Sunday, September 30, 2012

PM Najib: Buku Jingga not worth the paper it's printed on



Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said Pakatan Rakyat's manifesto - the Buku Jingga - do not contain doable policies, unlike BN's policies which are proven.

"Buku Jingga is not worth the paper it is written on," he said, in the same self-assured tone as his Budget 2013 speech, when officiating the 44th Gerakan national delegates conference today in Kuala Lumpur.

NONENajib said that Pakatan's plans to abolish the Higher Education Loan Fund (PTPTN) would cost tax payers up to RM50 billion by 2020 and it was not feasible.

He also rubbished Pakatan's plans to abolish tolled highways because it would cause the entire share market to collapse.

"The toll concessionaires are all listed companies. (Abolishing tolls would cause) the entire Bursa Malaysia will collapse. The entire (share) market will collapse," he exclaimed.

In contrast, Najib said that his policies, including the second phase of Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M 2.0) cash handouts, were not populist.

"We did BR1M 2.0. They can do Bersih 2.0. Nevermind. You do Bersih 2.0, we do BR1M 2.0. You storm the barricades, overturn police cars, we help the rakyat," he said.

‘Not vote-buying'

He said that unlike subsidies for other essential goods, BR1M targets only households with income of less than RM3,000 and it will not be applicable to the rich.

Najib said that similar schemes have appeared in other countries such as Indonesia and in Singapore, citing the Singaporean government's one-off payments to Central Provident Fund (CPF) last year before the May election.

Similarly, he said that RM250 book vouchers for Form Six and university students were not populist because it was not cash handouts because it was meant specifically for books to help students.

"And I resisted giving it before the (campus) elections. Some said that I should announce it before the campus elections because our votes will increase.

"I said ‘No! Only after the budget'. This is because we want to win based on our support. Thankfully, pro-aspirasi, who supports the government, won in 18 out of 20 campuses without having to buy votes," he said.

Apart of promising unrealistic plans for the country, Najib said Pakatan had not even fulfilled the prerequisites for an viable government in waiting.
 Separate entities 

Firstly, Najib said Pakatan does not even have a common symbol nor have they registered as a coalition, thus they will contest the polls as separate entities with separate manifestos.

In contrast, he said BN will contest under one banner and all candidates will be loyal to BN's cause.

azlan"The opposition will to go the polls with different faces. For some, their image is the moon. For others, it is the image of the rocket, as though the rocket will take them to the moon.

"Then, there is the eye (laughs). A very funny looking eye," he said, clearly enjoying his early morning banter.

With different logos, Najib said Pakatan's policies clashes as well and that the component parties can not even agree on how to administer the country - whether hudud law would be implemented or not.

"You don't have a common position and policy on how the country is to be administered. You don't have the credibility to run the country," he said.

And finally, Najib said that the government-in-waiting must first form a shadow cabinet, which Pakatan did not. He speculated that Pakatan have thus far refused to do so because it is "scared".

"Don't talk about forming the government. Form a shadow cabinet first," he said.

The Motorola affair

Meanwhile, Najib also had words of encouragement for Gerakan, who are on a quest to reclaim Penang.

Najib said that Penang's success was BN's doing and that DAP's contribution had been marginal at best.

He said that the many international companies that had set up factories in Penang were part of BN's doing, including Motorola's "expansion".

"Koh (as then chief minister) wanted special consideration for Motorola. You can ask Motorola. They expanded because BN did it for them," he said.

It was strange for Najib to bring up the topic because the Motorola controversy was among the key issues in BN's disastrous Penang campaign for the 2008 general election.

21th lawasia conference 291008 abdullah badawi 02Motorola had threatened to pull its entire operation from Penang, forcing Koh to write a top secret letter to then premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (left), urging him to intervene to avert "three dire consequences".

Eventually, the federal government agreed to a RM1 billion project for Motorola, in exchange for RM350 million to be invested by the company over the next five years.

The contents of the letter was exposed in an exclusive report byMalaysiakini six days before the polls.

During the campaign, the opposition pact had used the correspondence to accuse Penang of losing is lustre under BN and used it as a major campaign issue.

Come polling day, Gerakan not only lost control of the Penang government, it lost every state and Parliamentary seat it contested in.

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