Muhyiddin gets ready for TOP JOB: Another DISASTROUS 5 years from Umno-BN?

From : Malaysia-Chronicle

Written by  Nawawi Mohamad, Stan Lee, Malaysia Chronicle

What sort of choice do UMNO delegates have in their leadership lineup? That there is a dearth of talent in UMNO is well-known with even former premier and party president Mahathir Mohamad admitting as much.

This talent vacuum will be UMNO's deathblow - not the Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Dusun, Murut, the Dayaks or Ibans. Not even the Christians or Israel can be blamed. It is fair and square UMNO's own fault including Mahathir's for being selfish and wishing to keep the spoils of the game 'all within the family'.

Young & talented Malays wouldn't touch UMNO with a 10-foot pole

Young Malay leaders such as PKR's Nurul Izaah, Rafizi Ramli, PAS' Dzulkefly Ahmad, Khalid Samad or DAP's Zairil Khir Johari would never dream of touching UMNO with a 10-foot pole, so bad is its brand name. UMNO has simply become synonymous with corruption, racism, sex and gutter policing - you name it, the party has been caught doing it.

For UMNO leaders, the name of the game is not how to serve Malaysia but how to make money from Malaysia. For example, current party president Prime Minister Najib Razak carries a back-breaking amount of 'baggage', literally dragging UMNO down with his personal scandals and inability to make decisions.

Yet UMNO grins and puts up with it. They even accept Najib's panacea for all the criticism, which is to spend more of taxpayers money on public relations to magnify himself and to deny all negative accusations against his administration and party. As if the people have no minds of their own!

Worried Mahathir steps in

Yet no amount of money can hide the fact that Malay support for UMNO is dwindling and Najib's personal popularity on the slide. The recent Merdeka Center survey shows his approval rating still on the down slide - now at 64% - and BN's at an all-time low of 42% due mainly to erosion of support from the Malays.

So worried is Mahathir that Najib will commit another disaster at the 13th general election that the 87-year-old has decided to step in and pull the strings before it is too late. That is how bad the situation is in UMNO. The only weapon Najib has in his hand is the timing of the GE-13 and he is using this to hold the 'warlords' to ransom.

Party insiders say his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin is "simply pretending" not to be challenging Najib at this critical moment because Najib is already under control - Mahathir's!

Lesser evil

So, while waiting for further orders from Mahathir, who still wields enormous influence, Muhyiddin has been carrying on with his daily activities as if all is fine in UMNO. Some even say Muhyiddin is smiling to himself, under the happy impression that he just has to wait for the big moment to come when he will replace Najib whether UMNO and the BN coalition it leads wins or loses in the GE-13.

In the past, such a prospect would have raised a howl of horror around the UMNO divisions in the country because Muhyiddin too has his own baggage, albeit less heavy and controversial than Najib's. Nonetheless, the fear used to be that if UMNO-BN wins, he would become Prime Minister and that would be a disaster for Malaysia like an earthquake with a reading of 7 on the Richter scale and an epicenter in Putrajaya.

But with Najib's failure to do better and Mahathir proving all his critics right that he is the darkest and most dangerous force in the UMNO-BN blocking a more normal democratic rule in a multiracial Malaysia, Muhyiddin as PM has become less alarming.

It is the classic case of being the lesser of many evils.

Muhyiddin the next disaster from UMNO

Let's try to understand the 64-year-old Muhyiddin and what makes him tick. People can understand each other better amongst their own peer groups, culture and race. For example, students and youths understand their own peers. They can appreciate, envy and emulate each other, yet for motivation, people will always aim high and look beyond their own group.

That is how people should be motivated and in Malaysia's endeavor to be a developed and great nation with high-income levels, the leadership must be able to set a high standard and work towards achieving it. It should never look back, nor should it ever lower the benchmark.

Yet Muhyiddin has displayed a different kind of mentality. His views are not in sync with what one would expect of a true leader at all. During a “buka puasa” (breaking of the Muslim fast) event organized by the Ministry of Information in collaboration with JAKIM and MAIWP, Muhyiddin proudly proclaimed that,”It has been proven that the world looks at Malaysia as a special nation that should be envied.”

Now, there is nothing wrong with his statement but when he explained that his conclusion is based on the comments by visitors from Palestine, Somalia and Afghanistan, it is laughable and his naivete becomes the joke. With such low satisfaction levels signifying commensurately low IQ, Muhyiddin looks set to become the next disaster from UMNO if it wins GE-13 and he is selected to be prime minister in place of Najib Razak.

From Tiger economy to starving African nation

Malaysia was once the envy of other nations like Korea and Japan for our football. Our economic development projects were the envy of many Afro-Asian nations and we initially led South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan - believe it or not! That is how far the nation has fallen and Malaysia is now competing with Thailand. Even Indonesia, the worst hit during the 1998 Asian crisis, has pulled away thanks to sincere reform and better leadership.

Despite the showy Economic Transformation Programs launched by the Najib administration, even Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines are catching up. So Muhyiddin may not only be too unambitious and mundane in his aspirations for Malaysia's future but he may have no choice but to compare his nation with Palestine which is not even a sovereign nation, or Somalia which is devastated by civil war and Afghanistan which has been destroyed by the US and its allies. All these are third world countries, all of them in such bad shape.

If Muhyiddin used them as benchmarks, he may be right in that Malaysia is heaven by comparison. But it surely speaks volumes of the depths Malaysia has plunged to after 55 years of BN rule.

Mahathir who used to propagate the “Malaysia Boleh” or (Malaysia Can Do It) slogan, launching the tallest twin towers in the world to inspire the nation has now lowered his standard. The Petronas Twin Towers were briefly the world's highest buildings until they were overtaken by other newer constructions in China and the Middle East. It looks like Mahathir's lofty aspirations were just as short-lived and he too is now 'slumming'.

Mahathir recently said in defending the present status of the Malaysian economy, “Financially and economically, we are not too badly off. The cost of living has gone up a little but people are not starving the way the Africans and some Asians are starving. A generous government is ever ready to extend help."

Imagine, Malaysia - one amongst the Tiger economies in powerhouse Southeast Asia -  now being compared to the poorest African nations, where starvation is not yet an eradicated risk.

Dr M admitting he didn't do a good job at all!

Indirectly Mahathir is admitting that his 22-year rule has not done much at all in making Malaysia a developed nation. His critics say this is because whatever he put in with his right hand, he took out more than triple with his left hand.

It is obvious Mahathir has long ago bid goodbye to Vision 2020 - if ever he was serious about it at all. Many pundits say Vision 2020 that aimed for a Bangsa Malaysia without racial lines was just his way of appeasing the people after they nearly threw him out of office for sacking and jailing his deputy Anwar Ibrahim on trumped-up sodomy charges.

So if someone as racist as Mahathir can rule Malaysia for 22 years and get away with it by planting one excuse after another, why not Muhuyiddin who has already shown similar signs of using racial politics to become popular with his 'Malay first, Malaysian next' statement.

By the way Mahathir may be right in comparing Malaysia with Africa. Yes, the Southeast Asian nation is not yet like any of the poorer African countries but with the present trend of leadership and the unabated greed and corruption of its leaders, it can easily be. Especially if UMNO-BN continues to rule after GE-13, Greek and Africa-like crises may be Malaysia's to experience next

The Curse Of The Nation

I have always said Dr Mahathir is a menace to his own people. Now only you can see the effects of his foolishness when the ringgit has halved its value overnight and your economy goes kaput.

Single handedly you have caused hardship to millions of your own people. You have built useless mega projects at tremendous cost to the country.

The telecoms tower in Kuala Lumpur and the highest building in the world show how stupid you are. Not only does it cause massive traffic jam, it has totally no purpose. If you need high ground for telecoms antennae a nearby mountain is there for free. This tower has no purpose from the ground up to 300 metres. The satellites make this totally unnecessary.

A fool and his money are soon parted. The only thing is you are the fool and the money belongs to Malaysians. You make 20% in every project, you have real estate in Japan and billions of shares corruptly acquired.

Your 3 sons are worth 8 billion US$. Where do they get this money? Of course, corruption.

You are known as the Marcos of Malaysia, having enriched yourself to the tune of billions.

You dare to shed crocodile tears during UMNO delegates meeting about the ills of corruption.

Yet you are the most corrupt of all the prime ministers before you. A thief is crying thief and hopes people look the other way. Who dares to say anything when the chief is caught with his hands in the candy jar?

You said wisdom is not the monopoly of the West. So is foolishness. You have more foolishness than most people would believe. Billions are used to build two high rise Petronas buildings that benefit nobody. They now stand tall, a symbol of stupidity and irresponsibility. Instead they just add on to traffic jams.. 

What is this reclamation of 10 islands off Kedah? Totally absurd and stupid. Of course your benefit is 20%. 

And the bridge across from Malacca to Sumatra across international waters? Why not build a bridge to the moon? I am sure you still can get your 20%. You called me a Moron. How can a Moron make so much money. By allowing short selling and borrowing millions of shares from your banks we fund managers made millions out of your
inexperience and poor regulations.

You lose all Malaysians' money, therefore you are the Moron.. Now you know too late and start crying over spilt milk.

In Australia you are known as the recalcitrant ego maniac; in UK the corrupt bastard because of your stupid purchase of our movie studio and the 290 million ringgit Lotus racing car plant and the shady Pergau dam loans from the UK. They are useless to us and you still want to buy them.

What about buying British reject submarines through your agent, of course. The agent/ broker is designed to make millions out of the Malaysian government..

Your purchase of our battleships is at least 50% more than others are paying. Your purchase of 9 hospitals from UK lock, stock and barrel does not support your local architects or your industry and the British send you obsolete medical equipment. The design is atrocious, one end to the other is half a kilometer and there is no CT-scan, an absolute necessity.

In the UK your face appears in no less than 17 newspapers as a corrupt dictator. In Malaysia you are known as the (IBM) International Big Mouth. In Japan they call you the 'smallest one' (brain size).

In Pacific islands, the Santa Claus (giving advice left and right). In south America they call you the parrot (he talks a lot but does not know what it is about). In Manila the living Marcos.

In Malaysia they are spending millions to lure tourists and you talk rubbish scaring every foreigner away. When he is dumb he is doubted a fool, when he opens his mouth it removes all doubt."

While I agree the West does not have the monopoly to wisdom, your actions are not the wisest either. Your EAEC has totally no support even in Asean. Your South-South dialogue meets with the same fate and what is this I hear of the Bridge from Peninsula Malaysia to Sumatra covering 20 miles across International shipping lane?

How crazy can one get? Even the Japanese don't have the money.

This world's stupidity seems to be concentrated in one man's mind - yours.

The multimedia super corridor - MSC -. Well in USA its Most Stupid Concept because we Americans, would have thought of it light years before. Even if it makes money, we can copy this concept can't we?

Why do you want to spend your hard-earned money doing questionable projects? It will be like the Bakun project. Abandoned fund wasted and another white elephant. I always say politicians should not be involved in business. Your ministers are also businessmen and almost every official is enriching himself. Look at Rafidah Aziz, selling thousands of Approved Permits (APs) for cars each worth 20-30 thousand Malaysian dollars. Why not your government sell them and make the money? She has acquired millions of shares meant for bumis for free before she agrees to list them.

Look at your Selangor Chief Minister collecting millions for approving high rise buildings from businessman. He is worth a few billions. Unfortunately he was caught with a few million pocket money in Australia. Every Chief minister is awarding useless projects to his cronies then collecting secret pay offs on the side. The Land Development Boards and the Economic Development Boards are used to bail out any loses suffered by politicians. The profits they keep, the loses they force the Government bodies to absorb. How can your poor ever close the gap when every good deal is snatched by your politicians? How can your country get out of poverty if all the billions of corruption money is taken out of the country?

Look at the Sarawak Chief Minister selling billions worth of timber concessions under the table; selling every piece of state land to businessmen without tender; using his own companies to obtain lucrative government contracts; selling approval signatures for a fee 'you pay I approve'. He has 8 billion US stashed overseas. Thousands of acres of land are given to one or two companies while thousands of poor people still live in cardboard makeshift homes; have no water and shit into the river.

Thousands of acres of land are sold to companies for plantations while the natives do not have even one acre to their name. He is selling sand near the beaches to one company for earth filling and then ask the government to spend millions to protect the coastline when erosion occurs.

He lost 300 million of the Sarawak government money trying to make computer chips. He has built a port in Northern Sarawak town in water so shallow it needs dredging every year. The Prime Minister built highways without tender, your cronies get the deal and the price double. Your Langkawi airport runway was built double the cost by your own company, Ekran.

The Malaysian nation has lost at least 30 billions during your last 10 years of corrupt rule. One billion lost from the purchase of phantom Skyhawk war planes nobody has ever seen (are they still in the Nevada desert, USA?). 

3 billion lost from the London tin scandal (you thought you could corner the London tin market without knowing the Americans have a stockpile! Stupidity at its best. 

6 billion Perwaja steel mill where nobody even knows where the money goes, 3 billion bank Bumiputra scandal when George Tan bribed all the bank officials to lend him the money.

6 billion forex lost by Bank Negara (the fool and his money are soon parted) and 6 billion to build three of the world's tallest buildings (built by Japanese and Koreans and furniture imported from France - not Malaysia) and 1 billion lost from purchase of British warships including fees paid to the broker and under the table..

Add the 10 billion you stole and 5 billion taken by Ministers.

In the 1997 the World Journalists meeting voted Dr Mahathir the Prime Minister of the Decade. It sounded strange to everybody until it was revealed those who voted against are threatened by IRD officers and with losing their jobs. In New York the United Nations 1997 meeting, the most corrupt Prime Minister of the decade is President Suharto and second Dr Mahathir (Actually Dr Mahathir should take first place but bribed the Indonesians to take honour of Number One.

There are Fifty thousand of your university students not given places in Malaysia but are good enough for places overseas resulting in billions of dollars lost. The British and the Australians are thinking how stupid. Your best students are sent overseas raising their standards while as in most countries the best are kept in local universities and the rejects sent overseas..A university student in Hong Kong is much more prestigious than any Australian counterpart.

You have been colonised by the British so long you cannot even educate your own people. Look at Hong Kong or Singapore, less than 5% study overseas. All the money saved. Your country could save billions if every student overseas is recalled to a local university, and at the same time raising your own standards.

Your people are still without shoes, without land to farm, without homes, bathing in rivers shitting in holes in the ground, without water and electricity. Your cities are concrete jungles without greenery and open spaces. Your KL is jammed with traffic.

Yet you still keep on building high rises. You should come down from the clouds and stop daydreaming and firmly plant your feet in the ground.

Your schools are cramped 500 students to an acre and thousands of acres are given free to some politicians who leave them idle.

Your parks are being taken by politicians to build shophouses and every cabinet minister is a land-grabbing businessman who builds roads only to their cronies' land.

The Malaysians' Prayer, "Ya Allah, we thank you for your gifts of timber, oil and grain. But then the devil sent us corrupt Mahathir without a Brain and look we are back to square one again. So just take Dr Mahathir back to Hell And we will be alive and well."

In China people have been shot for embezzling one thousand dollars. With 8 billion you have stolen, therefore you would be shot 80 thousand times. Now you are leading an anti-corruption campaign. We all know what you should do. Look yourself in the mirror. You see the crooked you. Then use your left hand and handcuff your right hand.

You have put the opposition leader and his son in jail when they said in parliament you are the richest PM in the world. And his colleague Mr Karpal Singh too for 2 years.

So I get a reward or bribe if I now say you are the poorest PM in this world? Your 3 sons are sitting on the board of directors of more than 200 companies. They must have been educated in Harvard school of business and obtained distinctions? Or is it "you don't know me, you don't do business in Malaysia" law that applies. Billions of ringgit of Employee's Provident Fund and public Petronas funds are used to bail out your sons who make losses investing in every venture you thought you could make money. How unethical and corrupt. Every one of your politicians is sitting on the board of tens of companies making thousands without any effort, lending their VIP names to borrow millions from local banks without collateral.. 

Now these have become non- performing loans. Now you want 20 million Malaysians to sacrifice for the folly of ONE man? Why not the fool resign and admit he wasted and took most of the money. I could teach you how to put your economy on track but first you must apologize to the Malaysian people.

Hara-kiri: Dr M’s many missed chances

Posted by Super Admin
Saturday, 14 June 2008


Mahathir suggested that the Japanese would have committed hara-kiri had they been in Abdullah Badawi's shoes in the wake of the BN's loss of five states to the Pakatan Rakyat and of its two-thirds majority in Parliament. But, as Tota observes, the former premier himself missed many opportunities to commit hara-kiri in the wake of the numerous scandals that plagued his 22-year administration.

ALIRAN

Dr. M carried his Look East Policy too far when he suggested that the Japanese would have committed hara-kiri (suicide) had they been in Abdullah Badawi's shoes after allowing the BN to lose five states to the Pakatan Rakyat and its two-thirds majority in Parliament. Dr M must really hate him to draw such a comparison as taking one’s own life is shirik – an unpardonable sin in Islam.

But during his long tenure of 22 years as PM, Mahathir himself missed plenty of opportunities to commit hara-kiri. There were financial and political scandals which resulted in huge losses of public funds. No future leader will come anywhere near the number of scandals that occurred owing to his political and financial mismanagement – the BMF scandal, the EPF scandal, the LME scandal, the Mas/Tajuddin scandal etc. If Dr. M had any sense of accountability that he now demands of Abdullah Badawi, he was qualified to commit hara-kiri many times over.

The first three Prime Ministers were lawyers and, by and large, acted true to their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, but in the hands of Dr. M the Constitution became a mere piece of paper to be shredded at his autocratic will. My Hindu friend tells me that the Tamils have a saying: What do you expect if you give a beautiful garland to a monkey?

Hara-kiri, many times over

Dr. M recklessly and ruthlessly amended the Constitution many times to centralise power in his hands. He destroyed the independence of the judiciary and the EC, undermined the print and electronic media and trade unions, and appeared to influence the ROS. Armed with draconian laws such as the ISA, the OSA, the UUCA and the Printing Presses and Publications Act, he literally turned a democratic state into a virtual dictatorship. Dr. M qualified for hara-kiri on each if not on all these counts.

His 1983 Constitutional amendments taking away certain powers of the Agong and his brother rulers and his highly disrespectful, indeed crude, utterances against the rulers were more than seditious. I have no doubt that the rulers would have wished that this troublesome politician would commit hara-kiri so that the `gangrene’ in the body politic of the nation would be removed once and for all.

Dr M’s 1988 Constitutional amendments literally put paid to the secular democratic nature of the country and opened a Pandora’s Box, releasing grave ethnic and religious problems that continue to fester to this day. Dr. M again qualified for hara-kiri for this.

Under his administration, the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries ensured that the rural heartland held the bulk of the ballots. To make certain that it remained so, his administration fed largely Umno political propaganda through the government-controlled print and electronic media. He blocked the sale to the public of both Harakah and the Rocket. Though BM is the official language, his Ministry tried to deny Aliran a permit to publish in Malay. His strategy of keeping the Malays largely ignorant of the issues to better manipulate and exploit them worked till he quit. For this, he should have committed hara-kiri.

While he was frequently castigating the Malays for their subsidy mentality and warning them if they did not change their mentality, they would move from crutches to wheelchairs, he knew that as long as they ate off his hand, they would not bite it. The end result of this despicable trick is a weakened Malay race, educationally, socially and economically. It is apparent that an inferiority complex plagues many Malays from working and succeeding on par with their non-Malay brothers and sisters of which they are really capable. Dr. M qualifies to commit hara-kiri for the present condition of the Malays.

Dr M’s government was well known for corruption, cronyism and nepotism. He appeared noble when he said that he would not permit his children to seek political power as long as he was PM but he had no qualms when his government enriched them with preferential share allocations, APs etc. One GLC even appeared to bail out one of his children when his business venture foundered and it was saddled with debt. Cronyism produced a class of greedy and grabbing Umnoputras. Umno leaders at all levels masqueraded as champions of race and religion and thus enriched themselves at the expense of a very spiritual and trusting Malay populace. Surely this should qualify Dr. M for hara-kiri.

The saga of Dr M’s sins has not ended. A judge has come out with information not only on Dr M’s interference with the judiciary but also his alleged warnings to several judges at a boot camp. More and more of his political and administrative crimes will be dug up as time passes, providing more opportunities for Dr. M to commit hara-kiri.

I really would recommend a waist-deep hole dug at Dataran Merdeka for political rogues who should be made to stand in it for people to stone the devil.

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