM Najib:

2009 : 1.5%

2010 : 7.2%

2011 : 5.1%

As can be seen from the data above, Najib’s best performance at 7.2% even failed to beat Anwar’s worst performance at 7.3% at the height of the Asian Financial Crisis which struck in July 1997.

Another major flaw of PM Najib is his indecisiveness and flip-flopping ways.

The MAS-Air Asia share swap deal, the New Civil Servants Remuneration Scheme and the omission of the Equal Opportunities Commission from the New Economic Model are just three instances that come to mind.

His bashing of Pakatan Rakyat at the recent Umno general assembly shows his sub-conscious fear that he may lose the 13th general election. This has caused Anwar to remark that Pakatan is like a great dragon causing fear to BN.

Coincidentally, Anwar in his sub-conscious too has got it right because in Chinese Metaphysics, Pakatan Rakyat is the Fire Dragon. Thus, Anwar has hit the nail on the head!

The epic battle between the dragon and the dinosaur looks set to be held in the year of the Water Snake in 2013. We are certainly going to have a very exciting year ahead.

Selena Tay is a FMT columnist