In the aftermath of May 5th (part 12) (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)
If I were to hazard a guess I would say that Khairy is the man to watch. He is going to be the ‘face’ of the reformed Umno who will be interacting with the younger generation to try to win back their support, which Umno lost in the recent general election.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
My initial response to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s new Cabinet is: SHIT! (See the full Cabinet list here). There are still many crooks, scoundrels, scumbags and slime-balls on that list. Are we going to see the new group photograph of the hall of fame or the new group photograph of the rogues’ gallery?
I fear it is the latter.
This is no reform government, for sure. If that is what Najib promised the voters in his Election Manifesto and during the election campaign then you can perish the thought. What we are seeing is not only old wine in a new bottle but also old wine that has turned to vinegar.
I see some of the recycled faces such as Shahidan Kassim (Perlis), Mustapa Mohamed (Kelantan), Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz (Perak), Ahmad Shabery Cheek (Terengganu), Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor (Melaka but now Putrajaya), Hilmi Yahaya (Penang) and Idris Jusoh (Terengganu). And should not Malaysia be spared the likes of Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (Perak), Tajuddin Abdul Rahman (Perak) and Hamzah Zainuddin (Perak), all rascals of the first degree?
Come on, Najib! Those are all expired goods plus tainted like hell.
Now, some of these people are personal friends of mine (I am even related by marriage to one of them). Nevertheless, although I can consider myself close to them, that has never stopped me from criticising those who I feel need to be criticised.
I can see Najib’s logic in selecting these people to be in his Cabinet. First of all, Najib needs representatives from each state. Secondly, he needs to ‘pacify’ the warlords and get them on his side in the event anyone tries to push him out like what happened to Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi soon after the 2008 general election.
I suppose you need to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Hence Najib has surrounded himself with his friends as well as warlords who can turn enemy if he does not bring them into the Cabinet.
Is this new team good for Malaysia? I doubt it is good for Malaysia but it most certainly is good for Najib. Some of those people are his people. Some are Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s people. But what I do not understand is why Najib appointed Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar the Minister of Youth and Sport.
If I were to hazard a guess I would say that Khairy is the man to watch. He is going to be the ‘face’ of the reformed Umno who will be interacting with the younger generation to try to win back their support, which Umno lost in the recent general election.
I believe Khairy will be given a freehand to do what needs to be done to pacify and satisfy the younger generation. And I also believe he has the brains and the political skills to deliver the youth vote.
Anyway, time will tell whether Khairy may yet end up as Najib’s ‘secret weapon’. But they have five years to do that and one week is a long time in politics while five years is a lifetime.
As for the others, well, I can only say I hope Najib knows what he is doing. But from where I am sitting it looks like a disaster. But then maybe Najib is more worried about the next party election than about the next general election. In that case then maybe Najib made the right decision after all.
Anyway, read the letter from a reader below. I am not going to analyse or comment on the letter since the contents are self-explanatory enough. You can make up your own mind as to whether you agree with the writer or not.
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Chinese votes did make an impact
FMT LETTER: From Paraman Subramaniam, via e-mail
In the recently concluded General Election, the total numbers of eligible Chinese voters were 3.94 million. In Penang they constitute 53.3% of total voters and in Kuala Lumpur 52.2% of the total voters are of Chinese origin.
Even though by population the Chinese constitute about 22.56% of the total population in Malaysia but by the number of voters their strength is 29.68% of the total 13.3 million voters in Malaysia.
There are also many mixed seats where Chinese voters are present in significant numbers and the way the electoral boundaries are drawn they allow the Chinese voters to be quite influential.
The EC states that 84.84% of the total number of registered voters had cast their vote on May 5. This would mean that we can assume at least 3.4 million Chinese votes were cast. It goes without saying that the majority of Chinese voters are pro Pakatan Rakyat.
What no one knows is the actual total percentage of Chinese votes that went to PR. Considering the number of Chinese supporters that did outnumber all other races at most PR’s ceramah’s nationwide, many suspect anywhere between 75% to 95% of the Chinese may have voted for PR in the recent GE.
It was also reported that a huge number of Malaysians based in Singapore (mainly Chinese) had returned to cast their vote causing a massive traffic jam at the causeway. If the numbers were at least 85% then it would mean that more than half of PR’s popular votes amounting to 5.6 million would have consisted of mainly Chinese votes.
After deducting the Indian votes as well as the Sabah/Sarawak votes that went for PR, this would leave the Malay votes in PR quite a minority. A conservative estimate could give PR only attracting 40% of the Malay vote in total.
Even though they may have received considerable amount of new, young urban Malay votes, at the same time PR had lost a lot of their traditional Malay voters that they had in the 2008 GE. If PR had amassed at the very least 45% of the total Malay vote then they would have easily won the elections.
In the 4 predominantly Malay majority states Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu, BN lost an average 0.8% of the popular vote as versus PR gained an average 0.53% of the popular vote when compared with the 12th GE.
The overall increase of 2.9 million new voters (28% increase) could have contributed to this. The majority vote difference between BN and PR in these 4 states in the recent elections is a mere 9,149 votes in favour to PR, however it must be noted that Kedah itself has more than 160,000 registered Chinese voters.
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5月5之後（十二）
如果我必須做出猜測的話那我會說凱利將會很有看頭。凱利他會成爲新巫統的‘臉孔’來和年輕一代進行互動以贏囘他們的支持；巫統在最近大選失去了大部分年輕人的支持。
原文：Raja Petra Kamarudin
譯文：方宙
我看到首相納吉新内閣名單的第一反應是：我操！那名單上還是佈滿了混蛋，流氓，人渣，和爛泥。我們到底會看到一個名人大合照或是一個海盜大合照呢？
我擔心我們會看到的是後者。
這根本就不是什麽政府大改革；如果這就是納吉在選舉宣言裏和助選時的諾言那你真的得自求多福了。這不只是新瓶裝舊酒，這簡直就是舊酒發酵變醋了！
我注意到有許多循環再用的臉孔如Shahidan Kassim (玻璃市), Mustapa Mohamed (吉蘭丹), Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz (霹靂), Ahmad Shabery Cheek (登嘉樓), Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor (馬六甲，現今為布城), Hilmi Yahaya (檳城) 和Idris Jusoh (登嘉樓)。還有，馬來西亞究竟犯了什麽錯，需要去接受Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (霹靂), Tajuddin Abdul Rahman (霹靂) 和Hamzah Zainuddin (霹靂)這些‘第一級流氓’為内閣成員呢？
納吉你嘛卡拜托一下！這些全都是過期的商品，而且還他媽的髒得很呢。
這些人當中有些許都是我的朋友（我甚至還是其中一人的親家）。雖然我覺得我是和他們很親近，無論如何儅我覺得我必須批評他們時我是從不手軟的。
我看得出納吉挑選這些人入閣的邏輯。第一，他想要每個州屬都有個代表；第二，他想要安撫各地軍閥，儅有人想要逼宮時他可以拉攏他們（還記得2008年大選后阿都拉的下場嗎？）。
我想你必須親近你的朋友，但你更必須親近你的敵人。納吉他把他的朋友拉的很近，但與此同時他的身邊也圍滿各地軍閥，而這些軍閥在沒有被召入閣時隨時會變身成爲他的敵人。
所以這個組合對馬來西亞來講好嗎？我並不認爲，但這對納吉來講絕對是好的；這個組合參雜了他和敦馬的人。但我不了解的是，爲何納吉會委任凱利（Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar，阿都拉女婿）為青年與體育部部長。
如果我必須做出猜測的話那我會說凱利將會很有看頭。凱利將會成爲新巫統的‘臉孔’來和年輕一代進行互動來贏囘他們的支持。巫統在最近大選失去了大部分年輕人的支持。
我相信凱利他會得到絕對的支持，他可以隨心所欲地去做他想做的事情來安撫和滿足年輕一代。我也相信他有那個頭腦和政治技術來奪回年輕人的選票。
時間會見證到底凱利會不會成爲納吉的‘秘密武器’。他們有五年的來達到他們的目的，但在政治世界裏，1個星期已經是很長時間，而五年可以説是一輩子了。
對於其他内閣成員呢，我只能將我希望納吉知道他自己在做著什麽。從我的位置那看起來像是個大災難，但對納吉來講他可能更注重黨大選而不是來屆國家大選。如果情況是這樣的話，那很有可能他做出的選擇是對的。
最後，讀讀以上的讀者來函吧。我不會加以分析或評論，因爲這封信的内容已經解釋得很充分了。你可以自行決定你同不同意他所說的。
（敬請期待下一篇文章）
