COMMENT The Umno-BN regime isn’t pulling any punches any more. It wants to show that it can talk the walk. But the walk has always been crab-like: sideways and backward  The talk is mostly spiel, constituted purely by spin and lies.

Despite his apparent popularity amongst voters (yes, do laugh, because we know how such polls are conducted and then made to look statistically valid), premier Najib Abdul Razak has shown yet again his political disingenuity.

NONE He’s desperate to get traction among voters. But the more he thinks he is talking the walk, the more he looks daft and pathetically amateurish. And if you put the rest of the cartful of nitwits in Umno and BN before the horse, you’ll get a full fusion of Malaysian manure.

The first lie came with the regime’s claim a week ago that first quarter gross domestic product grew by 10.1 percent. So far the regime has not told Malaysians how it drew this statistical conclusion and the modeling it used to derive the number.

If the economy had performed that strongly, the why are businesses still complaining of weak retail sales and why are retail and indeed wholesale prices still rising? Every man and his dog in Malaysia is complaining just how expensive things tend to become week in and out.

abdullah ahmad badawi pak lah smiling happy So the next logical question to ask the regime is to show Malaysians the rate of inflation for the same quarter and how it calculates that.

 

The second lie came in the way of Najib carting former premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (right)   to promote him by telling Bernama , the official mouthpiece that the premier is entirely credible and so are his efforts and policies to better the country and the lives of all Malaysians.

You can add N ew Straits Times, Star and Utusan Malaysia as prime sycophants of the regime by whose patronage they survive without an ounce of genuine journalistic integrity - and how can they, when the regime itself does not have an ounce of integrity?

But why roll out Abdullah who, for the most part, was the most intellectually useless and politically incompetent prime minister? What sort of credibility could he possibly bring to the Najib regime when his own credibility is decidedly suspect?

NONE His son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, was rocketed to a prime political position in Umno and the regime, from where he grew his influence to ultimately take over leadership of the nutty right-wing and intellectually bankrupt Umno Youth.

Next it became public that Khairy, in his early 30s then, was a multimillionaire. Malaysians were told he was a rich man in his own right. But everybody knows that in corrupt Malaysia, run by corrupt regimes since 1957 - with the most heinously corrupt ones after 1969 - ‘in his or her own right’ is about as meaningful as a turtle swimming across a desert. Or to say that the Malaysian police, the Malaysian armed forces and the entire bureaucracy are absolutely incorruptible.

The next lie came in the form of Malaysia’s international competitive ranking. The regime claims Malaysia is the 10th most competitive economy in the world and - wait for it - the only (Islamic) country in the wacky Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and in the equally wacky Non-Aligned Movement whose regimes, in reality, are as corrupt as Malaysia’s or in the OIC or worse in some cases. But never mind: that kind of truth is easily glossed over.

The more important point is to have Malaysians focus on and start believing in Najib’s spellbinding 10th Malaysia Plan. With all kinds of goodies and grand promises, this means that, according to Abdullah, ‘this is a good thing and therefore there is no need to doubt the prime minister’s credibility as a leader’.

Embedded ‘special rights’

 

If you visit the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 2009-10, and you find Malaysia ranked at No 10, tell me and I’ll immediately become a monkey’s uncle. Malaysia is ranked No 24, not No 10. It was ranked No 21 in 2008-09.

mahathir ikmal presidential lecture 290410 So the ranking has worsened, showing Malaysia to be less competitive internationally. Singapore - Dr Mahathir Mohamad will love this, given his racist proclivities - is ranked third, up from fifth, and Australia is ranked 15th, up from 18th place.

Those who dare question Malaysia’s illustrious leader, whose credibility over the gruesome murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu in Malaysia remains questionable, are condemned as dishonourable or, worse, labelled a traitor.

 

Abdullah is nobody. Never was anybody. His record in office will show him as much. But if Abdullah and Najib want to champion Malaysia as democratic, then every Malaysian should be less cowardly and openly challenge if not strongly question every politician, irrespective of their political persuasion, and especially the Umno-BN regime, to practise what the regime has been preaching since 1981: an open and transparent government. Remember the cockamamie slogan that Mahathir and Musa Hitam dreamt up in 1981?

 

NONE The history of Malaysia’s development plans is well known. These Plans are updated versions of the Stalinist-like programmes of economic development but it’s the state, rather than private enterprise, that takes the lead role in developing the economy. Yet every regime since Mahathir’s has promised heaven and earth that the private sector would lead the charge.

The cows have come home and wild and woolly promises are still being made. But every one of the Plans reconstitutes and re-embeds not private sector competition. Malay special rights are reconstituted and re-embedded. And so are the special rights of the regime’s business cronies.

 

Here’s what Malaysians should be asking Najib: For all the grand plans and promises contained in the 10th Malaysia Plan:

  • What are the costs that Malaysians will bear over the next five years?
  • Who will get what projects and how will these be granted (this being the operative word)?
  • Will this Plan finally bring an end to adding more crutches to Malay special rights or will it finally work to weaning Malays off depending on the state (meaning on living parasitically off the taxes of non-Malays)?

There’s one more question to ask Najib, Umno and BN: When will they stop telling lies? Or is that the old Holy Grail to economic, social and political success? And for whom?

 

MANJIT BHATIA, an academician and writer, is also research director of AsiaRisk, a political, economic and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. He specialises in international economics and politics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.