The Morning After - Part 2

... continuing from The Morning After - Part 1

Okay, the title of this post is a bit of a misnomer as it's already Two mornings after but never mind as it allows me to capture some of the 'wisdoms' that have emerged since yesterday.

another style of The Morning After, wakakaka

Let's start off with Najib's 'Chinese tsunami' which gave scrumptious grounds for sweetie Joceline Tan from The Star to write her GE13: Reeling from Chinese tsunami. Promoting Najib's comment about the loss of BN seats particularly in Johor, she informed us (some extracts):

"... The Malay wall held back the Chinese tsunami ..."

I love sweetie Joceline especially for her wonderful spinning skills where she obviously and deliberately brought focus onto a gloomy picture of the now ominous ethnic divide between Malays and Chinese caused by the non-participation of that marvellous Chinese-based party called MCA or Malaysian Chinese Association, which incidentally The Malaysian Insider in a post election editorial has suggested for it (ie. MCA) to drop the 'C' from its name because the party failed miserably to represent the community it claimed it represented.

That the Star is owned by MCA is of course just a coincidence, wakakaka.

wakakaka

And then, just in case we are too dumb to recognize her not too subtle HINT, she emphasized on the future status of a MCA-less Malaysian cabinet by reminding us:

"... MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek tweeted late last night that the party would not be accepting any government posts. This was in keeping with the pledge made that the party would not accept posts in the Government if it did not do better this time ...".

Who knows, maybe Najib will bring Teng Chang Yeow into the cabinet via the Senate back door like was done for his party president Koh TK. Bloke is a Johorean and also a Chinese language expert (while in USM he was sec-gen of the Chinese language society), thus may be useful to Ah Jib Gor, wakakaka.

Besides UMNO is known to favour Gerakan over MCA as it's said that UMNO (and not just Chinese Malaysians) sometimes sees MCA as arrogantly too big for its shoes, wakakaka.

Then sweetie added in the obligatory accolade for Taikoh but she couldn't resist a jab at those 'ungrateful' Chinese, wakakaka:

"... The Chinese rejection of Barisan is a big blow to Najib, who went out of his way to persuade them to come along on his economic and political transformation journey. The Chinese have rejected a moderate and inclusive leader, who has made more overtures to the Chinese than any other Prime Minister before him, and Najib and his coalition will have to reassess all this in the months to come. ...".

I leave my comment for above later.

And she consolidated on the thrust of her MCA-ish merajuk comment: "... One of the most disturbing aspects of the election result is that the ruling coalition is dominated by Umno and the Malays while the opposition Pakatan is dominated by the Chinese-based DAP. The impact of this will become clearer as the dust settles over the most closely-fought election ever."

Poor Star, poor sweetie Joceline - whichever way they write, they'd get blasted. As lamented by Wong Chuh Wah, my erstwhile matey sweetie Helen Ang has been lambasting The Star for being too pro DAP, wakakaka, while of course DAP people think otherwise. Tony Pua had even accused The Star people who rejected DAP's ad as liars.

Pro UMNO blogger Syed Akbar Ali (OutSyed The Box) wrote a rather interesting piece titled How The Malay Vote Was Lost, his personal observations on the polling but based on some statistical findings by sweetie Helen Ang. Sweetie is known for her excellent statistical findings, and we know from experience that statistics in the hands of some people can be quite interesting.

I truly thank Syed and sweetie for their findings, whether correct or otherwise, because it made me realize that those damn Chinese have forsaken one of their traditional and most cherished Election-Day activity, mahjung playing. How outrageous! What cultural blasphemy, oh those bloody radical revolutionary Philistines! Wakakaka!

are you Bangladeshis?
if so, please continue playing

wakakaka

Yes, Malaysian politics is also a story of the politics of race or, if you like, race in politics. It's unfortunate we can't escape racial discussions in politics because we haven't yet possessed adequate thrust (or trust) and thus the required escape velocity to overcome its powerful gravitational pull, which compels us into more mundane Earthly understanding of its issues.

But anyway, let's leave them, Syed and the sweeties, and return to Najib's 'Chinese tsunami'. Many have disputed and re-identified his attribution for BN's loss in some Johor seats such as Gelang Patah. The most astonishing one has been from a known UMNO mouthpiece, Pak Kadir Jasin.

Pak Kadir suggested, rather correctly, it was a Malaysian rather than uniquely-Chinese tsunami. I wonder not so much at Pak Kadir's correct identification but more at the significance of an UMNO mouthpiece (mind you, a quite sophisticated and subtle one) challenging the PM? What possible Machiavellian mischievous machination might have been behind his challenging assertion?

Hmmm, perhaps I too have been too much influenced by rumours of (FMT's) Najib [being forced] to step down end of year, supposedly an UMNO party requirement which was started by Dr Mahathir. The Old Man told Reuters last year that Najib must improve on the 140 seats won by BN in 2008 or his position would be unstable, meaning Najib would be forced to step down like his predecessor AAB.

Dr Mahathir has never been an easy man to read. He had virtually co-authored The Art of War with Sun Tzu, wakakaka, in which he was reputed to have personally written “All warfare is based on deception”, wakakaka again.

Yes, Sun Tzu was my best mate
wakakaka

As I had written in a previous post Race in politics, politics in race regarding Pakatan’s wishful thinking about Dr Mahathir undermining Najib:

Maybe we have been syiok-sendiri-ishly mistaken (kidding ourselves) about UMNO being a divided house, when in fact they are playing Sun Tze's 'inflict injury on oneself to win the enemy's trust', where Najib by pretending to be 'injured' from UMNO intra-party fighting, lulls his enemy into relaxing his guard since he longer considers Najib to be an immediate threat.

Thus, Najib plays being the victim of ultra rightwing forces within UMNO in a manmanlai hope to secure as many Chinese and Indian sympathy votes as possible, or convince Chinese and Indians to 'help' poor Ah Jib Gor against UMNO rightwing forces …

... while his UMNO colleague (or sifu, wakakaka) assures (and secures) the Heartland that all's well and eight bells under a Hang Tuah-ish UMNO …

If so, then it's a brilliant pincer attack which would have earned the admiration of the Carthaginian general Hannibal (or at least his soul).

Thus I am inclined to believe Dr Mahathir has been playing reverse psychology.

We know Dr Mahathir is (still) the Kingpin in UMNO and the Emperor of all he surveys within the party. He had even overthrown AAB and in earlier years had de-fanged the un-defang-able. Thus I doubt very much Najib will be forced to resign by end of the year as he still enjoys the favour of the powerful UMNO king-maker who, I opine, would rather have Najib (than Muhyiddin) nurse Mukhriz upwards in the party leadership echelon, for 5 reasons:

Firstly, Mahathir and Najib have a history of family kam-cheng (bond of mutual gratitude and hutang budi) starting from Mahathir's hutang budi to Najib's father since after the 1969 coup d'etat of Tunku Abdul Rahman. Thus it's likely Najib is more trusted to mentor Mukhriz as Mahathir had and probably is still mentoring Najib.

Yes, we can describe Najib being not his own man, totally beholden to Dr Mahathir, a weakling without spine, etc. But make a guess on how Anwar was when he was in UMNO for 16 years as Mahathir's protégée as the Old Man groomed him up the ladder and enabled him to leapfrog (pun not intended, wakakaka) over more senior UMNO leaders? Okay, go ahead and chew me up if you lack the intellectual honesty to review Anwar's history in UMNO.

Secondly, Mahathir doesn't hate Najib like he hated (maybe still does) AAB. So Dr Mahathir is unlikely to press for the ouster of Najib (as he had for AAB) based on the nonsensical lack of 2/3 majority.

Here's a kaytee secret for you - the reason Dr Mahathir hated (hates?) AAB was inadvertently revealed by AAB himself (of course in an indirect fashion) during an interview with Pichai Chuensuksawadi, editor-in-chief of the Bangkok Post, in December 2006. 

I can tell you it was all a pot of lies
wakakaka

Thirdly, I believe Dr Mahathir had once stated (prior to some kind of election, perhaps the one between him and Ku Li for the UMNO presidency) that even if he won by one vote, he was still a legitimate winner and would accept the post. So, minus the sort of hatred he had/has(?) for AAB, how could he argue for Najib to be removed from the UMNO president position for not achieving a 2/3 majority in GE-13?

The mandatory mandate of 2/3 majority has been a manmanlai myth, a nonsense which has basically been something nice to have, to be able to commit all sorts of constitutional amendments, but not necessary to form a reasonably stable government.

Fourthly, no BN leader, not even Dr Mahathir himself, would have been able to achieve that impossibility of a win with 2/3 majority in GE-13.

Finally but not least, Najib is viewed favourably by business, both internationally and locally, as evident by a TMI report As results sink in, big winners are KL tycoons and Lynas as stocks rally showing a bullish local market in response to Najib’s victory. Dr Mahathir is hardly one to kill an UMNO-Malaysian goose that lays economic golden eggs.

Okay, I accept that Anwar too would be viewed favourably by internationally and local business, but alas, he isn't the PM, is he?

The reality is hard for a Pakatan supporter to swallow unless he/she is true to him/herself in assessing the political outcomes of GE-13, warts and all, without a jaundiced view - 'warts' being the dodgy-ness of the polling process, though mind you, not unlike that allegedly for PKR's last party election, wakakaka. But let's leave that aside at least for this post or I'll be bogged down - I'll return to the issue of dodgy-ness in the polls in another post.

Yes you may not like this but to UMNO Najib Razak has been a HERO for winning GE-13 and saving the party from political doom as well as saving many rotten BN politicians from legal prosecutions for corruption etc.

I am really Ah Jib Gor
But please don't tell Rosmah or
she'll want to go SHAZAM-ing with me 

wakakaka

No doubt about it, he has been cunning, friendly, sneaky, warm, ruthless, indefatigable, Machiavellian, charming, everything he senses he has to be, and probably insincere as any snake oil salesman, but which makes him a successful politician, wakakaka.

For example, while Pakatan was making inroads in BN strongholds like Johor, he was quietly taking the back lanes and by-roads into Pakatan territory to successfully seize 7 seats from PAS in Titiwangsa, Kuala Selangor, Pendang, Padang Terap, Jerai, Sik and Baling and 8 from PKR in Balik Pulau, Bagan Serai, Kulim-Bandar Baru, Merbok, Machang, Ketereh, Tanah Merah and Hulu Selangor (won by PKR in 2008 tho’ held by BN in a by-election).

A 15-seat harvest which mitigated against the loss of 22 other seats to Pakatan!

Just imagine if he didn't succeed in the above, the final GE-13 tally would have been 133-15 = 118 versus Pakatan 89 + 15 = 104, a mere 14-seat difference or only a 8 seat majority to rule, which would have opened up all sorts of amphibious (wakakaka) ambitious possibilities for Anwar, wakakaka again.

He ripped back Kedah for BN and earned the undying gratitude of daddy Mahathir, while forestalling an anticipated 2nd Pakatan state government in Perak, probably much to the relief of someone I needn't name but who you all know anyway. He basically destroyed the putative northern 'Green Crescent' by winning Perlis, Kedah and Terengganu, and isolated PAS to only Kelantan.

He confirmed Sarawak as still a BN fixed deposit, yes very much to our disgust but remember he was fighting for his and UMNO's survival and we know a drowning man would grab at a straw, even one that looked like a white hair, wakakaka.

In the process he even enjoyed, perhaps not intentionally, the election failure of Ali Rustam, a potential and very dangerous rival to him in the UMNO leadership.

I reckon his principal failure was inexplicably standing a non-UMNO person Zulkifli Noordin in Shah Alam. That move had not only lost for BN the seat but probably caused an anti-BN domino effect in Selangor state which enabled PAS to double its state seats to 15 in Selangor's Malay Heartland, a traditional stronghold of UMNO.

Khairy Jamaluddin, UMNO Youth Chief, admitted: “Yes, you win some Malay votes in the process but you will also lose the support of moderate Malays in the process."

Maybe Najib's mitigation could be "Aiyah Tun, told you so he would be a disaster for us", wakakaka.

So ... what's this about his 'Chinese tsunami'?

Apart from Pak Kadir Jasin, some political analysts have stated even more precisely that the tsunami was not driven by ethnicity but by class.

In TMI’s GE13 an urban, not Chinese swing, say analysts Dr Shamsul Amri Baharuddin of UKM's Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA) said of Pakatan:

“They received Malay middle-class support, especially in urban areas.”

“So the DAP majority increased because of disgruntled Malay young voters’ support ... in conclusion, to label racial polarisation is too easy. Two other factors operate simultaneously with race: class (rich-poor, middle class) and spatial (urban and rural).”

What I have written about the new generation of Chinese Malaysians in Part 1 would also apply to the new generations of Malays and Indians who think more as Malaysians rather than as a member of their parents' ethnic group.

Indeed how could the Chinese, an ethnic group which makes up only 24% of Malaysians, effect a popular vote of around 52% for Pakatan? How could Lim Kit Siang win Gelang Patah with an almost 15,000 majority without support from the Malays there?

And the facts and figures go on and on to rubbish the so-called Chinese tsunami effect.

Of course Najib had to make an excuse to hide from his UMNO members the fact of urban middle-class and young Malays voting Pakatan. For the UMNO president, blaming it on the Chinese bogeyman was neat and convenient and would buy him time to address the problem, in the same manner as he has bought 5 years worth of time for himself and UMNO to do whatever he has to do to stay in power.

He is not known as a cunning fella for nothing. Much as many have predicted likely retributive measures against the 'ungrateful' Chinese for snubbing Najib and his BN in the polls, I believe he will continue his program of manmanlai-ing all ethnic and lobby groups, whether with sincerity or otherwise.

The reason why he had failed with the Chinese even though he tried to pamper them with their favourite issue of 'education' was that he left it until way way too late.

He might have succeeded in such an approach with Waythamoorthy, but not so with the more calculative and more cynical Chinese especially on a topic very close to their hearts. Very few Chinese would buy his eleventh hour promises because they would naturally have viewed them as nothing more than election pork barrelling which might not even be fulfilled, as per some of Dr Mahathir's promises to the Chinese in 1999.

If Najib really wants to win back the Chinese hearts for GE-14, he should be sincere (yes, I know it's hard for a politician, wakakaka) and start implementing his promises to the Chinese community now and certainly not the eve of GE-14 despite their lack of support for BN in GE-13. Give the Chinese and Indians adequate time to see he is truly a PM for all Malaysians, and they may take to him.

One Chinese secret for Najib - Chinese think very very long term, perhaps by the hundreds or thousands of years, and which may explain why their children's education is so important to them.

Of course the anger of UMNO's more conservative elements, provoked by insinuations and accusations of Chinese ingratitude from mainly BN media mouthpieces, has today been reflected in Utusan Malaysia front-paged headline “Apa lagi Cina mahu?" (What else do the Chinese want?).

you can also read how pissed off Ali Rustam is
but it's rumoured Kayveas is delighted, wakakaka

Utusan is known to be largely aligned with Dr Mahathir's faction so one wonders to what extent the angry headline reflects the personal feelings of UMNO king-maker who (like Ali Rustam) has stated the Chinese have been ungrateful.

He even preposterously alleged they have rejected the Malays' extended hand of friendship. What a terrible load of tripe!

It's also noteworthy Najib has avoided condemning Utusan, obviously not to offend Dr Mahathir and the right wing elements in his party.

But as reported by Malaysiakini, Khairy Jamaluddin said MCA must stay on in the government as part of Najib's reconciliation plan. Leng Chai warned his party members to stop calls for UMNO to form a government without representatives from the Chinese community just because most Chinese voters have ceased supporting the coalition. He said:

“I hope those saying just leave them and let’s take care of our race will stop. It will be tragic if we do not have any Chinese participation as it will further aggravate the situation.” 

“I hope the prime minister will continue to take this path and engage with the community. This is critical for the safety of the nation and also important for the realisation of his 1Malaysia vision.” 

“The only path is the middle path. If you succumb to the communal game, the reconciliation will not happen.” 

"I know the Chinese psyche. If you engage them sincerely, they will reciprocate. You have got to be sincere with them." 

How's you daddy?
How's your daddy-in-law?
f* him!
f* him too!

wakakaka

Well, re his last quote, he seems to know the Chinese better than MCA. I believe he once claimed (in 2008) his best friend was(is?) a Chinese, wakakaka.

One interesting question I have regarding Khairy is that now he has been re-elected in Rembau, apparently with thrice (or twice) his 2008's majority, will Najib continue denying him as UMNO Youth Chief a cabinet position?

I can answer the next question myself: Does Dr Mahathir still bear him a grudge? YES, wakakaka.

As Najib should be forming his cabinet shortly, let's wait and see.

I think I'll leave mention of DAP and PKR until the next post, wakakaka.

To be continued ... (maybe, wakakaka) ...