by Thomas Fann

In Virgil’s epic poem Aeneid, he told the tale of how the Greeks overcame the fortress city of Troy after laying siege to it for ten years. The Greeks built a giant wooden horse and hid a select team of warriors in it to deceive the Trojans that they have abandoned their battle and presented the city of Troy with a gift – the wooden horse.

Elated with the gift, the Trojans brought the wooden horse into the city to celebrate their victory. That night itself, while the city slept, the Greek warriors came out of the horse, opened the city gate for the Greek army who had returned and they overran the city of Troy. What they failed to achieve through military might in 10 years, they did it in one night through trickery.

The campaign for the hearts and minds of the Malaysian public has officially started in this General Election with the incumbent coalition of Barisan Nasional (BN) throwing everything they have to hold on to power against a formidable coalition called Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

Of all the arsenal they have at their disposal to win this war, perhaps, the most potent one is none other than the caretaker Prime Minister himself, Najib Razak.

Riding on Najib’s personal popularity with the public, said to be around 61 percent by independent pollster Merdeka Centre in February 2013, the Barisan Nasional whose own rating is at 45 percent, decided to make Najib the mascot of their election campaign. It is a no-brainer.

Throughout the country, on the numerous BN’s billboards, printed materials and TV commercials and news, it is Najib’s sweet and gentle smiling face that you see. Never before in the history of general elections in our country has so much been hinged on the persona of a man instead of on the ideals or vision of the party for the country. Visitors to our country could have mistaken us for a US presidential-style democracy instead of a parliamentary-based democracy where the ideals and policies of the contesting parties are more important than the personalities that represent it.

But Najib Razak is a trojan horse, constructed by professional public relations firm like APCO with the help of a very compliant broadcast and printing mass media industry. He has had an extreme makeover which transformed him from an ultra Malay rights politician to one that espouse the inclusive and tolerant values of 1Malaysia.

What is behind this veneer of civility and moderation? Or more importantly, what and who is hiding within this Malaysian trojan horse that is now standing at the gate of Putrajaya, waiting to be ushered in on 5th of May 2013 for the 13th time?

To accept this trojan horse into Putrajaya for another five-year term is to release upon our nation the following agenda, policies and practices. A vote for Najib is a vote for all these.

1. RACE-BASED POLICIES AND POLITICS – Since Najib took over from Abdullah Badawi as premier in 2009, we have been flooded senseless with the 1Malaysia slogan, that we have racial unity, tolerance and acceptance of our ethnic and cultural differences. The truth is far from that.Fifty-six years if BN’s rule has ensured that we are more divided and polarised than ever. National economic policies based on race has institutionalized racism to the point that we don’t even realise it, both the favoured and the not, and accept it as a norm. We have all in one way or another become a lower form of humanity, a racist.Over the past four years of Najib’s rule, he has outsourced the extreme Malay rights rhetoric to the likes of Ibrahim Ali and Zulkifli Noordin of Perkasa. Not only were they given a free hand to spew racially and religiously divisive comments about other races and religions in the country but they are rewarded with parliamentary candidacies in the coming General Election, albeit for Ibrahim Ali, in a roundabout way.And let us not forget who else is hiding in or behind this trojan. Muhyiddin Yassin, the patiently waiting deputy who is famous for “I am a Malay first, a Malaysian second” declaration with ex-Premier Mahathir Mohammed egging him on.It is more than likely that Najib will be removed even if BN wins GE13, unless by some miracle BN can win back its two-third majority. If not, he will be replaced with Muhyiddin in the same way Najib replaced Abdullah Badawi after the last election. The puppet-master Mahathir has already so hinted.

   Thus, a vote for Najib, the trojan horse, is a vote for Muhyiddin, Mahathir and the extension of race-based politics and policies that has not only wrecked our racial harmony but also led us to my next point.

2. CORRUPTION AND CRONYISM – Malaysia already has the dubious distinction of being the Number 1 most corrupt country to do business according to a survey by Transparency International in 2010. In another survey by Global Financial Integrity, we ranked number two globally in illicit capital outflow after China but on a per capita basis, we are by far the number one. Much of these illicit capital leaving our country are the proceeds of corruption. Almost RM200 billion left in 2010, more than two-third our national budget. Read more HERE.The recent expose by Global Witness of how Taib Mahmud, Sarawak’s Chief Minister and his family and friends corruptly took lands and sold them off, gave us an insight into how these corrupt politicians plunder our national wealth and siphon their ill-gotten proceeds to financial safe-havens like Singapore. This documentary is a must-watch. Watch it HERE.Cronies like Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary are nothing but proxies for corrupt politicians. One by one, our national assets and services are being handed over to them, especially Syed Mokhtar, whose group of companies has taken over most of our ports, national airline, rice and sugar monopoly, postal service and rail system. This is not privatisation but PIRATISATION or PLUNDERISATION. His corporate debts alone is RM34.4 billion in 2012, a recipe for another financial crisis in our country.

   Closed tenders of government projects or as they prefer to call it, directly negotiated contracts are costing us billions in wastages and corruption each year. What we get for all these expenditures are not just over-inflated prices but often poor and shoddy products like submarine that can’t sink, stadium that collapses and new roads that are quickly potholed. The Auditor-General’s Annual Report for 2011 is an interesting read. Download the PDF HERE.

   A vote for Najib is a vote for more corruption and cronyism. As a voter in Bentong commented cynically in a recent street interview, “What progress? I don’t see much but I see the politicians getting fatter (richer). For us, do you see anyone of us getting fatter?”

3. INJUSTICES AND ABUSES OF POWER – The direct result of corruption and cronyism are injustices and abuse of state institutions to escape wrongdoings and prosecutions by the corrupt.Recent disclosures by carpetman Deepak Jaikishan and the late PI Bala into the cover-up of the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya by people linked to Najib would have raised such a furore in most countries of the world but not here. No reopening of the case by the Attorney-General, no investigation by the police and no coverage by the mainstream media.What about Teoh Beng Hock, Ahmad Sarbani, Kugan, Sugumaran, Aminulrasyid and the over 150 people who died while in police custody between 2000 and 2011? No inquiries were conducted into most of these cases and even fewer enforcement officers were convicted for these deaths. Where is the justice for them? What has happened to our public institutions which are supposed to protect and serve us? BN has turned them into their war machineries to keep them in power!A vote for Najib is a vote for more injustices and abuses of power by public institutions. How many more Beng Hocks, Sugumarans and Amirilrahsyids must we have before we wake up? Or must we wait until it happens to ourselves or to our own children before we cry for justice?

CONCLUSION

The above three agendas are what is hidden behind Najib the trojan horse whose smiling face graced billboards, posters, booklets and TV ads all over the country. Words like transformation, peace, stability and prosperity are painted over this trojan horse to make it look “marketable”.

But the truth is far from the glossy public image and as voters, we owe it to our future generations to look beyond this “gift horse”.

The Trojan priest Laocoön guessed the plot and warned the Trojans, in Virgil’s famous line “I fear Greeks even those bearing gifts” but his warning went unheeded and the Trojans paid the price with their lives.

A survey by Universiti Malaya’s Democratic and Election Centre (Umcedel) conducted between April 4, the day Parliament was dissolved, till 20th April, revealed a somewhat surprising result.

The poll of from a sample of 1,407 voters in Peninsular Malaysia asked respondents various comparative questions between Najib and Anwar. 43% believed that Anwar was more qualified to be PM whilst 39% thought so of Najib. Among first-time voters, the gap is even wider with 48% for Anwar and only 25% for Najib. Perhaps the most defining data is that it found among Malay voters, 54% believed Anwar was more qualified compared to Najib at 28%. Read it HERE.

Before us at the gate of Putrajaya stands two choices.

One is a coalition led by Najib Razak that has ruled this country for 56 years and has used the excuse of uplifting the Malay race to enrich their own families and cronies. Theirs is a politic of lies, hatred, sex videos and of fear. Bankrupt of ideas and vision, they constantly instill fears in us of race riots, the dismantling of the monarchy and perhaps most vile of all, politicising religion to divide and rule.

The other choice is a coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy PM who was famously sacked and accused of corruption and sodomy in 1998 and jailed on those trumped up charges for 6 years which was reversed by the Federal Court in 2004 and released. He has managed to unite all the opposition parties under the banner of Pakatan Rakyat for this election, offering us the hope to heal and rebuild our nation together.

No poll is conclusive or even accurate but it does perhaps indicate that we, as right-thinking Malaysians may be wiser than the politicians give us credit for.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we have seen through the deception of this trojan horse and would not allow it into the gate of power in this 13th General Election, not even for another five years.

May I suggest and indeed beseech you fellow Malaysians, to C4 or set fire to this trojan horse and end all the years of fear, hatred, injustice, plunder and unrighteousness that are hidden in it, once and for all.

Ini Kalilah! Ubah!