Pakatan Harapan’s honeymoon is over
Talking bad about others does not create jobs. Talking bad about others does not put food on the table. Talking bad about others does not bring investors to Malaysia. Talking bad about others does not help the palm oil price to go up. Talking bad about others does not unite Malaysians and end the racial and religious divide. Talking bad about others does not guarantee our children’s future. Talking bad about others does not give us a quality life.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Students of English literature would know that famous speech by Marc Antony from Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar. This is probably the second-most remembered line after Romeo and Juliet’s “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet.”
Anyway, the point is, the crowd can be swayed by mere words, and by mere words can also be swayed the other way. That is what Marc Antony’s speech from Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, is telling us.
In short, the populace is fickle and changes its mind very fast. In other words, once the honeymoon period is over, and if the honeymoon was a disappointment, get ready to duck when the dishes, pots and pans start to fly — for fly they will.
In May 2018, when Malaysians decided to kick out Umno and Barisan Nasional, it was the result of a 20-year campaign that started in 1998. But it was not one long campaign of 20 years. It was a series of campaigns that took on many shapes and forms along the way, each time changing to suit the mood of the people.
The so-called ‘Reform Movement’ that started in 1998 to oppose Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was really about making Anwar Ibrahim the new Prime Minister. So, to be able to ‘sell’ Anwar to Malaysians, they needed to portray Mahathir as the most corrupt Prime Minister in Malaysian history, equal to Robert Mugabe.
That was why they used words and phrases such as transparency, good governance, separation of powers, cronyism, nepotism, corruption, abuse of power, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, Mahazalim, Mahafiraun, Mamak Bendahara, and many more.
‘Malu Apa Boss Ku’ now more popular than ‘Kleptokrasi’
Malaysians love slogans (such as ‘Malu Apa Boss Ku’) and these slogans gained traction. But then a problem soon arose. In November 2003, Mahathir stepped down and handed the PM’s post to Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Five months later, Abdullah called for a general election (while the honeymoon period was still ‘hot’) and the opposition got massacred.
In March 2004 it looked like the opposition would need a long time to recover — until two years later when Mahathir decided to oust Abdullah. Abdullah’s strength was his ‘Mister Clean’ and ‘Ulamak’ image.
So, in June 2006, Mahathir launched a campaign to destroy that image, and it worked. Abdullah’s alleged abuse of power, transgressions and corrupt acts were revealed one after another. From 2006 to 2008, Malaysians were told Abdullah is a fraud and a fake and, in reality, he is the most corrupt Prime Minister in Malaysian history (pulak…hari tu Mahathir is the most corrupt PM in Malaysian history).
In the 2008 general election, Umno and Barisan Nasional still won but it was a far cry from the election before that when they won 91% of the seats and all but one state. It was a poor performance indeed and Abdullah was forced to resign and hand power to Najib Tun Razak.
Sebelum kahwin sikit punya sayang, lepas honeymoon tengok muka pun benci
You would expect that with all those allegations of abuse of power, transgressions and corrupt acts against Abdullah, the most corrupt Prime Minister in Malaysian history, the first thing that was going to happen when Najib took over in April 2009 was Abdullah was going to get arrested and would face 30 or 40 criminal charges.
But nothing happened. Abdullah did not have to face a single criminal charge. He just quietly went into retirement and enjoyed life with his new wife — no different from what happened to the previous Sarawak Chief Minister, now the Governor, who Sarawak Report calls the most corrupt Chief Minister in Malaysian history.
As Shakespeare wrote in his play ‘As You Like It’, everything is just a great wayang, or all the world’s a stage and we are all merely players.
Everything went quiet for a while and life went back to normal for about four years. Then Mahathir got itchy again and the whole thing started all over again. And Najib was made to face the same fate as Abdullah faced just seven years before that. The same script was being played but only this time it was being played by new actors, Mahathir still being the main actor from the last play.
But there was one difference. Abdullah was threatened with arrest if he did not resign so he resigned. That was why nothing happened to him. Najib was also threatened with arrest if he did not resign but he was stubborn and refused to resign.
Hence, since Najib refused to reign, Mahathir was forced to oust him by killing Umno and Barisan Nasional. In essence, Mahathir threw the baby out with the bathwater, as the English would say. The Malays call it marah nyamuk, bakar kelambu.
If Najib had resigned, like Abdullah before him, Mahathir would have spared him, like what happened to Abdullah
And this is why Mahathir is so angry with Najib and also why he did not spare Najib the way he spared Abdullah. Mahathir was forced to kill Umno and Barisan Nasional and had to start a new party, which then had to form a new coalition with PKR, DAP and the frogs from PAS, a.k.a. Amanah.
Mahathir was forced to prostitute himself to his long-time and mortal enemies. And he blames Najib for this. That is why he is going after Najib sampai ke lubang cacing. But the problem is he does not really have anything to hang Najib with, at least not 1MDB or RM42 billion like he originally claimed in 2015.
And this angers Mahathir even more. They told him there is enough evidence to jail Najib for 1,000 years. Now they cannot find anything tangible to get Najib. This is just like Sarawak Report’s RM90 million so-called cerita benar that has proven to be a fairy tale or dongeng in the end.
So now the people are asking: why is Najib not yet in jail for stealing RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money? Why is he still walking around talking to the people and gaining popularity? And why is Pakatan Harapan after almost a year still not delivering all its promises? And why did Mahathir put a bunch of clowns and idiots to run the country?
Najib is now more popular than Mahathir or Anwar
Yes, the honeymoon is over and the dishes, pots and pans are flying. Pakatan Harapan came to power by talking bad about others. They talked bad about Najib just like how Anwar talked bad about Mahathir and Mahathir talked bad about Abdullah. But they cannot run the country by just talking bad about others.
Talking bad about others does not create jobs. Talking bad about others does not put food on the table. Talking bad about others does not bring investors to Malaysia. Talking bad about others does not help the palm oil price to go up. Talking bad about others does not unite Malaysians and end the racial and religious divide. Talking bad about others does not guarantee our children’s future. Talking bad about others does not give us a quality life.
No, talking bad, or even talking good, about others does not give us all this. In fact, by just talking, nothing fantastic is going to happen. It needs action, not talk, for things to happen. But then this is all what Pakatan Harapan knows to do — talk. For 20 years since 1998, all it knows to do is talk. It came to power in May 2018 by talking. And now they find that once the honeymoon is over talking no longer can keep the people happy.
