Who will be the ‘April fool’?

Certainly among the rakyat, Najib's image will take a beating the longer he delays the polls. Foreign investors, too, may wonder what is the matter.

COMMENT

Barisan Nasional’s flags have already gone up and PAS members have been reported by the mainstream media as leaving the party in droves. These are signs that the 13th general election is near but not that near, it seems.

The latest unconfirmed news from a PKR journalist friend is that polls may be pushed forward to the third week of April due to Qing Ming, which is from the end of March to mid-April when the Chinese visit the graves of their departed loved ones as a mark of respect and also to clean up the graves.

However, a political analyst who is a friend of this columnist opined that Qing Ming cannot be the reason for the polls delay as the general election can always be held during the third or fourth week of March and not necessarily the end of March.

“The later the polls are held, the more weird names there will be in the electoral roll and the more people will be able to attend the closed-door screening of ‘Tanda Putera’.

“The whole thing about the polls date is something uncomfortable for [Prime Minister] Najib [Tun Razak] who acts as if he has a big fish bone stuck in his throat and he has no idea what to do with it because he cannot swallow it nor spit it out,” said Nizar Jamaluddin, the former Perak Menteri Besar from PAS who lost his seat due to an undemocratic power-grab.

Be that as it may, April polls will truly confirm that Najib has polls-phobia despite all his braggadocio in attacking Pakatan Rakyat as a maker of false promises.

It will also confirm that Najib is not confident of regaining two-thirds majority in Parliament and it will be summed up that he is just plain afraid of losing at the ballot box, the phantom and alien menace notwithstanding.

One has to compare his attitude towards the polls to that of former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who has called for general elections twice (in 2004 and 2008) whereas Najib has much difficulty in doing it just this once.

In football terminology, we are now going into “injury time”.

“His plan is to tire Pakatan and to tax Pakatan’s limited resources,” said PAS Shah Alam MP, Khalid Samad, when asked to comment on what he thinks of the delayed general election.

Weak excuse

Besides that, the prime minister is also waiting for the Felda share price to go up in order to placate the Felda settlers.

Thus, his reason for delaying the polls in order to see his transformation plans come into fruition as mentioned in a local English paper on Feb 25, is a very weak excuse for the delay.

He has also mentioned that he wants to see more people earning more than RM2,000 per month by 2020 as mentioned on the front page of an English daily on Feb 25.

By 2020, more people should be earning more than RM5,000 a month as cost of living is going up by leaps and bounds.

His statement is a terrible one and is devoid of economic sense as those earning RM2,000 now are already finding it difficult to make ends meet.

Clearly Najib is not in touch with reality and knows nothing about the poor rakyat’s difficulty.

This columnist’s friends from PAS are also questioning Najib by asking, “Nak guna auto atau manual ni?” (Does Najib wants to use automatic or manual?) This is in reference to whether Najib wants to dissolve Parliament or wait for the automatic dissolution on April 28.

“Guna auto lagi senang, tak perlu pikir banyak-banyak,” (Using automatic is easier, no need to think a lot) is the general comment making the rounds on the social media.

Certainly among the rakyat, Najib’s image will take a beating the longer he delays the polls. Foreign investors too may wonder what is the matter.

BN’s propaganda or spin-writers are therefore now going into overdrive. In the social media, BN’s cybertroopers have been soundly thrashed by those who are pro-Pakatan.

The former try in vain to defend Najib but everyone can see through their falsehood. Their one-liners of “Pakatan bodoh dan bangang” reflect their mentality and also the mentality of those who hire them.

In fact, BN can only win due to the services offered by phantoms, aliens and the Election Commission (EC). Najib has little genuine support among the rakyat although coerced support exists in the rural areas.

Therefore, delaying the polls is evil. He has no choice but to do that in the hope that Pakatan’s supporters will lose their temper and if something untoward happens in the run-up to the general election, emergency can then be imposed.

No one must fall into this trap. We must all take a relaxed but focused approach, akin to sitting on a deck chair and sipping lemonade while focusing on the sunset.

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.