Is Najib increasingly resembling his predecessor, Tun Abdullah Badawi, whom he replaced?\u00a0Two years since Najib assumed office, the state of the nation speaks for itself clearer than any sobriquet would. Let\u2019s examine what has changed and what has not since Najib took over from Abdullah in 2009.<\/p>\n
Early into his premiership, Najib unleashed a slew of acronym stew to add to the already-full pot of GLCs and civil service. The ambitious ETP, GTP, NKRA, NKEA, PEMANDU and various other implementation agencies or programmes have cost the government upwards of billions, and counting.\u00a0Under the development budget, RM11.86 billion has been allocated for the NKEA projects from 2011-2012, with much of this being spent on international consulting firms to boost the government\u2019s public image.\u00a0Defence spending in the budget has inexplicably increased, whilst RMAF engines were stolen and RM6 billion was spent to purchase two OPVs. Meanwhile, Malaysia has also been reported as the fifth-ranked country in the world in terms of outflow of illicit capital \u2013 estimated at RM889 billion.<\/p>\n
Has Najib\u2019s alphabet soup proven to be a recipe for disaster?<\/p>\n
Paradoxically, a widening chasm of disparity between the haves and the have-nots greets the economic transformation program.
\nThe gap between the rich and the poor has widened. The rising price of goods continues to deplete the disposable income of the man on the street, whose common grouse is that housing is unaffordable, public transportation unreliable, and inflation unbearable.
\nTo add salt to their \u2018wounds\u2019, the everyday devil of corruption has made its effects felt from Kulai to Kangar.
\nDevelopment of human capital is lacking but Najib is intent on building costly and controversial projects such as a 100-storey tower, a nuclear plant, and MRT.\u00a0Public confidence in the state of the institutions such as the judiciary and the police are at an all time low. Gated and guarded communities spring up to meet rising public fear for their safety, as the crime rate continues to climb.<\/p>\n
Deteriorating relations between communities have been papered over with \u201c1Malaysia\u201d rhetoric.\u00a0 Unprecedented incidents of racial and religious tensions have burdened some communities with a strong sense of \u201cotherness\u201d, while others put on the cloak of defensiveness in the face of deep identity crisis.<\/p>\n
A nation in crisis can no longer be pacified with feel-good promises. Transformative leadership is clearly and sorely lacking as Najib attempts to tweak the system or treat the symptoms without addressing the root cause of the Malaysian malaise.
\nOne is not surprised that the needs of the nation have not been adequately addressed, since there has been practically no new policy thinking since Abdullah Badawi left the nation\u2019s top job.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, Najib\u2019s leadership style seems to bear an uncanny similarity to his predecessor Abdullah\u2019s, in the sense that both have demonstrated a fear to make bold changes.\u00a0The difference is that Abdullah was willing to make certain admissions in his assessment of the nation. During his tenure, Abdullah admitted that Malaysia possessed first-world infrastructure and third-world mentality.\u00a0Thanks to his concessionary and indecisive style of governance, during Abdullah\u2019s time there existed a veneer of freedom, however thin, in the democratic space of the nation.<\/p>\n
Not so under Najib. His handling of the Perak constitutional crisis, as well as the prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim leaves no doubt that there is no space for democratic reforms.\u00a0Where the legitimate parliamentary opposition leader has been treated as if he were an enemy of the state, political persecution is a natural accusation.\u00a0As Najib gears himself up for a possible general election speculated to happen as early as June this year, his track record of band-aid solutions looks set to leave a pock-marked legacy no PR campaign can erase.\u00a0Even one raised on a diet of fast fixes will know that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is Najib increasingly resembling his predecessor, Tun Abdullah Badawi, whom he replaced?\u00a0Two years since Najib assumed office, the state of the nation speaks for itself clearer than any sobriquet would. Let\u2019s examine what has changed and what has not since Najib took over from Abdullah in 2009. Early into his premiership, Najib unleashed a slew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[100,136,19,20,105,54,80,107,60,106,103,12,122,138,137],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","tag-1malaysia","tag-badawi","tag-cec","tag-corruption","tag-etp","tag-gtp","tag-inflation","tag-mp","tag-najib","tag-nkea","tag-pemandu","tag-penang","tag-perak","tag-reformation","tag-transformation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}