It is easy to say that Pakatan Rakyat has run out of ideas to bring forward to the people, especially when most of the items in the Buku Jingga have been hijacked by an increasingly clueless Prime Minister Najib Razak and Barisan National. And surely one must take into consideration that Pakatan Rakyat is not yet the ruling government, thus their ideas will remain ideas on paper without a clear mechanism for implementation until they get a clear mandate from the people. Even still, we can already see some measure of success with Pakatan’s ideas in the states of Penang and Selangor. Given that Pakatan has only been in power for 4 years, their successes in Penang and Selangor are little short of a miracle compared to Najib’s disastrous 4-year reign.
Implementation and political will
And though some – especially the Umno critics – may think Pakatan has a drought of new ideas to take them to Putrajaya, bear in mind – ideas alone do not lead to good governance. Anyone can come up with any measure of ideas. Even Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa have a wealth of ideas, Muhyiddin Yassin too has great ideas to ‘Malaysify’ the education system, while Mahathir Mohamad still has ideas by the gallons. So does Nazri Aziz when it comes to the use of indelible ink for voters. The Election Commission is not spared either. It also faces problems deciding on which idea will win the election for BN, while the Police take the cake for the most demented ideas on how best to curb peaceful assemblies.
What makes an idea stand out is its implementation. And so far any idea coming from UMNO-BN and Najib Razak has failed to achieve anything of use to the masses, albeit, it has further enrich the wealthiest Malaysians – as witness the record number of Malaysians appearing the Forbes list of the world’s most wealthy. Yes, the Najib administration – in keeping with the UMNO-BN elitist tradition – has benefited the 1% richest people in Malaysia at the expense of 99% of the rest of the country.
Every ETP idea Najib has dished out has gone merely to create more monopolies in Malaysia with his friends in charge. One obvious beneficiary is tycoon Syed Mokhtar Albukhary who has been sweeping deal after mega deal in the country. Instead of liberating the Malaysian economy, Najib’s idea has been to maintain the closed system that enriches a select few.
Sunk to the level of organizing Ponzi-like scheme
Najib’s idea of a world class democracy is also weird by any measure. It involves oppressing the mechanism for expressing ones’ opinion be it via a public display or through media. The emphasis on control is very much like the one practiced by the likes of Karl Marx in old time Russia. All manner of public life is controlled by the state. Every little act of dissent will be met with a heavy handed response from the authorities under the control of the ruling elite. From flag lowering to transvestites voicing their concern – all measure of voice has to be muted by insecure parliamentarians bent on control. Maybe, Najib has mistaken Marxism for democracy – someone should tell him!
Meanwhile, on and on he goes about creating a high-income society, while at the same time he dishes short-term political goodies such as RM100 for school children, RM200 for university students, RM500 for households below the RM3,000 poverty mark. To finance these one-off measures, he introduces Ponzi-like schemes such as SARA 1Malaysia, and actually encouraging the public to entangle themselves with debt so as to be able to fund his SARA 1M.
His lackeys are at the same time following through with measures to purchase high-end military toys at exorbitant prices, demonizing of the minority racial and religious groups, while he and wife Rosmah Mansor rush to clamber for photo-shoots to ‘show-case’ themselves to the Malaysian public.
The Najib administration has also become a symbol of character assassination of a political rival, allowing the degradation of public morality just to vilify a person or persons who may have an even chance to replace him and his rule.
Without public relations, where would Najib be?
At this juncture, it seems Najib Razak has lost the plot on how to lead Malaysia.
He has shown himself to be weak, relying on public relations to shape his leadership. Everything he has done for the past 4 years has been a mere advertising campaign to prop up his image. A move to create the perception of a friendly leader while masking the truth – Malaysia has not moved forward at all since the days of Abdullah Badawi. Instead, Malaysia has slid back into the Alice-in-Wonderland world of political surrealism that marked the Mahathir era.
Comparatively, especially against such a politically and morally bankrupt UMNO-BN, Pakatan Rakyat has real ideas. But without the people’s mandate, it can’t implement its ideas at the federal level. UMNO-BN has no ideas and does not seem to need ideas. After all, it can always keep stealing from the Pakatan. But what is the use when it has no will to implement these ideas, UMNO/BN has ideas; yet it is UMNO/BN that has no-political will to implement the ideas at all.
A legacy that needs fumigating
Malaysia is a country with a visible and beautiful facade, but the heart of its current government is rotten to the core, compromised by 54 years of cancerous corruption. The entire UMNO-BN still reeks of of this past ‘legacy’, and needs a good and thorough fumigation.
Pakatan Rakyat has ideas and most importantly, it has Talent. Let’s give them the chance to run through those ideas in the way they see fit. And if the citizens of Malaysia are not happy after giving Pakatan Rakyat the chance to play out their plan, we can always re-open the BN door and listen to what it has to offer.
It really is that simple. Malaysians are the ones who determine what goes on in Malaysia. At the end of the day, it is our collective ideas and wishes that matter the most, not some clown in Putrajaya – just because his dad used to be PM of Malaysia.
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