NARCISSTIC PARANOIA? WHICH COUNTRY AND WHICH PLANET IS THIS?

 

Never listen to what politicians say, look at what they do. According to the renowned behavioural phycologist Chris Argyris, what people do is what they actually believe in. What people espouse is what they want you to believe.
 
Voters were shocked that US president Biden was much more radical than what they were led to believe. The same goes for the fellow.

The last general election resulted in no coalition winning enough seats to form a government in their own right. They had to form a new coalition.

There were high hopes from their supporters. However, these hopes have slowly eroded, as it became clear the new ‘regime’ doesn’t have reform on the agenda.

There were high hopes for a ‘new dawn’. (OSTB : But the sun has already set and has not risen again).

Some of the major agenda positions of the regime based upon action are summarized below:

A regime of the elite for the elite

Many people were surprised that upon being freed from prison he made it a top priority to visit each of the titulars. He has shown himself to be accommodating to the nobility. It was the last titular head who gave him the chance to form the new regime.

He continued the custom of making political appointments to government agencies and G-Cs. Academics, technocrats and independent experts have all been bypassed (This is a mockery of local professionals and academics who could take such positions). This has strengthened the influence of the "Clan-Kongsi" on government. We are now watching the abuse of power by the government watchdogs on freedom of speech, and muzzling journalism, where the chairman is a party warlord. This is a major conflict of interest.

Many budget ‘giveaways’ are clearly aimed at providing funds and grants to  indigene firms, which are already solid in the growth stage, ignoring many micro-enterprises which are seriously struggling.

Bringing the interests of the WEF forward

Until the news that B---kRock, through a subsidiary is taking equity in the airports there was very little public awareness of the influence of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Malaysia.

Only a year ago, those Malaysians who participated in the WEF “Young Global Leaders” (YGL) program, were very happy to see this news publicised in the local press. Now some of them have requested the WEF management to pull their names off the WEF official website. 

The regime has at least half a dozen WEF members. A number of G-Cs and government agencies are also WEF members. These include the finance ministry, economic planning, the unit trust, the pension fund, the state G-C, the oil company and the plantation company. The WEF now has an office in the capital.

A number of local think tanks and NGOs are also members of the WEF. The Centre for Inter-Galactic Health advises on climate change.

The Who’s who of the corporate world are also members of the WEF.

Maintaining and enhancing cronynomics

The regime has continued to allow the rice monopoly and maintained other monopolies that provide special business advantages in the economy. Some of the richest cronies have made their fortunes through artificial monopolies.

There has been no attempt to break up the kleptocracy’s hold on the economy. The highway concessions are still intact and many contracts are being awarded to firms by the government without any tendering processes. Even the federal government’s car pool is owned and controlled by a concessionary. This is despite what the fellow personally promised and reiterated in a recent live national address to the nation.  

This concessionary cancer is so embedded in society that even local government parking enforcement is subcontracted to crony companies.

The regime supports cronies and kleptocrats, embedding their power over society through political appointments to government corporate bodies. The Clan-Kongsi under the fellow is more powerful than ever before, with their servants covering up corrupt business practices. Whistleblowers rather than criminals are being persecuted openly by the legal system.   

The regime is running high debt budgets to allocate projects to kleptocrats. The budget deficits are the highest in the region. “Landswaps” are the new source of currency to finance deals with kleptocrats. Public land is being transferred to corporate interests at an alarming rate. The regime is literally selling off the nation’s prime land holdings.

Machiavellian lawfare against enemies of the regime

The police and even parts of the judiciary have become politicized. Many are crying foul over the DNAA and that commuted jail sentence.        

The nation is witnessing lawfare used against the opposition. This persecution is widening the divide in society, to even a greater degree. Politics is developing a sense of hate the country has never seen before.   

Building the civil service as a ‘vote bank’

The million plus civil servants have been given a chunky pay rise. This decision was made despite a record deficit of billions and a public debt at over a trillion. This appears to be a direct b--ing of civil servant votes, so the civil service will become a ‘vote bank’ for the ‘regime’.

The government has billions to spend on public sector salary increases.     

Savage suppression of freedom of speech

The freedom of speech and ability of journalists to carry out their proper jobs is being eroded quickly. Journalists are being intimidated and threatened, where the watchdogs are overzealous in utilizing their resources to censor critics of the regime. And worst of all those who seek to uncover corruption. The watchdogs are operating beyond the boundaries of the law, blocking websites that report news and have political content.

The public must be concerned when the regime doesn’t respect the laws of the nation.

Increasing political Islam

The semantics sounded good – sustainability, prosperity, innovation, respect, trust and compassion but the realities are the continuing Islamization. Billions allocated to Islamic development and its responsibilities widened to policing censorship on the web, and playing a role in economic planning. The education system is continuing to be Islamized.

Local culture is under attack by these institutions. Tragically, no one is seeing this.

High spending government

After 3 straight years of high government spending and budget deficits during the Covid-19 pandemic, the regime has not sought to curtail the budget deficit and put the budget into surplus. Instead, the fellow tabled the largest budget ever. The budget came with tens of billions of deficit, which has been added to with a salary rise for civil servants. Money supply (M2) is continuing upward growth of 5-6.0 percent per month in 2024. This comes at a time when many countries are running their budgets into surplus and cutting back on M2 growth.

The 3 Taboos as an instrument of tyranny

The regime has decreed Three Taboos that society cannot discuss. Now the 3 Taboos are being abused.

The 3 Taboos are not a crime in any statute book. Existing crimes in the criminal code are used for prosecution. Now the 3 Taboos are being used against political critics of the regime and those who investigate corruption. These are now called Taboo investigations. The latest against a columnist for using the word ‘apartheid’ to describe racial discrimination.

Journalism is being destroyed in front of everyone’s eyes.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing

At the 2004 US Democratic National Convention (DNC) Barak Obama said, “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” Everyone believed him. He won the 2008 presidential election and implemented some of the most divisive policies in US history.

Obama did not close Guantanamo Bay as promised, then continued to a US troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama used drones to extra-judicially kill more people (including US citizens) than any other US president. Obama never reformed the banking system after the 2008 financial crisis. Bank CEOs got bumper bonuses, while ordinary people lost their money.
    
Before he talked about replacing “race dominance”. The realities today are there to be seen.

One should compare his language today with the past. He tried to intimidate a school student who dared to ask him a question about quotas for education. He threatened jail to anyone who brought up the Casino issue. He said the regime's fall in press freedom was not important. The psychoanalyst Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries would claim these are examples of paranoid-narcissistic language.

The people waited a long time for a big disappointment.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.