GE14: mother of all elections indeed it was
Malaysian politics is a winner takes all and losers lose all game. And Malaysian politics is a game of patronage and punishment. So many are going to be rewarded for Pakatan’s win and many are going to be slaughtered for going against Pakatan. That is how it works. And Pakatan has promised to hunt down Najib and make sure he goes to jail. That is what you get for being the political enemy of those who walk in the corridors of power.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has finally been sworn in as Malaysia’s Seventh Prime Minister. So more or less that would be game over for ex-Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, Umno and Barisan Nasional.
All I can say is we never saw that coming, whether those from Barisan Nasional or those from Pakatan Harapan. Most knew this was going to be a tough or do-or-die general election for the ruling party but many thought Rafizi Ramli’s prediction of 126 parliament seats and almost all state governments falling to the opposition was stretching things a bit too far.
Anyway, it appears that INVOKE was not shooting blanks after all.
Even Pakatan was as shocked as Barisan that the Tsunami was going to really be that strong and that it was not a Malay Tsunami or Chinese Tsunami but a Malaysian Tsunami involving both East and West Malaysia.
Pakatan’s most potent weapon was GST and 1MDB, amongst just two of many. And while Mahathir successfully presented his case to the people and convinced them that because of just these two issues alone change was necessary, the Barisan machinery failed to convince the people otherwise.
Pakatan learned how to communicate with the people, while Umno and Barisan did not. In fact, most Barisan leaders from Umno as well as from the other coalition members did not want to touch the GST and 1MDB issues with a ten-foot pole. They just did not know how to articulate their arguments so it was left to a handful of bloggers to do that job. But where were the political leaders or cabinet members? They were playing safe in case the GST and 1MDB ‘dirt’ rubs off on them.
What I saw and what I mentioned to some of the Barisan leaders is that most were abandoning Najib and were throwing him under the bus. But then in the event Umno and Barisan fall they would all fall as well. So there is no such thing as a safe zone for them to take shelter in.
Yesterday proved that to be true.
Anyway, this is not the time to finger-point and look for kambing hitam to pin the blame on. What Umno and Barisan have to now do is to reflect on what went wrong. And many things did go very seriously wrong. While it is very easy to blame the whole thing on Pakatan for its orgy of lies and false news, which did occur, of course, Umno and Barisan are not entirely blameless as well. And there was a lot of internal sabotage to add to an already critical problem facing Umno and Barisan Nasional.
As for me, personally, I am back where I started when I first started blogging in 2004, which is I am back as an opposition blogger.
There are many things Umno and Barisan need to think about and do. Even more important, there are many things Pakatan needs to think about and do, especially regarding its promises to the voters. Then there is the 100 days promise and the removal of the GST and other issues. Pakatan knows it must deliver all these because honeymoon periods do not last long and the people are very fickle.
Malaysian politics is a winner takes all and losers lose all game. And Malaysian politics is a game of patronage and punishment. So many are going to be rewarded for Pakatan’s win and many are going to be slaughtered for going against Pakatan. That is how it works. And Pakatan has promised to hunt down Najib and make sure he goes to jail. That is what you get for being the political enemy of those who walk in the corridors of power.
As for me, I suppose my nine-year exile will continue and I will spend the rest of my days in Manchester until I am called to meet my Maker.
