Washing dirty linen in public, a Barisan Nasional forte

Raja Sara Petra

The public quarrel between Tourism Minister, Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, and Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Sarawak’s state minister in charge of tourism, and now with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Abdul Rahman Dahlan as well, who is from Sabah, makes one wonder what these Barisan Nasional heavyweights are up to.

Is this something that is going to help Barisan Nasional win more votes in the coming general election? Have these people not heard of a contraption called the telephone? Why can’t they just pick up the phone and call one another to revolve disagreements instead of calling in the reporters and issuing challenges against one another through the media?

We know politicians love pissing contests and to show off who is more terra. They must always have the last word and not be the one who loses face. They might as well put on boxing gloves and slug it out behind the swimming pool if they cannot rein in their egos. After all, this is what it is really all about.

A classic example is British Prime Minister Theresa May who allowed her ego to cloud her judgment. She wanted her own mandate from the voters and expected to win last week’s general election with a  higher majority than in 2015. Instead she got clobbered and may not even last a full term, even though she has pledged to serve her full term. She may yet break the record of the shortest serving British Prime Minister.

It is so easy to provoke politicians. Just tell them that so-and-so said something negative about them and they will immediately respond. That is why Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak does not care what you say about him. You can accuse him of this, that or the other and he does not respond. And this irritates the opposition like hell became then they cannot keep the issue going.