KT: A slap in the face for Najib

With Umno’s defeat in the Kuala Terengganu parliamentary by-election last week, the ruling party’s chances of resurgence now seem even more remote. Bizarre, that the prime minister-in-waiting Najib Abdul Razak was quick to dismiss it being a no confidence vote on his impending premiership.

Najib is still living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, safe in the belief that the 3-M strategy: the media, money and machinery, could be thoroughly shaped up for more effective electoral manipulation when he takes over the reins in March.

Or the heir-apparent, who has been eyeing Malaysia’s highest political office as “rightfully” his since the untimely demise of his father Abdul Razak more than three decades ago, is so cocooned that he never considers himself a main source of the problem.

Just yesterday, Najib again blamed the public’s negative perception on Umno for the loss in the KT by-election, and chastised the loftiness of “some” leaders for alienating the electorate.

“Malaysian people are mature enough to gauge their leaders… they are no longer impressed with the rhetoric of changes which are nothing but plain rhetoric…” Only that Najib means other Barisan Nasional leaders, not himself.

Too bad, that it is rather easy to repudiate Najib’s faulty claim.

In my visit to KT the weekend before the vote, a local man whispered to me the deputy prime minister was campaigning like mad, even overshadowing Wan Ahmad Farid, the actual candidate for Umno.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Najib had called for a meeting with the editors of several major dailies before the crucial by-election, in which he sternly warned that there would be serious consequences should BN lose. On the contrary, a win would hugely boost the morale of the ruling coalition and halt the still fledging Pakatan Rakyat from making further inroads into the increasingly complex and volatile political terrain.

A senior journalist, who was at the meeting, told me while it was short of an overt threat, the air was thick with intimidation nonetheless. He got the feeling that Najib was ready to ditch his “friendship” with the press should BN fail to win against PAS.

“Basically, he was dropping hints that some heads would roll.”

Patronising tone does not work

In the following days, I closely monitored the contents of the mainstream media, and saw no reason for the deputy prime minister to be upset with the coverage on the by-election, as his faces appeared on the front page nearly every other day, if not everyday!

Reading the Chinese dailies in particular, one could not help experiencing an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. All at a sudden, the non-Malays are no longer pendatang (squatters). The deputy prime minister even praised the Chinese community profusely, going as far as to say that those who attended Chinese primary schools were all patriots!

Alas, such patronising tone no longer worked. As PAS leaders, aided by the improved coordination of Pakatan allies, were steadfastly making progress in swinging fence-sitters to their side, with hundreds of Chinese voters rushing to hear them out, TV news slots only showed clips of Najib handing out hampers to the elderly and urging the people not to be deceived by the Islamic party.

The man in charge of the BN campaign was eager to make it a test of his popularity, yet he was frightened of a negative outcome that could jeopardize his ascension. Throughout the campaign, Najib dubbed PAS as Parti Kluk Klek (flip-flop party), but it was his dithering between going for the jugular of his opponents and fearing a backlash in his own backyard that contributed significantly to the defeat.

Had Umno won the by-election, I have no iota of doubt that Najib would be the first to come out vindicated and shout: I have made it!

So, why had he not the courage to shoulder the responsibility over the humiliating loss?

Since he had made the entire by-election a national contest by bringing in cabinet members and federal resources, why then did he subsequently argue the outcome was decided by “local” issues?

All this only confirms my long-held suspicion, that Najib may be ambitious, but pusillanimous. He desired a convincing win, but lacked the fighting spirit, seen in his failure to force the various factions in KT Umno division to close ranks, secretly hoping that he could at least find a scapegoat among them should things go wrong.

Unlike Dr Mahathir Mohamad, a sly politician whose chequered career in Malaysian politics is characterized by a variety of power struggle and scheming plots, Najib has everything handed to him on a silver platter, and never has to fight for political survival as Mahathir did.

However, it was ingenious of Mahathir to contend that the KT by-election was a confidence vote on Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. While it is true that the candidate was close to the prime minister, to say that Wan Ahmad Farid, if elected, would play a bigger role in checking against Najib in the future was rather fantastical.

After all, with all the executive powers given to him, Najib as prime minister could easily drop Abdullah’s confidants through cabinet reshuffle. Shorn of political acumen and powerbase within the party, the likelihood of Abdullah fighting back would be near non-existent.

Don't expect Najib to change

But before that, Najib’s immediate task was to win the hearts and minds of the electorate in the Malay heartland however much he disliked the candidate. The outcome cannot have been more miserable.

Najib then urged the ruling coalition to change or to be swept from power. Still, what changes are in the offing? And how committed is the BN leadership to substantive reform?

Who in his/her right mind would think the man who had sought to muzzle the media last month for the sake of victory will now embark on a path of reform while in defeat?

For Najib, flinging the door wide open, abolishing all the evil law, and setting the press and the judiciary free will all entail costs much greater than the two consecutive by-election losses. Lest one forget, the shadows of Altantunya and all the dodgy defence deals are still lurking in the background!

In any case, it is not too difficult to imagine a quietly gleeful Abdullah. For Najib to lose face in such a manner was a sweet revenge of sorts.

And there are noticeable schadenfreudian delights in the MCA too. Satisfied with the Chinese vote that went the BN’s way, Ong Tee Kiat probably thinks the Chinese party has done its best and will not be made to bear the consequences. The “faithful” Chinese support could be a proof that, a broken ship the MCA may be, there is still some three catties’ worth of nails to be salvaged, rather useful for the crisis-beset Umno.

What Ong has yet to realize is that the BN is already a sinking ship, and the broken MCA will soon be sunk with the Malay party when young Malaysians of all races desert the ruling coalition in droves comes the next general election.

Meanwhile, the public could expect more bickering to surface within Umno as it prepares for the much-awaited party elections two months from now.