Dr M’s ‘NO SHOW’ at Perkasa vs Najib

KUALA LUMPUR - Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, while taking note of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s criticisms, maintains that BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia) is not an attempt to bribe voters to return to the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

He’s also taking the position that although vernacular schools are not mentioned in the Federal Constitution, as pointed out by Mahathir earlier this week, it’s not politically correct to talk about doing away with them while at the same time, in a contradiction in terms, trying to woo the Chinese voters back to BN.

Mahathir is also against the promised repeal of the Sedition Act by Najib on the grounds that “it would affect the core struggle of Umno”. The jury is still out on that and Najib has not backtracked from fulfilling his pledge repeated in an interview not so long ago with BBC in London.

Najib’s apparent fight back against positions taken by Mahathir, including on the education system dividing Malaysians, was expected to get mention in the former Prime Minister’s opening speech at Perkasa’s convention on Sunday but significantly he did not show up. Perkasa is an extreme right-wing Malay NGO allegedly sponsored by Mahathir as patron and admittedly funded, to some extent, by the Federal Government.

Perkasa may be left out of a job if Najib shifts to the center

PM Najib

The timing of the Perkasa convention itself, obviously a deliberate move on the eve of the Umno General Assembly, makes for significant reading.

Perkasa sees Najib’s transformation as going off at a tangent from its struggle, especially on Malay rights and Islam. Mahathir may prefer to focus more on the direction being taken by Najib or the lack of it and hence the no show at the Perkasa convention.

The climax of all this would be whether Mahathir turns up on Tuesday for the Umno General Assembly. His absence would send the clearest signal that Najib’s days are numbered and that the forces are gathering to oust him through the Umno Supreme Council which may still be very much in Mahathir’s pocket.

The anti-climax would be the tone of the debate at the Umno General Assembly, despite guidelines being given out, i.e. whether it would degenerate into the politics of distraction and disruption through rhetoric and polemics centred around even more Chinese-bashing.

The sore point with Umno is that the “ungrateful” Chinese, forgetting the hand of the Malay “tuan” feeding it, has in the recent past rejected not once but twice the Chinese-based parties in the BN coalition i.e. MCA, Gerakan and SUPP.

Najib drawing the battle lines

Najib, in an interview with a Malay daily on Sunday, begged to differ with Mahathir and drew the battle lines. The only point where he’s on accord with Mahathir is Umno Selangor. Their thinking is that it should be dissolved and a fresh effort made.

“If there are calls for Chinese vernacular schools to be abolished, and at the same time we are trying to increase support from the Chinese community, this is a conflicting situation,” said Najib in the interview. “It is simply not possible to gain support from the Chinese community if we are also seeking to close Chinese vernacular schools in the same breath.”

He warned that the party must decide “what it is we want”. In an open democratic system, he pointed out, “we need overall support if Barisan Nasional is to form the government”.

“Westerners says lose-lose, but we want win-win,” said Najib “If we adopt a lose-lose strategy, we will face a lot of difficulties when the general elections are upon us.”

BR1M, he stressed in touching on another critical area, must continue to compensate for the withdrawal of subsidies. At current world market prices for crude oil, there are no subsidies, but subsidies may be needed when the crude oil market goes up again.

He also drew home the point by reiterating that BR1M was to compensate for the “the withdrawal of subsidies and the increase in fuel prices”.

Najib talks big picture

DR M

The crux of the matter, Najib continued, was the big picture: whether the BN can be returned to power even if with a reduced majority as along as it secures the 112 seats in Parliament to form the Federal Government. The two-thirds majority is no longer an objective.

The stark reality, according to Najib, is that BN continuing to hang on to Putrajaya “even if it means by the skin of the teeth”, as Deputy Umno President Muhyiddin Yassin put it this week, hinges in not pandering to the demands of only one group of the electorate.

Muhyiddin, in his take, trotted out an old cliché, change or be changed, to warn the ruling party in a Malay daily on Saturday that it’s still in grave peril after winning the last two General Elections “by the skin of its teeth”.

In directing his criticisms at the Malay daily and “extremists” in Umno and its NGOs, he asked: “When we use language, isn’t there a way to convey our message clearly without offending others?”

To add insult to injury, he added, the party was plagued by internal strife.

DAP’s elder statesman Lim Kit Siang put the crux of the Umno General Assembly in a nutshell earlier this week.

He will be watching out to see whether it will degenerate into another ferocious bout of Chinese-bashing just like the orgy of Chinese-bashing immediately after the 13th General Elections in May last year when Utusan Malaysia, the Umno mouthpiece, led the attack with the “irresponsible and misleading” front-page headline and question “Apa lagi orang Cina mahu?” (What else do the Chinese want?) to allegedly scam the Chinese and intimidate them into submission to Umno through MCA, Gerakan and SUPP. - FMT