So we Malaysians have a new prime minister, a new cabinet, and a new administration. From the way the BN controlled mainstream media cover the event, you would think that the whole country is exploding with joy at the arrival of a new Messiah and his twelve apostles.

Inevitably, the press will publish “positive” response from the BN component parties, business leaders, community leading lights, and the odd selected men and women on the street.

najib announce new cabinet lineup 090409 03 I have lived to watch five prime ministers come and go. Najib Abdul Razak is my sixth PM. To call him “my” PM is a little awkward, for I did not vote for him, but the convention of linguistic usage has to be observed.

Thanks to alternative media like Malaysiakini, my cynical “anti-social” voice has found a perfect platform. But my cynical voice is not born from any form of destructive nihilism, but from my idealistic dream of what Malaysia could be.

From that seemingly paradoxical position of ide alistic cynicism, let us proceed to evaluate the early days of the new premiership of Najib Abdul Razak.

Please do more

Hardly has he warmed the PM’s seat in Putrajaya when Najib announced lifting the suspension of the two opposition publications, and the release of 13 ISA detainees, including two of the Hindraf group.

gantang by election 040409 hindraf candle light vigil kamunting isa detainees09 A reform-minded prime mi nister according to my cast of idealistic cynicism would release all ISA detainees, shut down the infamous Kamunting Camp, and declare an intent to abolish the notorious ISA altogether.

Detainees who are suspected of real crimes against the state would be charged in court of course. By that standard, the new PM has failed.

The new political top-dog in Malaysian politics has announced that he wants to see a freer press, for reporting without fear of the consequences. That sounds noble.

But noble declaration of intent does not make fo r an open democratic society. He would do more to meet the aspiration of the new Malaysians by initiating legislative change to all the stupid laws that has curbed freedom of speech and stifled our national soul for the past half century in Malaysia.

The official Secret Act and the Se ditious Act will have to go. The publications laws will have to be amended so that the publishing licenses of major media do not have to be renewed annually. I would like to see a new law banning political parties from owning any media organisation, but that would be detrimental to the freedom of speech of political entities.

As long as opposition parties can be given the chance to own media organisations, then we will let market forces to determine their fate. Can we be assured that under the new PM, opposition parties can also own and publish major daily newspapers? If not, then the new PM is not reform minded. He fails in my idealist ic/cynical book.

Then there is this proclamation of the new PM for a One Malaysia.

It is an attractive sloga n. Many Malaysians are dreaming of the day the Malaysians will live as one people, equal despite their differences, enjoying the fruit of their labour without having to climb the high mountain of racial discrimination.

The zero sum game of the NEP has to end, and the government will help all Malaysians based on need, and not on creed. The people of Sarawak and Sabah are particularly in need of help from the federal government.

But the new PM’s One Malaysia is an empty slogan, devoid of bone, meat and blood. It sounds good, but it lacks content. Is it just spin, or is it a real reformist declaration of doing away with all the exclusivist divisive and debilitating policies of Umno in the past 50 years?

(He has even launched a One Malaysia website, but would I even begin to log on it to check? Naw, it is probably manned by cyber mercenaries anyway.)

If the idea of One Malaysia is going to flourish, then the idea of Ketuanan Melayu has to go. The BN rac e-based parties will have to be dissolved and merged into a single multi-racial party.

Otherwise, I will just watch this shouting of the One Malaysia slogan just as another creation of the PM’s spin doctor, like Dr M’s “Efficient, Clean, and Trustworthy government” of 1982, and Pak Lah’s vacuous “Islam Hadari” when he took over the helm from his predecessor. They are catchy but empty slogans, and nothing more!

What about his much touted “mean and lean” cabinet?

malaysia najib new cabinet sworn in 100409 04 Out of the 28 ministers, 19 are from Umno. MCA gets 4. All the other component parties including MIC and Gerakan share out the rest with one each.

This is a reflection of the twist ed ethnic power sharing so often touted by the Barisan Nasional. The new cabinet is an Umno dominated cabinet, just like many old cabin ets in the past. It will formulate and implement Umno’s Ketuanan Melayu policies first and Malaysian policies afterwards.

Note how all those key cabinet positions like finance, defence, home, agriculture, works and education are all held by Umno. As the top administrative institution of the country, it gives the impression that the other BN component parties are there as decorative window dressing to the delusion of power sharing only.

Sabah gets four and Sarawak gets two inconsequential cabinet posts. So much for One Malaysia and national integration!

Recycled politicians

It is notable that some eleven senators had to be sw orn in to fill out the ministerial and the deputy ministerial positions in the new cabinet.

It seems as if there are not sufficient talents in the current crop of MPs in parliament for the new PM to choose from. Once again, BN personalities rejected by the voters in the last general election can be recycled into political circulation through the Senate backdoor.

khairy jamaluddin interview 230209 13 Then this new PM simply cold-shouldered the newly minted Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, while appointing Dr M’s son to be a deputy minister!

For as long as I can remember, this is the first time an Umno Youth chief has not been made a member of the cabinet.

What the new PM did there was like toeing a thin shaky line. He would do well not to antagonise Dr M, but he too must be his own man one day to leave his own legacy to posterity. In the days ahead, Dr M may just bec ome toxic asset to the beleaguered Umno.

While the list of the new cabinet was announced, we are told that a Chinese language net portal The Merdeka Review was banned from covering the PM’s press conference without any reason given. There is a freer media for you!

Nah, I do not see how Najib can become a reformist PM at all.

He was elected MP when he was 22 or 23. He became a minister when he was 24, and has been in the Umno political mainstream ever since.

In all those three decades of his unimpressive career in government, when was the last time that you heard something inspiring or original from him? When was the last time when you heard some proclamation of a major policy that could change Malaysia?

He has been so entrenched in a corrupt and repressive system that his worldview must have been shaped by all those senior bureaucrats who surrounded him all those long years. The bamboo curtain of the Malaysian officialdom must have shielded him from the daily reality of the ordinary people on the ground. Does he know what the retail price of a kilo of grade 3A rice is to-da y?

He is the product and a survivor with a political system that has brought Malaysia to the moribund state that we are in to-day. To expect him to reform the Malaysian institutions of state is like asking a fat man to lift himself into the air by his shoe laces!

Judging by what Najib had done in recent months in Perak, plunging the state into a political impasse and a constitutional crisis, his ascension to the highest political office of the land is no cause for celebration, and plenty of reasons to worry for the uncharted seas ahead.

Then again, he could be the last Umno BN prime minister in the history of Malaysia.

SIM KWANG YANG was the MP of Bandar Kuching from 1982 to 1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.