It’s 2006 all over again


Hence to attack Pak Lah would not bring him down because there is nothing to hit him with. So we had to look for another target (bomb the water to bring down the dam strategy). And this target was his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Much has been written about this subject over the last seven years since 2006. Some, no doubt, have been able to connect the dots. Most, however, treat what they read as sheer entertainment and do not understand the relationship or link between one article and another.

And this is why we constantly need to resurrect old articles and say, “I told you so!” If not, many would not understand that what they are seeing today is merely something that has been predicted a number of years ago.

It is not easy to change things or to bring someone down. It takes time for that to happen. And sometimes you need to hit a different target. During WWII, when they wanted to destroy a dam, they did not drop the bombs on the dam. The dam would never be brought down that way. They would drop the bombs into the water so that they could bounce on the surface of the water and hit the dam.

In 2006, when we wanted to bring down Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, it would have been futile to hit him. The March 2004 general election result that saw Barisan Nasional perform its best in Malaysian election history proved that Pak Lah had good support. Hence if you wanted to defeat him in the next general election expected in 2008/2009 it would have been impossible.

So how do you bring him down? You bring him down from the inside, not from the outside. And for that to happen the Umno leaders themselves must turn on Pak Lah.

But then Pak Lah was Mr Nice. He was considered holy who could lead prayers as an imam. He hardly had any faults other than a medical problem (which Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah or Ku Li also suffers from) called sleep apnea.

What is sleep apnea? This is what the NIH says:

Sleep apnea is a common disorder in which you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you sleep. Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. They may occur 30 times or more an hour. Typically, normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a loud snort or choking sound.

Sleep apnea usually is a chronic condition that disrupts your sleep. When your breathing pauses or becomes shallow, you’ll often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep. As a result, the quality of your sleep is poor, which makes you tired during the day. Sleep apnea is a leading cause of excessive daytime sleepiness.

And that is why Pak Lah sleeps during meetings and so on. He is not lazy or disinterested in his job. He has a medical ailment like many other people also have (Ku Li included). And Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad knew that Pak Lah suffers from this when he appointed Pak Lah as his successor.

Hence to attack Pak Lah would not bring him down because there is nothing to hit him with. So we had to look for another target (bomb the water to bring down the dam strategy). And this target was his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin.

So, in 2005/2006, we launched a ‘Get Khairy Campaign’. And this started with the series that was carried in Malaysia Today called ‘The Khairy Chronicles’, which was later translated into Bahasa Malaysia and published into a book. And that did the trick. People, in particular the Umno leaders (Dr Mahathir included), became very angry with Pak Lah because of what Khairy was said to be doing. And that was the beginning of the end for Pak Lah.

But our target was not really Pak Lah. In fact, Pak Lah is a nice man, as is his wife Jeanne Danker whom I knew since back in school in the 1960s. So it was nothing personal. It is just that Pak Lah was the Prime Minister and one anointed by Dr Mahathir on top of that. So we had to attack the Prime Minister if we wanted to hurt Barisan Nasional in the next general election expected in 2008/2009. And to hurt Barisan Nasional we had to hurt the Prime Minister through his son-in-law, Khairy.

Our hope, of course, was that Barisan Nasional would be defeated in the general election expected in 2008/2009. Failing that, and if Barisan Nasional still remains in power, then we wanted a new Prime Minister. And, of course, this new Prime Minister will have to come from Umno.

If we cannot defeat Barisan Nasional and if an Umno man was still going to be the Prime Minister, then at least that man must be someone from the ‘middle’, not a rightist (Malay nationalist) or a leftist (Islamist). And this man has to be Ku Li.

So, to ensure that Ku Li and not Najib Tun Razak becomes the Prime Minister, we had to sabotage Najib. And, just like how we sabotaged Pak Lah by hitting his son-in-law, Khairy, we had to sabotage Najib by hitting his wife, Rosmah Mansor.

Hence, soon after the 2008 general election, we launched a ‘Get Rosmah Campaign’ — similar to the ‘Get Khairy Campaign’ in 2005/2006. I had nothing personal against Rosmah. She just happened to be the wife of the man who would most likely become the next Prime Minister after Pak Lah. And we did not want her husband as the Prime Minister. We wanted Ku Li in the event Barisan Nasional cannot get kicked out.

However, there were two factors that we had no control over. The first factor was Dr Mahathir. Just like Dr Mahathir decided who would succeed him, Dr Mahathir would also decide who would succeed Pak Lah. And Dr Mahathir had a choice between Najib and Ku Li, with Najib as his first choice.

The ‘Get Rosmah Campaign’ in a way succeeded, just like the ‘Get Khairy Campaign’ did. And Ku Li now became Dr Mahathir’s first choice and Najib dropped to second choice. But it was the second factor that gave Najib the edge and brought him back up to first choice.

This second factor was that both Ku Li and Dr Mahathir had huge egos. And with the ‘history’ that they had between them, their egos stood in the way of any possibility of reconciliation. If Ku Li wanted to become Prime Minister he would have to kowtow to Dr Mahathir. But Ku Li would not. He wanted Dr Mahathir to kowtow to him instead, which would never happen. And because of that Najib instead of Ku Li became the Prime Minister.

In short, Ku Li refused to become a Dr Mahathir ‘nominee’ and a ‘rubber stamp’ Prime Minister. And that would have been too dangerous for Dr Mahathir to allow. Pak Lah has shown how dangerous an ‘independent’ Prime Minister who refuses to listen to advice can be. So Dr Mahathir is not about to allow it a second time.

And that screwed Ku Li’s chances and Najib became Prime Minister instead. But then Najib too proved he is hard at listening. He was told to call for the general election in 2011/2012 when Barisan Nasional was still strong. But he waited until May 2013 instead when the ‘window’ had been closed somewhat.

He also chose the wrong candidates to contest the general election (mostly those from his inner circle), against the advice of the ‘experts’. Najib was proving to be as difficult as Pak Lah was in taking advice. And just like what happened to Pak Lah when he refused to listen to advice, the same thing may happen to Najib as well.

So now we are seeing the Umno people making their move against Najib. What happened to Pak Lah five years ago in 2008 is now happening to Najib. The pressure is on for Najib to take responsibility for the May 2013 election disaster and to hand over the reins to his Deputy. But maybe we can talk about that in the next episode.

 



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