Is Time Running Out For Najib? Yes!

Hantu Laut

I personally think so, YES, time to leave the scene.  

Najib has failed miserably to bring about transformations as promised and his policies had gone from the subliminal to the ridiculous, the latest being RON 95 only for the poor. 

How do you implement and police such ludicrous idea?

I like him, but I made a mistake about this man.

From the Asia Sentinel:

Forces aligned with former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad appear to be attempting push embattled Malaysian Premier Najib Tun Razak into giving a time frame for his eventual departure from office and naming a successor, sources in Kuala Lumpur say.

The sources say that successor could be hard-line Home Affairs Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, 61, who was once an ally of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim when Anwar was still in Mahathir’s government. Zahid is third in line for succession and his rise would bypass Muhyiddin Yassin, the current deputy president of UMNO and deputy prime minister, who is 66. Muhyiddin has said he will retire soon.

The scenario, the sources say, is similar to that forced upon Najib’s immediate predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was pushed to name Najib and come up with a timeline in 2008 after the Barisan’s disastrous political showing in general elections. At that time, the ruling coalition lost its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time in history. The campaign to push out Badawi lasted from the May 2008 election until April 2009, when Najib took office.

Although Mahathir left office as prime minister in 2003, he has kept up a constant barrage of criticism about the way the country has been run, quitting UMNO near the end of Badawi’s reign in supposed outrage over party politics. He reawakened with force after the 2013 general election, charging that Najib’s election strategy of reaching out to the country’s 40 percent of minority voters was a mistake.

Najib is also under growing public pressure because of rising prices due to the withdrawal of subsidies and other reasons, not least of which is dissatisfaction with the ostentatious behavior of his wife, Rosmah Mansor. He has also been widely criticized for being out of touch with the rakyat, or citizenry. He was ridiculed for saying that while some prices had gone up, the price of “kangkong [water spinach] has fallen but why don’t they praise the government?”

The drumbeat of anger over corruption in UMNO also continues, with the Mahathir forces alleging that vote-buying was used to deny Mahathir’s politician son Mukhriz Mahathir a top position in last September’s UMNO party elections.

An increasing number of Mahathir’s long-time allies, including former New Straits Times editor in chief A. Kadir Jasin and Zainuddin Maidin, the former information minister, have called for the prime minister to take the 88-year-old Mahathir back into government as a “minister mentor” akin to what Lee Kuan Yew did in Singapore from 2004 to 2011 before ostensibly retiring from politics. Former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, another Mahathir ally, has also made public statements disparaging Najib’s premiership.

Mukhriz on Sunday gave an interview to the Malay-language newspaper Berita Harian, saying that “Defeat [in the next general election] is a real possibility if Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak continues with his present policy of correct but unpopular decisions, especially on issues concerning the rising cost of living,"

Read more.

The Economist: Malaysia Plays Catch Up

Malaysia is good at starting something but lack the will and impetus to follow through, a management sickness faced by many GLCs.

January 23rd 2014| 

Malaysia's new automotive policy aims to prepare the market for trade liberalisation, while easing the pain for its local carmakers.

In the second half of January, Malaysia's government unveiled the long-awaited revisions to its National Automotive Policy (NAP). The changes are designed to prepare domestic automakers for the imminent creation of the ten-member Asian Economic Community (AEC) and to carve out a role for the country in the regional automotive industry. However, the NAP 2014 also extends some of the protectionist measures that shield Malaysia's two indigenous manufacturers, Proton and Perodua, from international competition.

The most positive aspects of the new NAP 2014 aim to boost inward foreign investment by promoting Malaysia as a future hub for energy-efficient vehicles in the AEC. The new document broadens the definition of a green car, which is no longer tied either to a specific technology, such as petrol-electric hybrids or plug-in electric vehicles, or to engine size. The government will now start issuing licences to foreign producers to make small, energy efficient vehicles in Malaysia, hoping that such vehicles will also be exported elsewhere in the region.

The policy includes incentives and direct financing measuring M$2bn (US$600m). The ultimate goal is to boost exports of green vehicles to at least 200,000 units by 2020, with exports of automotive components reaching M$10bn at the same time. Instead of trying to compete in the mass car market, therefore, the Malaysian government is aiming to develop a market niche that could become a key driver of the automotive industry in coming years.

Yet Malaysia will face stiff regional competition even within this niche. Indonesia also has its low-cost green car programme, which is helping to attract foreign investment into the sector. Thailand has an eco-car programme, which aims to turn the country's into the ASEAN region’s main production hub for small, fuel-efficient city cars. It is also targeting green-car exports to countries outside the ASEAN trade block.

These two countries already outgun Malaysia in terms of both auto production and car exports. Thailand's policy of market liberalization has attracted investment from Japanese manufacturers and parts suppliers, which have built factories there over the past decade and a half. Vehicle production in Thailand is now around 2.5m a year, while Indonesia's output has reached 1.2m. Both those countries have also emerged as major regional vehicle exporters. Malaysia, meanwhile, produces fewer than 600,000 vehicles a year, with exports low.

History lessons

Part of the blame for this lies with Malaysia’s comparatively small market size and lower population. But part of the problem lies with its government's ambivalent attitude towards international trade in the auto industry. Malaysia's car industry was the brainchild of long-serving Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who established Proton in the early 1980s, producing vehicles designed by Mitsubishi (Japan). The second car company, Perodua, emerged a decade later. The original NAP was published in 2006 with a goal of tilting the playing field in favour of domestic carmakers within a framework of controlled industry liberalisation. The first revision to the NAP was effected in 2009.

Initially, protectionist policies benefited the country’s automakers, making Malaysia a regional automotive leader in the 1990s. Without competition and trade opportunities to push the companies' development, however, the quality and technological sophistication of their vehicles suffered. Proton saw its market share drop sharply once it shifted to making proprietary vehicles. Perodua, in which Japan's Daihatsu owns a 20% stake, has been the market leader for over a decade, even though its vehicles are not competitive in international markets either.

Read more.

NAJIB NOT A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

Hantu Laut

Former Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak died exactly 38 years ago, today. A man highly regarded and respected by Malaysians from all walks of life. 

Razak understood that power lies in the Malay community and for this power to be able to rule the nation effectively and equitably, the elite among the Malays must have the ability, aptitude and commitment to the nation as a whole. Class and money was not in his calculations.

Today, the whole picture of responsibility and guardianship of a nation as a whole has broken down to sectarian politics where the nation is heading all in a dither of religious and racial upheaval.

Class, birth and money is much in the calculations of the current regime, by hook or by crook, it will be have and the ill wind continued to blow vigorously.

Blatant political partisanship has become the key ingredient in running the economy of the nation, which have drained the best of brains out of the country. 

We are still a nation low in wages and high in cost of living that continue to escalate to the detriment of the people and a government still in complete state of denial. 

A government run by a retinue of dull-witted plodders with remarkable dexterity for the bizarre, an astounding affirmation of their vapidity and foolhardiness in the running of a nation.

Malaysians have been humiliated by disparaging remarks such as. .........if you don't like this country,  migrate to another country...............if chicken meat is expensive eat beef and fish, (alas, these nincompoops do not know beef and fish can be even more expensive than chicken, unless you want to eat basung and kangkung every day)

Lately, the PM has encouraged people to eat kangkung as the price has come down he says. 

(In the old days kangkung is considered as weed as it grows around drains and waterways and only the poorest of the poor eat the vegetable. Today, it has gained some respectability and is common dish in many restaurants, but still the cheapest vegetable you can find)

Read HERE his brother's well written article in remembrance of his father, the late Tun Razak Hussein

Obviously, our PM Najib is not '' A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK"

The Devil You Know....Better Najib Than Muhyiddin?

Hantu Laut

Better the devil you know.....better Najib than Muhyiddin. This comment have appeared in my blog a number of times by pro-Pakatan supporters. 

Below is a recent one from a regular commentator.

Purple Haze said...

What you have written was already quite evident BEFORE GE13. The bloggers closed ranks because of the elections and trained their guns on the PR personalities instead.

This is quite unfortunate as we should be electing governments based on ideas and strategies instead of based on character assignation. But perhaps, this is the means to sway the rural voters - so-and-so are "bad", so don't vote for them.

When you have the mainstream media in you pocket, the message gets hammered through.

But you are quite right that the new media is where the battles will be fought as the internet doesn't forget.

If you want to read Rais Yatim's doctoral thesis about the evils of the ISA, you can get it on the internet, as an example. And of course, plenty of idiotic statements made by various little Napoleans.

The pro-UMNO bloggers seem to want him out or take some action. I would rather he stay in the job as the present No 2 (IMO)is not a statesman that Malaysians can trust. Be careful - the people of Sabah and Sarawak might be even more marginalized.

Many seemed to prefer Najib over Muhyiddin, whom they consider  a worse hardliner than Najib and whom many pro-oppositions supporters suspect to be working closely with Mahathir to bring down Najib. To what extent this is true, I 'll leave to it to your imagination. 

To make matters worse for Najib there are also rumours floating around that alleged Najib to have given strict instruction to UMNO divisional heads to ensure Mukhriz do not get enough votes to win as one of the vice-presidents in the recently concluded UMNO's elections and the supposedly esoteric information have been leaked to Mahathir and the old man is not happy with Najib. 

Some say Mahathir is grinding his axe and waiting for the right time to go for the kill. Again, these are rumours circulating around the coffee shops, which I have misgivings about. 

If true, it is a reflection of Mahathir's poor judgement of people's character. Both Pak Lah and Najib's  rise to the helm was orchestrated by him. Mahathir also had a bad record of choosing wrong deputies during his tenure as prime minister, none have fitted the bill.

A win would automatically give Mukhriz a seat on the Supreme Council and high probability of him clawing his way to greater influence in the party hierarchy.

They say Najib is worried more about Mukhriz being the threat than Muhyiddin.

I personally think Najib is not a bad person but a weak leadership surrounded by bad people with selfish agenda, whom he can't resist.A sure sign of weakness on the part of a leader. 

Would Muhyiddin be worse than Najib as PM and why?

Let's have some feed back.