Najibs Mea Culpa: Too Little, Too Late

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 effort to recover slumping open support.

Najib offered a reparation upon a campaign swing through Kedah final weekend. Although a border as well as calm of a reparation immediately influenced discussion as well as debate, a fact it was offered in a first place was enough to count as demonstrative of a PM's perception of his in front of as well as his administration's situation vis--vis a electorate.

With a ubiquitous choosing said to be just turn a corner, Najib is perplexing every which approach to get citizens to stick with his statute bloc which is smashed by scandals of a serial nature.

Singapore PM Lee (right in photo), who was not in a comparable plight, resorted to a similar try during ingratiation with a republic's citizens upon a eve of which country's ubiquitous choosing final year.

It was a strategy which worked for him, yet not for his team: candidate Lee scored 10 percentage points higher in a opinion than a rest of his party's slate which fell to a level which was a lowest in a statute PAP's history of participation in elections since autonomy in 1965.

Lee's apology supposing a jot of balm for a harm of an citizens smarting from a government's better diagnosis of tall employment-value immigrants over locals, though it could not branch a tide of resentment which saw a antithesis post their best results in years.

Najib's apolo gy is offered in circumstances many different to which faced by his southern counterpart. Unlike Lee's PAP, which was not anywhere near defeat by a opposition, Najib's UMNO-BN bloc is in mortal peril of an upset by a antithesis Pakatan Rakyat, in a Peninsula during least, yet not in a 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 assured which a shift of supervision is imperative.

Hence, an reparation by a PM who all a time holds out a promise of reform, is as if directed during revelation citizens which a supervision which acknowledges a blemishes would be contrite enough to mislay them.

But as a Malay observant 'Cakap tak serupa bikin' (Talk is not a same as action) holds, Najib's mea culpa would have to be accompanied by movement to make an clarity 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 quell a border of a apology.

Muhyiddin was saying in outcome which there was no need for BN to engage in open self-flagellation; an reparation was a enough aspiring of a statute coalition's enterprise for self-improvement as well as reform.

Throughout a 3 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 remodel measures, though it is his emissary who determines their loyal import.

Hence it was not startling which after Najib had inaugurated to emanate a open reparation for BN's past record, it was Muhyiddin who stepped in to! quell a ny idea which deep distress would emanate in in advance 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 pragmatic threat to his control of a No 1 in front of in his party acted by his deputy. There was a time which competition was a many poignant choosing in a country. The ubiquitous choosing was a preamble prior to a finale of a polls to a top-tier of a UMNO leadership.

Not anymore. Though a looming competition between Najib as well as Muhyiddin is vicious to determining UMNO's directions in a second half-century of Malaysia's independence, it has been reduced to a sidebar a upcoming 13th ubiquitous choosing of a nation raised to a correct as well as main significance in determining a nation's fortunes.

In a sense, a UMNO inner polls supersession of a ubiquitous elections' significance as a bellwether was a distortion which was emblematic of all which ails a country. It represented a supersession of national considerations by essentially narrow-minded ones.Hence a replacement to a correct size as well as significance is one of a several benefits a incumbent PM's reparation is only a ultimate stemming from a results of a domestic tsunami of Mar 2008.

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