Mahathir’s ‘no show’ at Perkasa v Najib’s defence
The timing of the Perkasa convention itself, a deliberate move on the eve of the Umno General Assembly, makes for significant reading.
Free Malaysia Today
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, while taking note of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s criticisms, maintains that BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia) is not an attempt to bribe voters to return to the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.
He’s also taking the position that although vernacular schools are not mentioned in the Federal Constitution, as pointed out by Mahathir earlier this week, it’s not politically correct to talk about doing away with them while at the same time, in a contradiction in terms, trying to woo the Chinese voters back to BN.
Mahathir is also against the promised repeal of the Sedition Act by Najib on the grounds that “it would affect the core struggle of Umno”. The jury is still out on that and Najib has not backtracked from fulfilling his pledge repeated in an interview not so long ago with BBC in London.
Najib’s apparent fight back against positions taken by Mahathir, including on the education system dividing Malaysians, was expected to get mention in the former Prime Minister’s opening speech at Perkasa’s convention on Sunday but significantly he did not show up. Perkasa is an extreme right-wing Malay NGO allegedly sponsored by Mahathir as patron and admittedly funded, to some extent, by the Federal Government.
Perkasa fears Malay rights in jeopardy
The timing of the Perkasa convention itself, obviously a deliberate move on the eve of the Umno General Assembly, makes for significant reading.
Perkasa sees Najib’s transformation as going off at a tangent from its struggle, especially on Malay rights and Islam. Mahathir may prefer to focus more on the direction being taken by Najib or the lack of it and hence the no show at the Perkasa convention.
The climax of all this would be whether Mahathir turns up on Tuesday for the Umno General Assembly. His absence would send the clearest signal that Najib’s days are numbered and that the forces are gathering to oust him through the Umno Supreme Council which may still be very much in Mahathir’s pocket.
The anti-climax would be the tone of the debate at the Umno General Assembly, despite guidelines being given out, i.e. whether it would degenerate into the politics of distraction and disruption through rhetoric and polemics centred around even more Chinese-bashing.
The sore point with Umno is that the “ungrateful” Chinese, forgetting the hand of the Malay “tuan” feeding it, has in the recent past rejected not once but twice the Chinese-based parties in the BN coalition i.e. MCA, Gerakan and SUPP.
Najib drawing the battle lines
Najib, in an interview with a Malay daily on Sunday, begged to differ with Mahathir and drew the battle lines. The only point where he’s on accord with Mahathir is Umno Selangor. Their thinking is that it should be dissolved and a fresh effort made.
“If there are calls for Chinese vernacular schools to be abolished, and at the same time we are trying to increase support from the Chinese community, this is a conflicting situation,” said Najib in the interview. “It is simply not possible to gain support from the Chinese community if we are also seeking to close Chinese vernacular schools in the same breath.”
He warned that the party must decide “what it is we want”. In an open democratic system, he pointed out, “we need overall support if Barisan Nasional is to form the government”.
“Westerners says lose-lose, but we want win-win,” said Najib “If we adopt a lose-lose strategy, we will face a lot of difficulties when the general elections are upon us.”
BR1M, he stressed in touching on another critical area, must continue to compensate for the withdrawal of subsidies. At current world market prices for crude oil, there are no subsidies, but subsidies may be needed when the crude oil market goes up again.
He also drew home the point by reiterating that BR1M was to compensate for the “the withdrawal of subsidies and the increase in fuel prices”.
