PM gets a lesson in transparency


Amin Khairuddin| January 5, 2015
Free Malaysia Today

Blogger Shahbudin says Najib shouldn’t have acted like someone with something to hide.

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak would have saved himself a lot of embarrassment if he had been open about his recent movements instead of behaving like a thief, Umno critic Shahbudin Husin writes in his latest blog entry.

Continuing with his series of caustic blog entries that comment on Najib’s unannounced Hawaiian holiday and the mystery of what happened to the private government jet after he cut short the golfing vacation, Shahbudin says it is odd that the Prime Minister apparently did not count on the Internet’s power to turn any Tom, Dick or Harry into a reporter when he himself has often spoken about that power.

He says the one lesson Najib must learn from the episode is that he, as a prime minister and very public figure, has to be transparent about everything in these times of instant information and open communication.

“If he had not left for his Hawaiian Christmas holiday in secret and had instead released information that he would be playing golf with Barack Obama, no one would have really cared when the picture of him golfing with the American President became widely distributed,” he writes.

“If he had returned in the same aircraft that took him to Hawaii when the flood situation had become frantic, no one would have really bothered to trace the whereabouts of the official plane.”

The official explanation that the jet had encountered technical problems came only after a lot of questions had been raised, Shahbudin points out. But the explanation, he adds, became meaningless when a check with FlightRadar24.com showed that the jet had been moving around the American continent. “In fact,” he says, “it burned the public’s desire to find out who was using it.”

Shahbudin also refers to Najib’s decision to go to Bangkok last Friday for a meeting with his Thai counterpart, saying he should have not gone there secretly as well. It was because he made the trip stealthily that people saw a coincidence in the jet being in Bangkok at the time, he says. “But just as he went to Hawaii in stealth, he went to Thailand like one making a rendezvous with a sweetheart but afraid of being found out by his wife.”

If Najib had informed the public that he would be reuniting with his family after meeting the Thai PM, Shahbudin says, “no one would be interested in his trip and in taking a picture of his wife shopping in Bangkok.”

Shahbudin says it’s strange that Najib, who is active in social media, still seems to think that media power lies with Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian and government-controlled television stations.

He ends his posting with this parting shot: “As the Prime Minister, act like a real prime minister, not like a thief who runs and hide.”

  1. #1 by winstony on Tuesday, 6 January 2015 - 8:04 am

    Please allow me to digress.
    I understand that the EC has increased the number of MPs in East Malaysia from seventy plus to over eighty.
    Now, is this in order???
    And what is the opposition going to do about it?
    Or is it a case of letting it pass by default?
    Any comments?

  2. #2 by Bigjoe on Tuesday, 6 January 2015 - 8:29 am

    He cannot act like a PM because he is not qualified to be the one in the first place. BUT the blogger main point why Najib act completely different than his talk and appearance of understanding? He talks of new media and what UMNO/BN leaders have to do but his behaviour shows not only disrespect but ignorant even. He talks of moderation but we all know by know its fake. He hype his economics but we see old-style Mahathir economics..

    I say its prodigality, just plain simple having something he is undeserving and unqualified for so its talk like but action is not anywhere close..

  3. #3 by Justice Ipsofacto on Tuesday, 6 January 2015 - 9:50 am

    I am a great admirer of our prime minister and her husband.

    Cant you ppl just leave them alone?

  4. #4 by good coolie on Tuesday, 6 January 2015 - 11:29 am

    PM’s “Hawaiian Christmas holiday”? Come on, man! That’s a real cheap shot, isn’t it? It so happens that the year-end is when the big shots (small shots too, come to think of it) take their holidays. You could have used “Seasonal” or other innocous words such as found in Christmas cards, and the PM would not have winced.
    As for the cloak and dagger part, was the PM dressed in the Pink Panther outfit, dark glasses, hands in pockets?

  5. #5 by Bigjoe on Tuesday, 6 January 2015 - 12:19 pm

    Apparently no one else have E.Coli nor is it detected anywhere except Najib..hmmm.. is he going to say maybe he got in Thailand from thanking the Thai PM?

  6. #6 by PRmaju on Tuesday, 6 January 2015 - 5:22 pm

    EVrything come out from this absentee PM sounds hollw and suspicious. It is very unlikely he drank water from the tap when he was in Kelatan for a shorrt period time. Even ordinary Kelatan folks who suffer from the flood for so long did not get E-coli, why he? The work of his lousy advisors, trying to win sympathy ?

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