Najib’s high-tempo pursuits bearing fruit

(NST) – IN a football match, games played in the English Premier League particularly, a recurring tactic of club managers is a high-tempo game — one sparkling in attacking flair that the opposing side is impelled to defend with little chance to mount their own attacks.

You might want to adopt this football analogy to how politics is played out now. 

Politicians, depending on their positions or if they are top party or government leaders, are always looking for the high-tempo strategies to retain their mandate; galvanising members and supporters; nourishing constituents and producing seminal policies that propel the nation into major global diplomatic and socio-economic players.

One in four is always a good option if your resources are limited, but in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s case, he has opted for four out of four, such is the confidence he exudes in recent months.

Najib has emulated the high tempo football strategy in the 30 months since he took office; the tempo of his policies so ascending you’d wonder whether he is able to sustain such highs. Evidently he can. Repealing the tough security laws in the context of Malaysian politics is such a big deal that you’d think the prime minister would have used this stunning gambit as a political endgame to score big in the coming general election.

When Najib took office in April 2009, one of his big ticket policy shifts was repealing the Internal Security Act and other security laws that are relics of the Cold War.

Just when you thought the tempo was feverishly high, he revs it higher with the release yesterday of 125 people held under the Restricted Residence Act 1933 while countermanding police warrants that would have curbed the movements of 200 others. And this in is just the last two weeks.

Of course, in the 30 months since, there had been a series of fast and furious policy and project announcements — economic liberalisation, exhilarating free speech, especially on race relations, promise of electoral reforms with the formation of the Parliamentary Select Committee and, on Friday, the 2012 Budget to mitigate the worries of the proletariat.

You’d ask: what is Najib’s endgame, which people associate with positives for the 13th general election? Curiously, that endgame is nowhere in sight, at least not this year when clearly, Najib is unlikely to call for a snap general election despite the tempting indications he has cast.

You can ignore though the opposition’s hoary quarterly predictions that polls are just around the corner in the hope that the prime minister will acquiesce to the tiresomely laughable polls exhortation parlour game. Many strongly feel the prime minister won’t call the general election this year although the opposition is cavorting for snap polls purely on the idea that the big gains they were rewarded with on March 8, 2008 have steadily been sapped.

However, Najib, too, has pursued comprehensive endeavours not met squarely as populist gestures: not everyone has been warm to his efforts, including some people within his flanks. 

The response seemed to be mixed and volatile, but from the prime minister’s standpoint, that’s exactly the reaction he expects on the principle that you simply cannot please everyone but only the ones who urgently need your help.

On that principle alone, Najib is sticking to the big picture, pushing an unstoppable momentum that by now is geared towards the high tempo we are experiencing now.

In assessing the lay of the political land, the prime minister, from his advantageous perch with all those think tanks, agencies and intelligence at his disposal, can “see” everything, from socio-economic demands, problems and solutions, to people hawking political claptrap, landmines and opportunities.

This is Najib’s great advantage. Of course, in pushing players forward to sustain that high tempo, the attack-minded team might leave their defence vulnerable to an unexpected counter-attack, one which could concede an unnecessary goal.

Putting on the “football club” manager’s hat, Najib has realised this downside but that didn’t stop him from shoving an emphatic ‘No’ to the hudud, demanded by Pas, although certain segments of the Malay/Muslim populace found it agreeable.

His indirectly genial engagement with bad boy rapper Namewee caused some discomfort in the Establishment who felt he was “pushing his luck”, as what some bloggers implied.

Perhaps. But Najib believes strongly in positively engaging the alternative crowd with the wild ideas of nation building on the conviction that if he wants to get things done, some political and socio-economic risks are not only necessary but prudent.

Trying to do what’s effective for the nation is hard, as Najib would have reconciled now, especially if you continuously get flak from supporters who can’t see the big picture, what more the foes.

Even a critic in former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will appreciate that there are circumstances only a sitting prime minister knows and understands, that he can see what you can’t see and has the ability to do the things that you can’t fathom.