PERKASA and ME: a cheong hei reply (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

ARCHIVES 2010

By MT Webmaster On Nov 4, 2010

Now, whenever Dr Mahathir is criticised about how he ran the country or whatever, he always says that he does not make sole decisions. All decisions are Cabinet decisions. The largest financial scandal, the PKFZ disaster, was a Cabinet decision, not the sole decision of the Prime Minister.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

You have probably already read Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Blog posting, ‘PERKASA and ME’, plus the replies — ‘PERKASA and ME…a short reply to Tun!’, ‘My Reply to Tun Mahathir Article – Pembinasa and Me‘ and ‘Reading Tun Dr Mahathir’.

Well, now let me reply as well.

How many of you remember the Broadway musical of 1951 called ‘The King and I’? It was later made into a movie, which launched Yul Brynner’s ‘botak head’ look. Actually he is not botak (bald) at all. Like me, he shaved his head. And to prove I am not botak I am now keeping my hair long again.

So the Umno people can no longer call me botak gemuk (bald fatty). Just gemuk. And I may even go on a diet and become kurus (thin) again as well. I might even launch an anti-ISA hunger strike in London and really lose weight.

Anyway, let’s see about that one.

Now, why am I mentioning ‘The King and I’? Simply this. Dr Mahathir should have titled his piece ‘PERKASA and I’, not ‘PERKASA and ME’. After all, the play/movie was called ‘The King and I’, not ‘The King and ME’.

So there you have it. Bad English. Wouldn’t you say ‘I love you’ and not ‘me love you’, unless you are a Native American (a.k.a. Red Indians)?

Okay, let’s get serious. By the time Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over as Prime Minister on 1st November 2003, Malaysia had already seen independence (Merdeka) for 46 years. Almost half that 46 years was with Dr Mahathir as Prime Minister — slightly over 22 years. A few more months and Dr Mahathir would have ruled Malaysia for half that 46 years.

Abdullah ruled Malaysia for slightly over five years. Considering that one term is five years, this means Abdullah was only a one-term Prime Minister — although he took the country through two general elections. Dr Mahathir, however, was a five-term Prime Minister.

When Abdullah took over as Prime Minister, he inherited the policies, Cabinet, problems, and whatnot, of the previous regime. He would have needed one term to dismantle the old policies and address the ills and wrongdoings of the previous regime, and then implement his own policies and changes, which would take him another term.

This means we need to evaluate Abdullah’s performance over two terms, not one term. One term is not enough.

But Abdullah was first of all not allowed to introduce any changes. As soon as he tried, Dr Mahathir attacked him. And then he was ousted before he could serve his second term. So we will never know whether, if Abdullah was allowed a second term, he could have turned things around. Therefore, is the failure due to the incompetence of Abdullah or is it because he was blocked from implementing his plans?

Okay, if this is how decisions are made, then how can Abdullah take sole responsibility for whatever went wrong? And remember, Abdullah inherited Dr Mahathir’s Cabinet when he took over. This was not Abdullah’s Cabinet but the Cabinet of the previous regime that Dr Mahathir headed for 22 years.

When Dr Mahathir makes mistakes the Cabinet has to be blamed. Mistakes made during Abdullah’s term of office are Abdullah’s fault entirely, nothing to do with the Cabinet.

Finally, I would have imagined that Dr Mahathir, as a seasoned enough politician, would not unwittingly admit that he is behind PERKASA. His latest Blog posting, however, reveals that he calls the shots when it comes to PERKASA. I can’t imagine him making this mistake.

Then again, did he really make a mistake? Dr Mahathir is too clever to make such mistakes. I can only suspect that it was intentional. It was to send a message to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak that he opposes the 1Malaysia in favour of Ketuanan Melayu and that he will use ‘his’ PERKASA to do this.

I smell another ouster in the cards. When Dr Mahathir said he does not understand what Abdullah’s Islam Hadhari means and that he only knows one type of Islam, this was the beginning of the end for Abdullah. Now Dr Mahathir says the same thing about 1Malaysia and I see this as also the beginning of the end for Najib.

When Abdullah tried dismantling Dr Mahathir’s legacy, the latter went for the former’s jugular. Would Najib now dare try what Abdullah tried? If he does then he will suffer the same fate as Abdullah. However, if he does not, then he becomes merely a proxy Prime Minister with Dr Mahathir as the de facto Prime Minister. Either way Najib will suffer.

When Najib proposes 1Malaysia and all those other reforms, Dr Mahathir opposes him. But when Najib proposes a RM5 billion 100-storey building even grander than the KLCC Twin Towers, Dr Mahathir supports it and says it is good for the country.

Do you get my drift now? Najib is running this country and implementing policies the way Dr Mahathir would like them to be. That is the only way he can stay on as Prime Minister. And when Najib tries to ‘break away’ and launch his 1Malaysia, Dr Mahathir launches his PERKASA through proxy (Ibrahim Ali) and challenges it.

That, in a nutshell, is what is going on.

By the way, Umno is most likely going to win the Galas by-election today. And the Umno people are going to say that this is Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s win and not Umno’s win. If Najib had gone down to Galas to campaign then PAS would have won instead.

Some say PAS purposely ‘allowed’ Umno to win as a ‘favour’ to Tengku Razaleigh who is fighting hard to get the oil royalty for Kelantan. The word on the ground was that the PAS machinery was told not to attack Tengku Razaleigh. This, in fact, happened in 2008 and that was why Gua Musang went to Tengku Razaleigh. And I got this from the horse’s mouth.

And of course the Batu Sapi by-election in Sabah is a foregone conclusion.

Translated into Chinese at: http://ccliew.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post_05.html