BN manifesto to have little impact: Analysts
(Straits Times) – “The corporate personnel I spoke to expected something new and groundbreaking from Najib but it did not come,” Mr Ibrahim Suffian, who heads the Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research, told The Straits Times. “The election impact will be minimal.”
As its contents are similar to earlier reforms, analysts say its impact may be reduced because there is no real game-changer.
“The corporate personnel I spoke to expected something new and groundbreaking from Najib but it did not come,” Mr Ibrahim Suffian, who heads the Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research, told The Straits Times. “The election impact will be minimal.”
Datuk Seri Najib called the 17-point manifesto he launched on Saturday night a pledge, in a dig at the opposition Pakatan Rakyat alliance, which has said manifestos are not promises.
“What is the use of a new manifesto if it is not a promise? To the BN, a manifesto is a serious matter,” he told tens of thousands of party faithful at a rally that night.
Reactions to the BN’s new “pledge” were largely split.
“BN’s election manifesto provides the country with a long-term plan for development,” Mr Liow Tiong Lai, deputy president of the Malaysian Chinese Association, a component party of the BN, said in a statement yesterday.
Some analysts called the manifesto “realistic” and “achievable” and said it had a clear and unifying “People First” theme.
This harks back to Mr Najib’s 1Malaysia rallying cry from his first weeks after becoming prime minister on April 3, 2009.
“The BN manifesto uses this theme because as a pledge, it can and must be fulfilled,” said Professor Shamsul Ababi Mamat, a political analyst at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
But critics said the manifesto could encourage a culture of reliance on government handouts rather than real change.
“Everyone wants free stuff. That’s Malaysian,” wrote one Gordon Lim on Facebook. Politicians offer things “at whose expense”, he asked, adding “taxpayers”.
