So, does PMX enjoy full backing of civil servants after dishing out generous yearly bonus, ‘duit raya’?

 

POLITICAL analyst Prof James Chin has sparked a very pertinent online debate after sharing news from the grapevine that the upper echelons of the Malaysian civil service think that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim “is running a dysfunctional government and that they don’t support him”.

“If DSAI (Anwar) cannot get majority support from the civil service, he may not last … DSAI needs to ‘clean’ the civil service,” asserted the good professor from the Asia Institute of University of Tasmania, Australia on X (previously Twitter).

Reacting to Chin, the general feel among netizens is that PMX who is also the Finance Minister has to take the drastic move to weed out errant senior civil servants instead of continuously pumping annual bonuses to the public sector in return for political support that never come his way.

Some netizens reckoned that Anwar has to please too many quarters given the unity government itself is made up of a staggering number of 18 political parties and four coalitions. Moreover, it has never been a tradition for the civil service to be backing the government of the day contrary to public perception.

Obviously, some netizens are least surprised that the upper echelon in civil service are dissatisfied with PMX who has taken a harsh anti-corruption stance in his administration (though Perikatan Nasional may think otherwise).

As some netizens pointed out, civil servants need not support the government of the day but must diligently be heeding every instruction in carrying out their duties.

But some netizens cannot help wondering if PMX will ever come to terms with the reality that no matter what he dishes out, civil servants will still not rally behind him while sadly “he is neglecting his core supporter who may end up abandoning him”.

Well, this argument of whether civil servants are looking after PMX’s back can drag on till at least the 16th General Election (GE16) in 2028 but the bleak reality confronting the country today is that the clock is ever ticking. – April 17, 2024

- Focus Malaysia