I keep wondering whether this “must be destroyed” mantra is working. If it is, let’s hope it will be effective much faster than it was for its originator, Roman senator Cato the Elder, who had to wait for 29 years to see his “Carthage must be destroyed” curse come to fruition.

Whereas the next best chance for Malaysians to put an end to BN, the looming general election, is more like a mere 29 days away. But no worries. The well-known RAHMAN prophecy and the fact that it’s also BN’s unlucky 13th general election could prove more decisive than any “must be destroyed” or other mantra.

And even more encouraging is how hell-bent BN appears to be on engineering its own destruction. Still trotting out its tired old carrot-and-stick act, for example.

NONE With BN head Najib Abdul Razak dangling the carrot, and the emphasis as always on the second syllable ‘rot’, as in both the rubbish he talks and the corruption he both condones and commits.

Doling-out ‘gifts’ of public money as if it was out of his own and BN’s pocket in a brazen and blatant attempt to buy Malaysians’ forgetfulness of or forgiveness for his regime’s robbing the nation of countless billions in cash, land and natural resources, and thus buy his way back into office.

And in case RM500 per head in bribery euphemised as BR1M hasn’t yet swung him enough votes in his favour, now, in his tawdry, trademark “You help me, I help you” fashion, he’s promising to double it if he’s successful.

But in case Malaysian voters turn out not to be such donkeys as to go for Najib’s rotten carrots, all the usual suspects are out there waving the stick.

azlan Caretaker Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has been making dark threats against “certain parties” who are plotting to cause electoral chaos, and preparing his police and vigilantes to take up their cudgels against opposition “troublemakers”.

Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is as ever brandishing his twin weapons of race and religion, and proclaiming that there should be more Malay-supremacy clubs like Ibrahim Ali’s pernicious Perkasa.

And the moment that Parliament was dissolved to make way for the election, caretaker Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi went straight into attack mode, tweeting to BN members and supporters that “we shall move to the warzone to kill all adverse political intruders”.

Fatal message

Not to be outdone, however, Najib has since combined both the carrot and the stick by giving 22,000 free (as in paid for with public money, of course) BN- and 1M4U-branded motorcycle helmets to members of a ‘youth brigade’ recruited to tout for BN in Selangor.

As cunning a move as Najib and his advisors must have considered this to be, however, it was as riddled with symbolism as dire for BN on the streets as ‘13’ and ‘RAHMAN’ may turn out to be in the election.

Considering Mahathir’s now famous remark that Malaysians should vote for BN as “the devil they know” in combination with the terrible toll of life and limb motorcyclists face on Malaysia’s roads, it’s hard not to think of these helmets as hell-mets.

And even more fatally, unless I’m very much mistaken in my understanding of Chinese numerology, the numbers 1 and 4 as in the 1M4U logo signify the message “forever die”.

But as dire as everything that BN members and their minions are saying and doing may be, even more self-destructive is their dumb insolence in the face of public disgust at their rampant corruption and countless other notorious crimes.

NONE A perennial case in point being that of Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has parlayed his 30-odd - very odd -years as the modestly-salaried chief minister of Sarawak into a family timber, plantation and real-estate empire allegedly worth US$14 billion.

The shocking extent to which he has stripped Sarawak of its timber resources is there for anyone with access to Google Earth to see, and the astonishing scale of his and his relatives’ and cronies’ international property investments is a matter of public record.

Yet so overweaning is his assumption of immunity from official investigation, let alone prosecution, that he recently responded to suggestions that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission should inquire into a video shot by NGO Global Witness apparently revealing close associates detailing corrupt practices, by scornfully dismissing the very idea.

azlan Claiming “victimisation”, he scoffed that the MACC doesn’t deserve his cooperation, as it has been “naughty and dishonest,” then proceeded to claim that in any case such an investigation would have little impact on Sarawakians’ support for him and BN in the coming election as “it is out of tune with local sentiments”.

While I entirely agree with Taib that BN’s tame MACC has been and remains “naughty and dishonest” to say the very least, considering the deaths of Teoh Beng Hock and others in its custody and its utter failure to investigate regime corruption, I fancy that his touching faith in local sentiments may well be misplaced.

As misplaced, in fact, as the confidence that self-titled First Lady of Malaysia, Rosmah Mansor apparently has that the populace will believe this week’s claim by her New York jewelers Jacob & Co that the US$24-million diamond ring they sent her two years ago was actually intended for her daughter’s mother-in-law-to-be, the unlovely Maira Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.

Bare-faced gall

Thanks to such arrogant denials and “elegant silences” on these and the rest of the endless series of scandals surrounding BN figures, and collusion in these attempted cover-ups by its accomplices and accessories in the police, judiciary and ‘mainstream’ media, the regime is increasingly despised and detested.

Terminally despised and detested, I hope and trust, and as now caretaker prime minister, Najib seems to have started to become dimly aware.

NONE Hence his groveling televised speech earlier this week in which he promised more transparency in government and more action against corruption if the BN regime is re-elected.

“My sincere apologies to all Malaysians if we have done anything wrong,” he whined, adding that “at the end of the day, we are ordinary humans. If we are given a strong mandate, I can assure you that we will do better in the next five years.”

What? “If we have done anything wrong”?? Who does this pathological liar and pathetic apology for a human being think he’s kidding??? As every Malaysian with half a brain knows by now, he and his BN accomplices have done nothing but wrong in living memory.

Yet he has the bare-faced gall to pretend that he intends to reform while simultaneously committing blatant voter bribery and presiding over an electoral system so criminally skewed in his regime’s favour, and thus in such crying need of reform that he felt the need in his speech announcing the dissolution of Parliament to “urge all parties to remain responsible and not seed any doubts about the integrity of the election process in this country”.

What a joke. What an insult to the people of Malaysia. And what a compelling reason, as if we needed yet another one, why BN must be destroyed.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.