March 5, 2012
Najib's Mea Culpa: Too Little, Too Late
by Terence Netto@www.malaysiakini.com
COMMENT Prime Minister Najib Razak as if took a root from his across-the-causeway reflection Lee Hsien Loong's book by apologising for past mistakes of his supervision in an bid to redeem slumping open support.
Najib offering a reparation upon a discuss pitch by Kedah last weekend. Although a extent as well as content of a reparation rught away influenced contention as well as debate, a fact it was offering in a initial place was sufficient to equate as demonstrative of a PM's notice of his in front of as well as his administration's incident vis--vis a electorate.
With a ubiquitous choosing pronounced to be only round a corner, Najib is perplexing each which approach to get citizens to stick with his statute bloc which is smashed by scandals of a sequence nature.
Singapore PM Lee (right in photo), who was not in a comparable plight, resorted to a identical try during ingratiation with a republic's citizens upon a eve of which country's ubiquitous choosing last year.
It was a strategy which worked for him, though not for his team: candidate Lee scored 10 commission points higher in a vote than a rest of his party's slate which fell to a turn which was a lowest in a statute PAP's story of participation in elections given autonomy in 1965.
Lee's apology supposing a modicum of relief for a hurt of an citizens smarting from a government's improved treatment of tall employment-value immigrants over locals, though it could not branch a waves of rancour which saw a antithesis post their best formula in years.
Najib's apology is offering in resources much opposite to which faced by his southern counterpart. Unlike Lee's PAP, which was not anywhere near better by a opposition, Najib's UMNO-BN bloc is in mortal hazard of an upset by a antithesis Pakatan Rakyat, in a Peninsula during least, though not in its strongholds of Sarawak as well as Sabah.
Corruption scandals as well as unhandy supervision have conduced to UMNO-BN's parlous standing in a eyes of citizens increasingly convinced which a change of supervision is imperative.
Hence, an reparation by a PM who all a time binds out a guarantee of reform, is as if aimed during telling citizens which a supervision which acknowledges its blemishes would be ashamed sufficient to remove them.
But as a Malay saying 'Cakap tak serupa bikin' (Talk is not a same as action) holds, Najib's mea culpa would have to be accompanied by action to make an impression upon a people.
Scratchy Najib-Muhyiddin duet
When challenged by a antithesis to list a actions which a PM was apologetic about, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin stepped in, as is his wont, to relieve a extent of a apology.
Muhyiddin was saying in effect which there was no need for BN to rivet in open self-flagellation; an reparation was a sufficient aspiring of a statute coalition's desire for self-improvement as well as reform.
Throughout a three years of Najib's administration, a impression of his control has been a same: a PM is allowed to determine a labeling of an dictated raft of reform measures, though it is his emissary who determines their loyal import.
Hence it was not surprising which after Najib had elected to emanate a open reparation for BN's past record, it was Muhy! iddin wh o stepped in to relieve any idea which low distress would emanate in radical measures towards improvement.
Thus a one-step-to-the-fore, two-shuffles-behind impression of a Najib-Muhyiddin duet of governance continues unchanged. It is a scratchy duet which a PM's vacillations ensure it will stay in place until he can draw up of a implied threat to his control of a No 1 in front of in his celebration posed by his deputy. There was a time which competition was a many significant choosing in a country. The ubiquitous choosing was a preamble before a finale of a polls to a top-tier of a UMNO leadership.
Not anymore. Though a looming competition in between Najib as well as Muhyiddin is vicious to deciding UMNO's directions in a second half-century of Malaysia's independence, it has been marked down to a sidebar a upcoming 13th ubiquitous choosing of a country lifted to its correct as well as pivotal importance in determining a nation's fortunes.
In a sense, a UMNO internal polls supersession of a ubiquitous elections' stress as a bellwether was a exaggeration which was emblematic of all which ails a country. It represented a supersession of national considerations by essentially sectarian ones.Hence its replacement to its correct size as well as importance is one of a multiform benefits a incumbent PM's reparation is only a ultimate stemming from a formula of a political tsunami of Mar 2008.
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