Is Najib in a tail-spin?
Millions have been spent on international consulting firms that went on an orgy of image building rampage. Fresh in the minds of many is the shocking revelation that RM55 million of tax-payers’ money was used for expensive propaganda to glorify Najib, his government and his policies, screened on international channels like CNN, CNBC and BBC.
Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, The Malaysian Insider
Najib Razak must be trembling. Nothing could be more terrifying to a premier than the prospect of losing a general election. For Najib, that is an understatement.
Worse still, he will go down in history as the “appointed” prime minister of the Umno-led Barisan Nasional government that eventually lost its uninterrupted power to the opposition. That is indeed extremely scary. Losing is, thus, not an option for Najib.
But Najib’s penchant for flip-flopping is almost ingrained in his demeanour and style of leadership. Blaming it on “nature” is contrary to the “consistency” of the second prime minister of this nation.
Beyond just flip-flopping, this writer would now have to believe that Najib hasn’t got what it takes to bring this ailing nation out of its unending doldrums and despondency.
Najib doesn’t quite understand, or at least doesn’t exude understanding of the “change process”, much less a passion and a commitment to see it through. That is even more distressing, to say the least.
Indeed, Najib has actually failed grasp the fact that, without “reformation”, the hope for “transformation” is a merely an illusion.
His revulsion for the word “Reformasi” could very well be his greatest “blind-spot” for the need to undertake genuine fundamental and structural reforms before he could ever hope to see a “Transformation”, both in the economics and political sphere.
In the same vein, without the “real reform” in the New Economic Model, Najib’s Economic Transformation Programme and Entry Point Programmes are in fact a large-scale, anti-cyclical Keynesian pump-priming from Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s “Mahathirnomics”.
Najib’s failure to incorporate “real reform” in the NEM is the stifling factor has disabled the nation to propel into a higher performing economy with a concomitant higher income per capita.
Perkasa, contracted by Najib’s party, continues their vitriolic racial slurs. Never has religious understanding taken a worse beating. The major-ethnic-and-religion-under-siege narrative is evidently “laughable”.
He could talk in London, New York and Washington of opening up the public space and moderation in Islam when in fact the hollowness of his pronouncements is what we as Malaysians have to live with.
On the back of his oft-repeated mantra of “Government Transformation”, the colossal losses as evident by the Auditor-General’s report remained unabated, to the disgust of many a tax-payer. The endemic leakages remain agonising.
Critical examples of fiscal mismanagement such as Shahrizat Jalil’s National Feedlot Corp’s meltdown stood as a testimony. The impunity with which cronies live off government funds whilst BN ministers, Najib included, call for austerity and a “rationalisation” on subsidy, is a cardinal sin.
Millions have been spent on international consulting firms that went on an orgy of image building rampage. Fresh in the minds of many is the shocking revelation that RM55 million of tax-payers’ money was used for expensive propaganda to glorify Najib, his government and his policies, screened on international channels like CNN, CNBC and BBC.
Najib must stop his fervour for “window-dressing” — the illusion something is being done when nothing of consequence is being accomplished. Never mind the bicycle-ride, on the bus, breakfast with the new social media Facebook-Twitter friends, etc. But beyond those, nothing much were achieved.
He has almost perfected the art but failed miserably on the “real reforms”. With genuine “reforms” constantly side-stepped, “transformation” is a far-cry. That’s deplorable.
