Winning A Simple Majority Is Not What Najib Wanted

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Dec 15, 2010

By Richard Loh

It does not really matter when the 13th GE is called – tomorrow, 2011 or 2013. Umno/BN and Najib himself know that they are assured of retaining power. Najib has to win the 13th GE with a two-thirds majority to remain relevant as Umno president.

Surprisingly, all the political experts, including those holding Ph.Ds in politics, have yet to come out with a good analysis of Najib’s true intention.

Unless Najib or Umno/BN does something very disastrous that affects voters adversely between now and polling day, winning the 13th GE is assured. The only question is by how much.

Should Najib scrape through with just a simple majority, he will face the same fate as his predecessor and will be dethroned faster than he can spell out the word ‘sorry’. If he wants to remain as the PM and stay as long as he wants to, he has to ensure that he wins back a two-thirds majority.

Even before Najib took over as the PM, he had already put in place all his action plans to ensure a two-thirds majority win. The unconstitutional power grab of Perak, the plot to take over Selangor, which would have materialised had not MACC over-reacted and Teoh Beng Hock not died, and the signal sent to all the little napoleans in Pakatan-ruled states to create as much havoc and chaos – all these indicate how desperate Najib is in wanting to stay on in power. And as PM he has all the political machinery at his disposal for his plans, regardless of the illegality of political moves, such as the ‘buying over’ of elected MPs.

He knows that his subtle threats embedded in his public statements will be picked up by the Opposition to help him spread the message of fear among the public – threats such as “crushed bodies and lost lives”, “if Barisan Nasional doesn’t win, no one can”. All these are to create fear that there will be chaos and riots if Umno/BN does not win the general election. Just imagine what would happen to anyone from the Opposition who utters the same kind of threats!

How can “you help me I help you” in terms of monetary aspects not be considered to be bribery and corruption? If I am caught giving a policeman 50 ringgit in exchange for not writing me a traffic summons, can I argue in court that I am just demonstrating the same notion of “you help me I help you”?

There is the sudden generosity on the part of Najib – never before seen in Malaysian history – of pouring billions of ringgit into development and allocating special funds to help the “poor rakyat”. But he’s not telling us exactly where the money is going to come from. This action will create a two-pronged gain for Najib : it enables his cronies to milk a portion of the billions and hopefully, the “poor rakyat” will be happy with whatever remains to be thrown to them.

Umno/BN has to get back the two-thirds majority by whatever means, failing which it will disintegrate. Winning this majority will enable Umno/BN to remain in power for at least another 50 years or so. It can do a lot of magic with this two-thirds majority.