The benefit of the doubt given to Najib will run out if things don’t change
Umar Mukhtar
The UMNO general assembly is now over. Prime Minister Najib Razak now has some breathing space courtesy of the UMNO division chiefs, the UMNO Supreme Council, and the Barisan Nasional elected members of parliament.
Why they did that in spite of the swirling controversy surrounding the PM is anybody’s guess. But to assume that intelligent people who have a stake in the party is one hundred per cent satisfied that all is well and yummy with this country would be presumptuous. A premature chest-thumping will only prove the shallowness of this round’s winners. After all, everybody knew that it was only a stage-managed boost for the PM. That’s okay, give him the benefit of the doubt – for now.
That’s the operative term – benefit of the doubt – and it can only last so long. For us, it was no point to oust Najib only to replace him with Dr. Mahathir’s choice. We have had enough of more of the same. Let him fade away. Wait for PRU14, then that choice will be ours. If the PM cannot redeem himself, he will pay for it. Make no mistake about that. Maybe, ‘bye ‘bye Najib or maybe ‘bye ‘bye BN! We are still waiting for believable answers to clear this mystery and we are looking forward to a clean and efficient government. Make no mistake about that too.
If Najib were to go, the apparatchiks that propped him up may still be around. There are many of them in the civil and legal services, and the PDRM and among the menteri besars. Their attitude is for you to judge and correct. Otherwise, it would be like Najib’s ghost is still around
Consider this: a menteri besar was interviewed by the international TV station Al-Jazeera about the apparent collateral damage caused by bauxite mining to those poor people living along the route from the mine to the port. Everything had turned red because of the bauxite dust and the lorries speeding to and fro to make the maximum trips, hundreds of them. He admitted the inconvenience but reiterated in the same breath that the people’s interest is the state government’s top priority.
Top priority? So why is this destruction happening? Or was he just demonstrating that he knows which side of the bread to butter? It’s like being in Alice’s Wonderland, where black is white and white is black. Do we deserve this bullshit? And that wasn’t Najib speaking, mind you. Just the apparatchik.
Top priority? Or second-top priority? Of the party that purportedly defends the Malays who make up most of these poor victims. These people were also the ones who chose those delegates to the UMNO general assembly, but of priority at the assembly was the short slit in the sarongs of MAS stewardesses such that a delegate even volunteered to be the one to sew up the slits. If that was important, so is the bauxite red menace.
It is enough that the people are led to believe that prices of everyday goods will go down with the implementation of GST and that the falling ringgit is damn good for Malaysia. So by that rationale all nations are praying for their currencies to drop? Tourism minister Nazri Aziz said more tourists will visit the country because things are cheap. There goes our target of being a high-income nation. So why don’t we make the ringgit fall, RM5 to US$1 quickly.
The price of oil is now dirt-cheap and that must bother the government in trying to make ends meet. Does it know that millions of Malaysians do that every month with the increase of prices of just about everything. Here’s your chance, Najib, to get your expensive shitty consultants to advise you on how to make the people happy in spite of these. Not turn them into racists, please. You have about two years. The benefit of doubt may not last that long.
Sure, there may be no revolt in the party, as long as cash is king. But just like the benefit of doubt, money runs out too. Then the slit in the sarongs of MAS stewardesses won’t matter any more, and the red bauxite dust suddenly becomes an eyesore and a health hazard. Hmm, wonder why Indonesia doesn’t allow bauxite mining over there? By the mentri besar’s reckoning their government must not have its people’s interest as top priority.
