COMMENT | The veritable cynic in me is going against his proper instinct for a bit. I must say –cough, splutter, ugh! – that I’ve been suitably impressed with the ‘Belakang Masuk’ regime of Muhyiddin Yassin. Much to my surprise, it has not so much as handled as how the Covid-19 crisis was managed.

It was managed quite superbly. So much so, I’m stunned. I did think the regime of interlopers were out of their depth every which way. All of them. Collectively. So what happened?

What happened wasn’t Muhyiddin, really. It wasn’t anyone in the regime for that matter. Far from it. The Muhyiddin regime would’ve been running around like, as Australians like to say, headless chooks (chickens).

It was one man on whom even the Chinese Communist Party-controlled China Global TV Network (CGTN) – propaganda purveyors, of course – heaped high praise just the other day, when the infection and death rates began to stabilise and – lo and behold! – climb down.

That man is Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, whose name gets a paragraph. As it should.

Noor Hisham was throughout the voice of calm and candour. He was measured. He was professional. He told it as he saw it. He didn’t colour Covid-19. He didn’t fudge the statistics, as Malaysia is so historically inclined to do. He didn’t blame anyone. He didn’t point the finger at China either.

Noor Hisham was entirely above politics.

Noor Hisham was so unlike Hishammuddin Hussein. Remember him? When MH370 disappeared, long after it was tracked by Malaysian air force radar ‘turning back’ over northern Malaysia and vanished into the southern depths of the Indian Ocean, Hishammuddin, who moonlighted as defence minister, turned the disaster into a political sideshow.

He presented himself at media briefings himself as if he were in full control of the facts. Needless to say, he was not. He was cagey at first. Heck, he was cagey throughout. Then his confidence grew and he played to the gallery. He must have thought this was his chance to shine, to be anointed prime minister-in-waiting after his cousin leaves the country’s money-vaults. As they say: give a politician a ‘live’ television camera and a microphone and he or she will sing Canto pop-songs long into the night.

He thought he was in full charge of the facts. And when he wasn’t, he tried to pass the buck (read microphone) to somebody else. Trouble was: none of the dimwits knew any better than Hishammuddin or Najib Razak, who, incidentally, made himself quickly scarce from the media briefings. I suppose he had lots of state institutions to allegedly liquidate and take his wife Rosmah Mansor on international shopping sprees.

Noor Hisham, conversely, was a steady-hand. He steadied the ship at a time when, if left to the interlopers of the ‘Belakang Masuk’ regime, would have gone amok with a hellfire of announcements and pronouncements that, if not utterly confusing or meant to confuse, would surely have obfuscated the situation, as dire as it was or could have been.

Noor Hisham was like his US counterpart Dr Anthony Fauci, who at times contradicted his lunatic boss Donald Trump, who – surprise, surprise – didn’t sack him like he had so many others before who’d trampled on his fat toes, a.k.a. the Trump authority.

The other person the CGTN heaped praise on was New Zealand’s health director-general Ashley Bloomfield, who worked closely with the intelligent Kiwi prime minister Jacinda Ardern.

Salary cut

As an aside: shame on all those politicians, anywhere in the world, but especially in Malaysia, who failed to show the moral compunction, as Ardern has, to take a 20% salary cut for six months. Or as the politicians in the state of Victoria in Australia, who gave up their pay hike for 12 months, donating it to charities. Or the prime minister Scott Morrison and his cabinet, who buried their heads in sand over taking a pay cut as the country’s unemployment rate looks set to soar beyond 10%, twice the pre-Covid-19 number.

Even the lunatic Trump didn’t give up a dime of his US$400,000 a year salary, or Mike Pence, who’s paid US$235,000 just to look pretty as Trump’s co-stagecoach rider. In fact, Trump donated US$100,000, his last quarter salary, to the severely underfunded Department of Health and Human Services but most Americans say it’s a sham. Read here for more.

Noor Hisham came across as completely trustworthy. This isn’t a word you’d use cavalierly on politicians generally but especially on Malaysian politicians in a country renowned for greed, selfishness and endless racism, corruption and kleptomania.

Noor Hisham was always a voice of reason and reassurance. This is a characteristic of being trustworthy. His updates were premised not on the political or the need to “hide” facts but on facts and figures carefully culled to land a full and proper picture of the situation facing the people and become the basis for decision-making.

It’s a pity a number of Malaysian louts – uneducated idiots, generally – tried to flout the movement control order (MCO) rules. Nothing unusual, really, knowing that this is in fact part of “Malaysian culture” to test the limits of authority. Don’t throw them in jail but put them on a slow, preferably leaking, boat to China.

There’s no way Muhyiddin could have managed the crisis without Noor Hisham and the staff of hospitals, the police (for once) and the armed forces personnel who backed up the police. The good thing – and I want to say this sincerely – is that Muhyiddin let Noor Hisham take charge of the situation and manage it, and he told his interlopers in cabinet and elsewhere to back off and shut their loose traps.

That they did. But this doesn’t mean Malaysians have now profound new faith in the ‘Belakang Masuk’ regime. Once Covid-19 dies down or hibernates, as seems most likely, the Muhyiddin regime will be back to old tricks. Even the black arts.

The first shots of this idiotic nonsense of old – the Umno-isation of Pengkianat (oops: Perikatan) Nasional have been fired over the bow of Malaysians. Muhyiddin is guaranteeing cronyism will live strong and bright and forever. Every cabinet minister and his or her underling, including MPs, I gather, will be given high-paying jobs in Malaysia’s terribly state-protected, crony-infested, inefficient and uncompetitive government-linked companies (GLCs).

Some things just can’t seem to change.

MANJIT BHATIA reads economics and international politics in New Hampshire in the US.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

Keep up with the latest information on the outbreak in the country with Malaysiakini's free Covid-19 tracker.

Malaysiakini is providing free access to the most important updates on the coronavirus pandemic. You can find them here.

Help keep independent media alive - subscribe to Malaysiakini.