Any leader who wants to tinker with and water down the NEP (with which many all around have narcotized for many years with vested interests in) and substitute with a new economic model to ensure that the country “makes a quantum leap to escape the middle-income trap to become a high-income country through greater emphasis on innovation, creativity and competitiveness” must meet the basic prerequisites of (1) genuinely not being “racist” in mindset (2) genuinely believe that the NEP implemented in the present form will take us surely down the road to low-income trap (3) genuinely prepared, even in face of all political pressures against, to do what is right for the country than just what’s favourable to only coterie of politically connected/privileged (4) genuinely prepared to lead and blaze the right way even if his constituency is trailing behind and pressuring not to forge ahead (5) is himself politically secure in his own position, with a solid team at the top backing him, and has no baggage that political rivals could leverage/exploit to bring down and also (6) a force of personality, authority and power to withstand opposition whether from own party’s warlords or bureaucrats or NGOs/lobbies outside against his programmes. Are these prerequisites present?

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Najib is trying to do something positive with 1 Malaysia and the NEM (no doubt with input from his advisers including CIMB’s Nazir) to improve BN’s political prospects in next election but is facing fierce resistance and relentless counter pressure from his own party’s war lords, chieftains and rivals and other reactionaries defending the status quo underpinned by ethno-supremacist policies of ‘ketuanan”, the very pivot of the Mahathir’s Legacy.

The latter are no doubt given patroange and encouragement by the former PM, TDM, wanting to preserve his legacy if possible, for the next 1000 years and keep the PMs after him in check: if they do anything that remotely evinces promise of undermining that legacy, they would face the peril of being forced off their helmsmanship and stewardship of the country, like the way Pak Lah was sidelined, and Najib too, if he neglects to uphold these right wingers’ version of the Malay Agenda.

Of course it is an exercise in futility to try reasoning logically with reactionaries whether it concerns what the constitution or NEM/economy/Globalisation is about. All they’re interested in is to defend the status quo of NEP in which they have vested interests. The very failure of the NEP to create genuine bumiputera entrepreneurs and uplift the country on the value added scale has been skewed as a justification for its perpetuation than dismantling. In other words NEM is not acceptable unless it is different from the NEP only in the alphabet “M”, so to speak.

Many right minded Malaysians are opposed to the direction to which these reactionaries are pushing the country but in the market and competition of ideas in the discourse space of the country, the ground is not level at all if the authorities, in complicity with or deference to powerful politicians, side instead with those who stoke the flames of racial tension and polarisation but seek to blame it instead on their detractors by lodging official complaints.

One notes everything is so quiet regarding the arson attempts on the churches or the desecration of the mosques by wild boars’ heads. Surely it is hard to believe the authorities could not investigate trace and identify who these people and their master minds were by now. But has the directive come from the top to proceed???

Some have alluded/speculated the rise of right wing ethnocentric lobbies like Perkasa to the current PM’s playing good cop (by his 1 Malaysia/NEM) and bad cop (Perkasa & rest) in order to get the best of both worlds – ie Non malays support from good cop role and Malays support from bad cop role. It is hard to think why he or his advisors should think such dual role has any strategic political value when more likely jhe would get the worse of both worlds from opposing sides measuring him by his own professed benchmarks.

More likely these ‘bad cops’ are lobby groups sponsored/patronized and supported by his other own party’s war lords, chieftains and rivals and other reactionaries defending the status quo which have mushgroomed to pressure him not to effect change and reform except for the most cosmetic. It is doubtful he has the prerequisites to resist successfully their combined pressure against his taking tentative steps to re-invent/reform UMNO. It is doubtful that any PM could do so as long as the former strongman is still around doing his bit to ensure that his legacy is not dismantled.