Kadir: Pak Cik, Mak Cik will keep Najib in power

PM's 'money is king' approach will go down well outsides the cities, says ex-editor

KUALA LUMPUR: The success of the red-shirted Malay protest demonstration of September 16 has shown that Najib Razak will be able to rely on the Malay electorate outside the cities to stay in power, according to former newspaper editor A Kadir Jasin.

He said the organisers of the red-shirts rally, armed with money and political support, had been able to round up enough participants within a few days by playing on the Malay people’s greatest fear, of being overwhelmed by the non-Malay population.

“If the red shirts organisers could put up such a show by bussing the people from faraway places who knew neither rhyme nor reason for joining the protest, there is nothing to stop them from using the same modus operandi to win the next general election,” Kadir wrote in his blog today.

The rally organisers portrayed the Bersih protests (August 29-30, which demanded political reforms and Najib’s resignation) as a non-Malay conspiracy to take over the country. Umno had similarly used this fear in the past “albeit more subtly” and would be likely to do so at the next general election.

“They will use money and political power to garner votes while instilling fear among the Malays that they are in the danger of being swept away by a ‘Chinese Tsunami’, a term Najib coined,” Kadir said.

“Those who think that Najib will be done away with soon and the Barisan Nasional will be gone at the next elections better think twice,” Kadir said. “For as long as he can get half of the pak cik, mak cik, the Orang Asli, the rural folk and Felda settlers to side with him, Umno would be returned to power and his position would be unassailable. He would be vindicated.”

He said enough people around Najib believed money and political power could marshal enough rural votes to cling on to power. Najib merely had to make sure there would be no criminal action taken against him and keep BN legislators in a tight grip to avoid defections and a vote of no confidence, Kadir said.

He said Najib’s motto – money is king – would go down well with the poor Malays in the villages and Felda settlements, faced with depressed commodity prices, a rise in the cost of living because of the fall in the value of the ringgit and the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax.

“The power of money is even stronger among the rural poor. Impoverishing the people has its merit,” Kadir said.

“Najib does not need the clever Malays and the urbanites. He knows he cannot spook them with his ‘bangsat’ slogan or threaten them into submission by spreading fear that their every move is being watched. Intimidation was now a strategy, he said, giving as an example the arrest of former Batu Kawan Umno leader Khairuddin Abu Hassan, who has lodged police reports overseas against the government investment arm 1Malaysia Development Bhd, implicating Najib who is 1MDB adviser.

Kadir challenged Najib to show faith in the US justice system and allow Khairuddin to provide the FBI with documents that he claims to have in his possession, which Najib has claimed to be false and doctored.

If that was so, why should the Prime Minister fear him, Kadir asked. “Let the US arrest and prosecute him for lying.”