By Sakmongkol AK47 | March 22, 2012
The Malaysian Insider

MARCH 22 — Like many others, I read somewhat amused at PM Najib’s war cry that he is confident of getting back the states now under the opposition. I say war cry because here we have a PM seized by an extreme bout of paranoia declaring that we are at war. With who?

He has to stop the charade. It’s not like Umno and BN people are gifted with extraordinary talent that reserves them the right to govern the country. Who can argue against facts? The top three states which drew the highest FDI are Pakatan-led states. Just under one term, Pakatan governments can achieve these good things which no other BN lead states have ever achieved is an incontestable testimony that Pakatan people are more talented.

This is what Umno and BN and the Umno president fear most. That people are slowly but surely realising that there is life without Umno and what’s better, there is a better life without Umno. Let’s repeat this once more there’s life without Umno and there’s a better life without Umno indeed. Tell your friends, neighbours about this; let us kick out the kleptocratic maniacs out of Putrajaya and forge a new future. Let’s square off with Najib as the opposition leader. We will see he is a paper tiger who, without a scripted text, cannot respond to out-of-pre-approved questions.

I felt vindicated somewhat when Daim came out with his only three states are safe for BN. I have been writing about what the Oracle of Syed Putera has been saying to me every month. My views culled from my interviews with the Oracle of Syed Putera are like the moving instances in a video camera. The interview by Utusan Malaysia and the other mainstream papers are snapshot views of an instance. So when we compare instances with an instance, I would say that the conclusions reached out of instances are more valid than conclusions arrived from just one instance. I meet the Oracle almost every month; Utusan people meet Daim once a year. You judge which observations carry more legitimacy. By the way, just so one feller doesn’t lose sleep; The Oracle isn’t the earthy Sanusi Junid. Can we imagine Charles Bronson playing the role of Superman?

It was also the Oracle who told me BN can lose as many as 16 parliamentary seats in Sarawak and up to 12 parliamentary seats in Sabah. Almost every state in Peninsular Malaysia — Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Kelantan, Terengganu —are tough battle grounds for BN. So they can talk big for all they want, when they go to the battlefield, they will get a reception never known to them before. The era of paying your way through to win elections is over. Now, as the Oracle told me, people are asking where you are taking this country to. For over 50 years you have lost you way; how can we believe you now know where to go?

A few months ago he mentioned about even if our bodies are crushed, we must defend Putrajaya at all costs and if others dispute the position of Malays, there will be ethnic cleansing. Let us, the people, answer him this way.

He does not own Putrajaya and the only people harping about the imagined assault on the Malay position are Umno people themselves. Its Murphy’s war adopted by Umno apparatchiks. The only people who have violated the trust given them by the Malays is Umno!

Is this the type of PM we want who thinks he can transform Malaysia? He can’t even transform Umno with its culture of warlordism and tenderpreneurship. The fact is Umno does not have a cause; they make things up as they go along. Umno is like Jack Sparrow. A pirate to the core. Yesterday Malay supremacy, today champion of Islam, yesterday royal basher, today royal bootlickers.

His ETPs are nothing but a compilation of five-year business plans of various leading businesses, artfully re-packaged by Idris Jala and his team of kopi-O pemandus. Oh yes, maybe here and there re-touched by Mckinsey boys and Ethos people.

Are we at war? Perhaps we are because Najib and the BN stand on the side of the oppressors, we from the Pakatan Rakyat stand on the side of the oppressed. Elsewhere, everywhere in the world, the oppressors are taking a beating and are on the retreat. We will fight them on the beaches, in the trenches, everywhere.

But who are the opposition? In five states, he and BN are. In other words, what he’s saying, if he retains the states now ruled by BN that would be a relief. When he speaks in Selangor, he forgets that the BN and he ARE the opposition.

I won’t join others who challenged Najib to call for elections if he is so confident. I wanted to ask a similar question but from a different perspective. If Najib is so upbeat, I want to ask him why are his business friends cashing out?

Thirty years ago, when Proton was culled up from the fertile imagination of the then PM, the great Dr Mahathir, the birth of Proton was hailed as a national project. Proton was justified on the basis of pride of the nation, and of course the fruits of Mahathir’s loins. Since its inception generations of Malaysians have been drilled and instructed with the idea that Proton is a national project. Now, in 2012, Proton, our national project was sold to a BN-friendly party by the name of Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhari. Word on the ground has it that what really happened is that Proton was actually sold to the man who thought about the idea — Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

How can you say that about the great helmsman, the man who can walk on water? That’s blasphemous. It can cause some fat slob with a lard-layered brain to lose sleep the entire night. How vicious!

Why, because friends in the know about the sale of Proton tell me the price tag at which Proton was sold was dictated by Dr Mahathir himself. This is the price, you take it. Now, who is to dismiss the suspicions that after the sale the buyer gives Umno some reimbursements?

What about the cannibalisation of MAS. I wrote about this some time ago in an article titled “A Sting in the Air”. The idea of dismembering MAS so that a group of people can make a lot of money was thought of two years before the press conference about the share swap took place. This means the idea of cutting up MAS was planned a long time ago and was done even during the time Idris Al Dunlap Jala did his famous hatchet clean-up-the-book scam in MAS. This is another question I want to repeat — what did Idris Jala actually do during his tenure as MAS CEO? If he has done a splendid job as everyone claimed, why is MAS in its present mess? If Jala was seen doing a sterling job, why was the disembowelling of MAS planned by some people while holidaying in the land of fish and chips imperialism?

When I asked the Oracle of Syed Putera about the AA-MAS share swap, he had no hesitation, saying it was all an elaborate scam of insider trading. Of course, as in the sale of Proton, the buck returns to Umno and BN coffers.

What of the upbeat note that PM Najib appears to play up? It’s funny that he said those words in Selangor. Many people hold the perception that when it comes to Selangor, despite PM Najib being the liaison committee chairman, he doesn’t know what’s going on in Selangor. Selangor is a case where there are too many cooks spoiling the broth. Zain Badak, who hails from Malacca, can’t dream of becoming the MB. Noh Omar is embroiled in so many personal issues with the other Selangor warlords that he will be stopped in his tracks en route to becoming MB. The other warlord, Satim Diman, can’t be considered a winnable candidate as he has been proven to be behind many dubious land transactions.

Where is the candidate in Selangor hailing from Selangor who can take over as MB for the opposition BN camp? There seems to be none. FD Iskandar, the man leading the Glomac property development giant, could have been a winnable candidate had he been born in Selangor. And Najib has proven to be totally ignorant of the groundswell among Malay Selangorians, disgruntled at the overwhelming Java-nising of Selangor Umno. Hence it’s true, like what the Oracle of Syed Putera told me some time ago, as far as Selangor goes, Najib isn’t aware of what is really going on.

He gets an A++ in the art of posturing. Substance? Nyet! Nahi! Nein! — sakmongkol.blogspot.com

* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).