June horoscope: A month of mishaps for the PM

V for Vendetta is the flavour of the month for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

The black-and-white masked icon from the movie is now being used by an international group of hackers who have broken into the Malaysian government's websites. More than 50 websites have been hit, according to a report from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission on Thursday.

The icon is the mask of the hero in the movie who has an anti-government stance. His famous one-liner was: 'the people should not be afraid of the government but the government should be afraid of the people'.

Omen of things to come

Whether to treat that as a warning or an omen, the month of June certainly did not start off on the right-footing for Prime Minister Najib.

June also signifies the half-way mark for a calendar year. And indeed, half a year is passing but like the past 2 years of the Najib administration, little if anything has been done.

Be that as it may, for the month itself, many landmark events have taken place. First of all, the election of Mat Sabu as the Deputy President of PAS on 4th June 2011 certainly does not bode well for the future of UMNO as Mat Sabu is known for his insistence that PAS never merges with UMNO. He is also as popular among the Malays as with the non-Malays.

Soon after that was PAS Kuala Selangor MP Dzulkefly Ahmad's revelation that Najib was actually using his trip to Kazakhstan to attend his daughter's engagement party. By then it was already clear that things are not going to go smoothly for Najib. Not this month anyway.

Arch-rival Anwar Ibrahim's party, PKR, also managed to avoid being de-registered by the Registrar of Societies (RoS) on 9th June. RoS had threatened to de-register the party for going against a certain clause in its party constitution in the sacking of a party member. But the said clause and the said party member were non-existent, and amid public outcry, the RoS had to back off.

There was also an incident at the Johor Causeway Immigration Department where Malaysian officers reportedly ordered two Singaporean female tourists to perform 'nude squats'. This was highlighted in the Singapore newspapers.

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has clarified that 'nude squats' is not the standard operating procedure of the Immigration Department and has ordered an inquiry into the matter. But the way the Singapore authorities are rushing to 'volunteer' reports to help their Malaysian counterparts conclude a speedy probe is a telling sign that the Najib administation's reputation for inefficiency is growing and spreading far and wide.

Shocking losses at Felda starting to show

Then earlier this week, 131 Felda settlers from Felda Kemahang 1 and 2 secured a court victory against the Federal Land Authority or Felda for failing to return their investment in its re-plantation fund over the past 20 years. The Kota Bharu High Court Judge Mohd Azman Husin ordered Felda to pay RM1.2 million as compensation to the settlers, and called for an audit into the Felda's re-plantation fund.

Felda was the brainchild of the 2nd Prime Minister and Najib's father, the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, and its aim was ostensibly to help the Malays shift out from a rut of poverty by giving them opportunities to work the land and reap its profits.

PAS' Mazlan Aliman, who is championing the Felda settlers cause for fair distribution of profit, revealed that some 700 settlers from Felda Jengka would be filing a suit led by lawyer Sivarasa Rasiah at the Temerloh High Court soon, as the recent Kelantan court victory has given momentum to the settlers' push for justice.

The Prime Minister will also be troubled by an ongoing strike by deep-sea fishermen who are protesting an increase in the price of diesel, which was hiked from RM1.25 to RM1.80 per litre.

Then, in Parliament, the Tourism Ministry's bungling of facts in response to a question raised by the opposition has sparked concern that the government may have squandered RM1.8 million of taxpayers' hard-earned wealth just to create 6 Facebook pages.

Representative from 50 NGOs, who are unhappy over the National Minimum Wage Consultative Act, also planned a protest in the Parliament compound, and their demands for greater speed will irk Najib, who already appears to have too much on his plate. These NGOs, who champion workers' rights, have slammed the Act as being a step backwards and they want the Minimum Wage policy to be tabled in the current Parliament session and implemented straightaway.

Their rationale is that many workers are feeling the pinch due to the rising cost of living. Najib has said that the minimum wage policy could be implemented by year-end, but gave no clear-cut indication. It will not be the first time if it quietly faded away when year-end comes.

Half-a-year already gone

With so much going on, and already half-a-year gone, it is high time the Prime Minister tells all his Cabinet Ministers to pull up their socks and take their work seriously.

At the moment, the UMNO-BN's focus is on the July 9 Bersih 2.0 rally, a peaceful walk by activists who want electoral reforms. A harmless enough campaign, but seized on by Najib and his advisers, perhaps to deflect attention from the mountain of problems the country is facing due to a lack of decisive action and leadership in cleaning up the mass of corruption and rot left behind by past administrations.

But the rakyat or populace is watching closely and all these foul-ups certainly do not lend credibility to Najib's prized slogan of 1Malaysia People First Performance Now.

Indeed, KPI (Key Performance Index) Minister, Koh Tsu Koon, must awake from his perceived slumber and immediately fail the majority of the Cabinet ministers. If any of these non-performers have done anything to justify their appointments, Malaysians have not noticed. 'Facts' they hand out are misleading, procedures are not adhered to, government ministers seem to be passing the buck, all these need to be looked into with immediate effect.

To top off an exciting month, Najib's nemesis, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and 3 other MPs who were suspended on 16th December for raising the APCO issue are back in Parliament this week.This will increase the pressure on Najib to put up a more credible performance. So far, he has spent most of his time on highly expensive overseas trips that have yielded little benefit to the nation.

Already, Anwar has fired the first salvo by raising the issue of why there is a need for Felda to borrow RM6 billion from the Employees Provident Fund, if as Najib claims, the agency was performing well. Anwar has exposed several bad investments that dug a huge hole in Felda's cash reserves and blames it on Najib's special adviser Omar Mustapha, also a director at national oil firm Petronas.

There's some time yet to go before the end of the month. And before the end of the year. Hopefully, Najib will get going. There is also speculation he may dissolve Parliament soon and call snap general polls to secure a fresh 5-year mandate before Malaysia's economy tanks further.

Incidentally, there was a lunar eclipse in the early hours of 16th June. Usually, an eclipse signifies turbulence and turmoil in the world. Let us hope that this will not be the situation in Malaysia.

- Malaysia Chronicle