Najib Razak's First One Hundred Days
M. Bakri Musa
Malaysiakini.com July 15, 2009
I would have expected that the successor to the incompetent and do-nothing
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has minimal difficulty shining as the bar
had been lowered substantially. Yet despite that, Prime Minister Najib
Razak has failed to impress us in his first 100 days. His priority is
packaging over performance.
Najib may be more poised, his voice less grating, and he stays
awake in meetings (Tun Mahathir gave him top marks for that!), but in
content and performance, he is of the same bottom-league kayu belukar
quality as Abdullah, and far from the sturdy meranti quality we long
yearn in our leaders. Abdullah lasted slightly over five years; it took
time to see through his vacuity. Now sensitized, voters are less
tolerant and less forgiving of incompetence. Najib will have an even
briefer tenure.
Najib's two signature and high profile initiatives in his
first 100 days are his 1Malaysia.com.my website and his micromanagement
of Perak's legislative politics. The first illustrates Najib's slick
packaging; the second, the empty content and inept performance.
Najib's website is professionally designed and maintained. It
makes full use of the new media including Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.
Unfortunately its contents do not reflect the man. When I surf the
websites of Tun Mahathir, Lim Kit Siang or Anwar Ibrahim, I know that
what is written reflects the person, right down to the tone and style of
writing.
I do not get that sense with 1malaysia.com. It is written as
if from a third person perspective instead of being personal, the very
reason for having a blog.
Of course I do not expect Najib Razak to write his own
speeches; he has other important things to do like running the country.
I do expect him however, to be on top of his speechwriters, and to do the
final reading and make the necessary editorial changes so those speeches
would truly represent and sound as if they emanated from him. He has to
leave his imprint.
At the same time I expect his speech writers to be
professional enough to study their subject's favorite expressions and
writing mannerisms, as well as style of speaking, so the final product
would sound and look as if it had been from the man himself.
Not only is the style and tone of 1Malaysia.com divorced from
Najib, so too is the content. When someone asked him what the 1Malaysia
concept meant, Najib was unable to articulate it coherently. He was
unable to relate his "1Malaysia" concept with his party's pursuit for a
'unity government,' for example.
If his 1Malaysia website was meant to symbolize his "One
Malaysia" vision, then it has failed miserably. Little wonder that his
government had to launch a massive public relations exercise just to
publicize his "1Malaysia" concept. Malaysians are still fuzzy about the
content. I doubt very much that Najib himself understands what
'1Malaysia' means.
Far from being his guiding vision, Najib's "1Malaysia" is
nothing more than the slick concoction of his highly-paid pubic relations
personnel. It is just another slogan, again the triumph of packaging over
performance. Expect Najib's "1Malaysia" to have the same as if not
shorter shelf life than his predecessor's Islam Hadhari.
Perak's Mess
As for Najib's political and leadership skills, his handling of Perak's
legislature's politics is illustrative. There was no shortage of
superlatives or praises effusive enough to describe his 'coup' in
engineering the fall of the Pakatan government. Today, barely a few
months later, Najib is desperate to distance himself from that still
evolving mess. He is not in the least (or no longer) interested in
trumpeting his earlier 'triumphant' role.
If all the Perak mess did was to soil Najib's already mediocre
reputation, I could readily overlook his central role in it.
Unfortunately we are not yet even near the end of the full ramifications
of that crisis.
To date the episode has exposed the ineptness of the state
civil service and the Royal Malaysian Police, as well as ensnared the
sultan. Commentators are now not in the least shy in criticizing the
sultan, and often in very harsh and rude terms. They are also throwing
the sultans' own words uttered when he was chief justice back at him.
Sultans are not used to eating their own words.
That was not all. That crisis also exposed what had been
obvious to many and for so long, the thinness of talent in our political
class. The sight of Speaker Sivasankar being literally dragged out of
the Assembly Hall has now become and will forever remain the iconic image
of the country's political leadership.
That case (or cases, as apart from the contested Chief
Minister's post, there is the Speakership that is still to be litigated)
is still winding its way through the court system. Already that series
has exposed the glaring inadequacies and mediocre qualities of our
judges. The exception was the initial trial judge, Justice Aziz Rahim,
who had his written judgment delivered within days of his decision and
whose legal arguments were the model of wisdom and scholarship.
As for the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Appeals Court judges who
reversed Justice Aziz Rahim's decision, we would expect them to be a
class above trial judges. Instead their written judgments when finally
released weeks later, were not only tardy but did not address the
pertinent issues raised by the trial judge. I would expect each of the
three appellate judges to outdo each other in presenting a well reasoned
and erudite judgment considering that this is not only a high profile
case but one that would be cited frequently in future. It is also a case
that is sure to be headed for the highest court. Obviously they were not
eager and perhaps embarrassed of their judicial logic and decision.
Such are the caliber of our judges, Justice Aziz Rahim
excepted. How on earth were they selected, let alone promoted? Their
inadequacies would have remained hidden if not for the Perak political
fiasco. At least on that count, we could thank Najib.
Elsewhere I wrote that Najib's predecessor Abdullah Badawi
served a useful function as "practice Prime Minister." His sheer
ineptness emboldened citizens to speak out and criticize him specifically
and other leaders generally. Previously Malaysians, like most Asians,
were a dutiful bunch, hesitant to criticize their leaders, mistaking that
to be an expression of disloyalty. Abdullah Badawi, not intentionally of
course, changed all that. He made Malaysians more assertive. At least
on that point we could thank him.
Abdullah Badawi was our 'practice' Prime Minister. He gave us
ample opportunities to practice developing and acquiring the courage to
criticize our leaders. As we would say in the kampong, Abdullah's role
was as a main-main Prime Minister.
Abdullah was a 'play-play' Prime Minister; Najib serves a
different function. He is our 'sacrificial zinc anode' Prime Minister.
Boat owners are aware of the importance of the sacrificial anode. By
installing that you preferentially divert the corroding effects of the
sea water to that anode, thus protecting the other elements on your boat,
like its props. When the anode is corroded you would simply replace it.
It is much easier and considerably cheaper than having to replace your
eroded props.
Najib Razak is our metaphorical sacrificial zinc anode. He
attracts all that is evil, brings out all that is corrupt, and exposes
all the incompetence. Then when the nation has been cleansed, its evils,
corrosions and incompetence accreted upon Najib, we can dispose of him.
So far Najib has served well as our sacrificial anode. The
important thing about this sacrificial anode is to know when to dispose
it. Keep it too long and it would spread the corrosion to other vital
parts of the boat. The next general election is as good a time to get
rid of Najib Razak and the party he leads, time to dispose our national
sacrificial anode.
It is sad but not inappropriate to use the sacrificial anode
metaphor for Najib. Like many, I would have preferred that he be the
skipper of our ship of state. However, if you do not have what it takes
to be the skipper, and you do not even have the weight to be ballast,
then I suppose being a sacrificial anode is still better than being dead
weight.
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