Will Najib change or take a gamble instead?

If a miss is as good as a mile, there's nothing like a win because a win, in Najib's way of thinking, is a win no matter how small the margin.

COMMENT

Change, for the better or worse, is in the air in Putrajaya and perhaps sooner than we think.

That’s putting it, admittedly, rather bluntly.

However, this is no crystal-ball gazing and it’s not rocket science either by any stretch of the imagination.

The fact is that the jury that went into session, after the mid-May General Election last year, is no longer out. The consensus in Umno, and without, is that it cannot be business as usual in the party given the GE13 results and developments since then in Borneo and on both sides of the political divide in the peninsula. Besides, there is any number of shrill voices out there among the do-gooders masquerading as NGOs.

That doesn’t mean the knives have been drawn.

We have yet to reach that point. It will all really depend on what Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak does or does not do in the run-up to his mid-term in office come Christmas next year. That’s like a hop, step and jump away.

That’s the reading if we put together what Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yasin has been saying in public and private taken together with former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s well-known positions on a variety of issues. The latter has since then refined them down to a singularity: he can’t fathom Najib’s sense of direction, if he has one, or the lack of it.

Either way it doesn’t matter to Mahathir. The “wily old fox” is convinced, the insiders have deduced from what little he gives away now and then, that Najib is not providing the kind of firm leadership that the country needs. Either he shapes up, and soon, or ships out, Mahathir has reportedly decided. The only question that remains is when to strike.

The worsening polarisation in the peninsula for one has Mahathir worried. He sees Najib sending out mixed signals instead of demonstrating the kind of firm leadership the country needs: an elegant silence when it suits him, playing to the gallery in Malay, and calling for moderation in English.

Mahathir himself, no angel even in the best of times, has been keeping rather odd company recently — Perkasa being among his worse excesses — and not shying away either from playing the race card to scare the Malay vote bank into continuing to throw their lot for better or worse with Umno. Najib may have decided that he’s not going to clean up after Mahathir when he’s in position to preach.

Muhyiddin has since publicly taken the kind of public stand that should have come from Najib himself. There’s a need for firm leadership: change or be changed, and that can be read in any number of ways even among those not living on hope. There’s also the need to tone down the language, no matter how desperate the party’s situation, and re-package its core struggle for race, religion and country (bangsa, agama, negara), the mantra come hell or high water that will never change, Muhyiddin warns.

Najib, being Prime Minister, may have concluded that they cannot afford the luxury of indulging in the Malay comfort zone.

He sees the big picture in a democracy but he may not see the transition from feudalism to a full-fledged democracy in the maturing process.

If a miss is as good as a mile, there’s nothing like a win. A win, in Najib’s way of thinking, is a win no matter how small the margin.

BR1M will continue based on Najib’s spin that it will ease the burden of those “affected by the ending of subsidies”. If he could wangle his way out, as he did with the Memorandum of Understanding he signed with Hindraf and is trying to do with the RCI Report, he would. He wants to play safe: keep friends close, keep enemies closer.

Mahathir bristles at the very mention of BR1M. He sees it as a sheer waste of public funds. Those who have no intention of voting for BN will not vote for the ruling party, BR1M or no BR1M. Those who see no alternative to BN will vote the ruling party, again BR1M or no BR1M.

Najib is not convinced by this line of reasoning. Mahathir continues to bristle but apparently to no avail.

Najib sees himself as having few options here.

The development budget is shrinking. Budget 2015 can only earmark 18.5 per cent for development, 81.5 per cent is just to pay salaries and other expenses. Already, the Sabahans and Sarawakians are on the warpath on this. Meanwhile, the Opposition goes to town with details on the national debt burden which could only have come from inside sources including Umno.

The direction is clear.

If Najib feels that he has to just do more of the same, but perhaps better, Muhyiddin will take his job by default.

The DPM is unlikely to push for Najib’s job. He sees no need for it no matter how much the need for change. He feels that as number two he’s in a more comfortable position. He would rather Najib see reason and take the hints that he keeps dropping now and then.

Mahathir is pressed for time. Again, either Najib provides the kind of firm leadership that the country needs or, pedigree or no pedigree, he will push Muhyiddin to do the job.

Najib can change if he wants to but at the end of the day, he may decide that he doesn’t want to do that and may instead take a gamble on the odds.