3 Reasons for Najib's Election Headache

Its been now over 3 years since the historic 12th General Election. In that time, we can safely conclude the following

1. PAS is a doing a fair job in administering Kedah 
2. DAP is doing a fair job in administering Penang. 
3. In all states where PAS,PKR and DAP form a coalition Government, the end result has been a disaster. In the case of Perak, the PM put at end to their misery by engineering a takeover of the state 
4. PKR is a doomed party lead by people who are pure talk and 0 substance. They can't even hold on to their own headquarters. PKR to me is worse than Perkasa and exemplifies a total lack of an enforced code of morality OR responsibility. The only leader worth her salt in PKR is Fuziah Salleh. 
5. PKR's incompetence only be matched by a crisis in leadership affecting BN

I want to focus on point 5. Pak Lah, for all his positive attributes of fair play and 'ot being evil', had his short comings. Najib as the incoming Prime Minister, should have in theory easily cleaned house and be confident of calling an election once he had about 2 years to run the ship.

However, its been 3 years already, and the Prime Minister's public signals does not inspire confidence. He is using talk of 'defending Putrajaya', his Deputy is talking about facing the toughest election ever, and the Government is treating the election like how a student treats a dreaded final exam.

So what has caused this? After all, this is certainly not the case of the Opposition over performing. In fact, far from it, the Opposition has been shambolic. However, eventhough given that backdrop, there have been several other own goals on the Government's side that ensures the Opposition is still in the game.

Let me list them down

1. Perkasa :. Perkasa killed 1Malaysia. Perkasa's incessant antics ensured that 1Malaysia - was going to be undermined, ridiculed and ultimately rejected.
The numerous run ins Perkasa had with BN component parties, the DAP and the latest of which, even religious bodies, showed that the1Malaysiah message was hollow. It also laid bare the lie that the BN formula provided the concept of 'power sharing.' Even worse, Perkasa and their bloggers are even free to stoke religious issues and exploit peoples sensitivities without any condemnation from the Government.

Government Ministers found it beneath themselves to talk to leaders of the component parties - instead, they just relegated the "enforcement" action to Ibrahim Ali & Co. I would say the Perkasa factor alone have cost the Government about 40-50 seats, with no positive impact as those who support Perkasa would have voted UMNO/BN in any case.

2. A slowing economy: The PM recognized the importance of tackling the economy. He retained the portfolio of Minister of Finance, created the NEAC staffed by a panel of so called 'experts' and created an outfit called Pemandu. So now, we have 3 cooks - the Economic Planning Unit (EPU), the NEAC and the Pemandu to "manage" our economy.

And what is there by way of result?

Zilch. Nada. Kosong.

Our Q1 growth numbers was bad in comparison to our neighbors. Worse when you consider the explosion of working age adults in the country due to our changing demographics. The question then is why? Why can't Pemandu, EPU or NEAC conjure up the magic growth numbers previous administrations used to conjure up with ease. Why did they screw up?

I think because they tried to do too many things at the same time. They were planning to build the MRT, at the same time they were asking for subsidies to be reduced. They were proposing a restructuring of Government ownership in the GLCs at the same time they were calling for the redevelopment of the Sg. Besi airfield. They suffered from the curse of many con-sultans, talking a mile a minute but not having a proper plan that can be executed.
I think right now we can question the wisdom of setting Pemandu in the first place. Pemandu will be making a lot of tough recommendations without doing the necessary political calculus. But should Pemandu be blamed for it?

No, blame the man who came out with the idea in the first place. Business cannot advise Government. In Malaysia, you require a strong willed Prime Minister to be the face of the latest crazy idea to do things like transform a palm oil estate into a administrative capital, create a market based economy, etc. The role of the advisor is that of a shadowy person, not so obvious like Pemandu. Because then the people who disagree with the Government's idea can attack the outfits like Pemandu rather than attack the PM himself. This is exactly what Perkasa did, and rendered impotent most of the recommendations made by Pemandu.

3. A Stale Cabinet. The cabinet today is stale. People do not respect the Government. We have open accusations of corruption leveled against a Minister by a well known company and the Government does nothing. We have the political secretary to a Minister having RM 2 million cash in his apartment. We have ministers talking down to the people as if the people owe their living and livelihood to the Ministers.

The Conclusion

UMNO right now is weak in Selangor, Perlis, Kedah and Terengganu. That's 4 states where the party's internal disarray makes it possible for the Opposition to capitalize. Add to the equation the Opposition's expected domination in the West coast towns, 10 additional seats in Sarawak, 10 seats belonging to the MCA and we are looking at about 90-95 seats going the Oppositions way.

That would leave Barisan still in power but with a reduced majority. I think thats what keeping the PM on edge.