Sudah lah ‘Jib! You Haven’t Got it!

by Dr. M.Bakri Musa
Morgan-Hill, California

Sudah lah ‘Jib! You haven’t got what it takes to lead modern Malaysia.

Humiliated by the recent national election and overwhelmed by mounting problems, Najib resorts to the typical tricks of third-rate Third World leaders. He travels abroad frequently to distract himself and Malaysians, and when at home he bribes his way through problems.

Barisan’s loss in the popular votes during the last election was only the latest expression of this lack of confidence in Najib’s leadership. The man has been coasting on the memory of his illustrious father, Tun Razak. For that reason Malaysians have been too generous in giving Najib a pass for so long.

The show cannot go on; the nation can ill afford it. There will be a splendid opportunity for the nation to be rid of his leadership without having to wait till the next national election, and that will be the upcoming parliamentary budget debate. All we need is for a handful of Barisan MPs (12 to be exact) to see through this character so he can be ejected from the Prime Minister’s seat. He does not belong there.

Third Rate Leadership

Back to Najib’s third-rate Third World leadership tricks, his most recent – and most expensive – was the junket that took him through San Francisco on his way to New York. That was literally around the world. Rest assured there will be many more such trips in his ultra-luxurious, custom-fitted full-sized Airbus jet, burning the rakyat’s precious ringgit.

The only saving grace this time was his uncharacteristic prudence financially in landing his jet at Oakland instead of at the exorbitantly expensive SFO. Najib however, more than made that up by staying at the Fairmont Hotel in a suite that would have pleased the likes of King Saud.

In the 1960s, traveling extensively abroad was also the favorite refuge for Indonesia’s Sukarno. It was left to his ministers back home to tell the rakyat to eat rats and thereby simultaneously solve two problems – widespread starvation and rat infestation.

More recently there was the example of Tunisian leader Zine el Abidene, now languishing somewhere in the Saudi desert with only his ill-gotten wealth to sustain him. Meanwhile he faces a death sentence at home and the Interpol has a search warrant for him. As for his wildly extravagant and obscenely ostentatious wife, a former hairdresser, she too has long ago abandoned him. She is also on the Interpol list for money laundering. Take a glimpse of her during her heyday; she has the uncanny resemblance of someone familiar to Malaysians, and not just in facial features.

Sukarnos’s fate in contrast was less severe. At least he died and was buried in his native land. Something for Najib to ponder!

Malaysia is far from being Sukarno’s Indonesia. That however, is setting a very low bar. It tells us how far we have fallen that the two countries are now often mentioned in the same sentence. While Malaysia is also infested with rats, Malaysians are thankfully not starving. Instead what we have are even more rapacious rats continually raiding the people’s Treasury. The biggest of all is Najib.

With his unrestrained access to the Treasury, Najib’s mode of problem solving is to bribe his way. He bribed Malaysians with his multitude of expensive 1-Malaysia giveaways. Just before the election his largesse became more targeted, as with his instant generous grants to Chinese schools and special allocations to East Malaysia. Those bore his trademark of lu tolong gua, gua tolong lu (You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours).

Like bribees everywhere, the Chinese eagerly took the money and ran. Come election time however, they readily saw through what was going on and unhesitatingly dumped Najib. Najib the briber was reduced to lamenting loudly of the Chinese tsunami. Najib mistook the Chinese to be like UMNO Malays, readily bought with only a few million devalued ringgit. In the end Najib was left scratching himself.

East Malaysians were sufficiently grateful for the bribe to vote for Najib, only to be rewarded post-election with a court order banning them from using the word “Allah!” I hope that their Barisan representatives in parliament will now stage their own mini tsunami and flush away Najib.

Now post-election, Malays too are complaining. Again Najib resorted to his favorite trick of bribing, a few billion here and there under the bombastic package of Memperkasakan Ekonomi Bumiputra (MEB – Strengthening Bumiputra Economy). Malays this time have shrewdly anted-up their price, learning from the Chinese. Thus Malays this time are less than enthusiastic with the only few billion thrown their way, even though that is real money.

NEP failed so now MEB

I thought that the whole purpose of the New Economic Policy and all its iterations for the last four decades had been to enhance the economic status of Malays. Obviously had the NEP been successful, we would have little need for this MEB.

Unfortunately for Najib, even the dumbest ass learns eventually. Malays have smartened up and realized that this MEB will just be another massive and lucrative bribery scheme for UMNO cronies. Their beneficiaries may be Malays, the pseudo as well as wannabe, but they do not represent our values.

Indications are, MEB notwithstanding, this time Malays are no longer mudah lupa. Like the Chinese, Malays (at least the lucky ones) are becoming shrewder and will readily take the money and then run. Rest assured that come the next election, there will also be a Malay tsunami.

Or perhaps sooner! The recent UMNO election produced more malcontent losers who will be skipped by the gravy train. They will be grouchy enough to take their frustrations out on Najib.

Commentators of various persuasions have already pronounced Mahathir a loser in this UMNO election. One sure way to make a grouchy loser more so, and thus likely to strike back, would be for the winners to gloat. Abdullah Badawi too gloated after his spectacular 2004 national victory.

Najib the Briber

Back to Najib the briber, he is finally learning a painful lesson. That is, bribees, be they national or party voters, continue to escalate their price tag, especially if they know their targets are soft and lucrative. Najib is one such target.

What is despicable with Najib is that he is using our money to bribe us, after he takes his usual generous cut of course! When you bribe a cop, you are using your own hard-earned cash, not anyone else’s.

It is not just Malaysians that Najib is bribing. He thinks the rest of the world too is easily bribable. Soon after becoming Prime Minister, Najib was all over the global media giving high-profile interviews. Alas those “interviews” were nothing more than “informecials,” paid crass commercials masquerading as legitimate news items.

Far from being embarrassed, Najib still revels in the “glory.” That was his mode of operation. Malaysians were of course embarrassed, as were such media giants as CNN and BBC once they realized they were being duped. The “journalist” involved was duly fired, after earning his millions from Najib. Back in Malaysia, the consultants who thought of the idiotic scheme were rewarded with even more lucrative public relations contracts. For them, it was truly “endless possibilities” as well as endless profits with their desperate-for-praise client, Najib.

On his recent trip to America, Najib was back in his old form. He addressed the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco and Harvard Club of New York, among others. Bribing is illegal in America, except where it is nicely wrapped as “lobbying.”

All this bribe money has to come from somewhere. Even the Saudi Treasury is finite. Watch this upcoming budget; Najib will once again squeeze the rakyat, this time with his Goods and Services Tax together with his scheme for “rationalizing” subsidies. He will again bribe his way by offering in return, a puny reduction in the income tax rates.

The GST hurtful to Low Income and Vulnerable Groups

GST is the most regressive, meaning it imposes a disproportionately heavy burden on those least able to afford it. What Najib gives away in sens (pennies) as with his income tax reduction, he will haul back hundred-fold more through GST.

I hope that our parliamentarians especially in Barisan will finally see through this man’s façade and terminate his tenure once and for all, for the good of Malaysia. Muslims have just celebrated the Eid Qurbani (Celebration of Sacrifice). It is time to qurban Najib for the good of Malaysia. Then the nation can celebrate!

Nothing happens unless Allah wills it, that is, guide Najib to see the light, if not him, then those parliamentarians.