When launching the Barisan Nasional election manifesto for the 13th General Elections at the carefully orchestrated rally of 15,000 Barisan Nasional supporters at the Stadium Putra in Bukit Jalil in Kuala Lumpur last night, Datuk Seri Najib Razak posed the question: Who do you trust to lead Malaysia? BN chief Najib Razak, PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim or PAS President Hadi Awang?
As expected, the BN crowd of 15,000 roared back: ”Najib”.
When I posed the question whether the people trust Najib or Anwar as the Prime Minister at the DAP Taman Molek ceramah at Johore Jaya close to midnight, the response from the thousands of Malaysians who have spent more than four hours at the DAP ceramah was a spontaneous, ringing, categorical and thunderous support for Anwar and not Najib!
I believe that the spontaneous response of the Malaysian public at the DAP Taman Molek ceramah last night is more reflective of the real mood and aspirations of ordinary Malaysians in the country than the synthetic and even mercenary response of the BN rent-a-crowd gathering at Bukit Jalil Stadium last night.
Although Najib expressed glee and satisfaction at the positive answer from the 15,000-strong BN crowd at Bukit Jalil Stadium last night, I do not think it had fully removed the hurt and humiliation he suffered when tens of thousands of people at the Barisan Nasional Chinese New Year Open House in Penang shouted in unison three times each that they were “Ready” for the South Korean global K-pop star, Psy, but “No, No, No” and therefore “Not Ready” for the Barisan Nasional!
In the past 54 days, the cries that Malaysians were “ready” for Psy but “No, No, No” for Barisan Nasional had reveberrated throughout the country almost every night of Pakatan Rakyat gatherings, and it is no exaggeration to say that some 500,000 Malaysians would have taken part in this unique “public opinion” poll of saying “No, No, No” to Barisan Nasional since the second day of the Chinese New Year on Feb. 11.
It is both pathetic and unprofessional for Najib’s political and propaganda consultants to believe that the public vote-of-no-confidence in the nation-wide declarations of “No, No, No” for Barisan Nasional could be undone by one orchestrated rally of 15,000 BN supporters.
I have been informed that since the very next day of the Penang Chinese New Year Open House disaster, all BN supporters who had been bussed from one function to another throughout the country, had been indoctrinated to answer in the affirmative if they are asked whether the people are ready for BN at the BN functions.
But it has taken Najib some 54 days before he could muster the courage to pose the question in public asking for a vote of public confidence, which was what he did yesterday, without really satisfactory results.
Malaysians should confront and grapple with the real issues in the forthcoming 13GE, which is for the ushering of a new politics in Malaysia of good governance and issue-oriented debate and the beginning of the end of politics of race which had haunted the country for 56 years, and which is being perpetuated by the old politics of UMNO/Barisan Nasional based on the “divide and rule” of communal politiking in the country.