Salam Persaraan, Tun Abdullah

Jurublog ingin merakamkan ucapan perhargaan kepada Pak Lah, Perdana Menteri Malaysia yang ke lima, yang akan dengan rasminya meletakkan jawatan pada hari ini, 3 April 2009.

Pak Lah merupakan seorang birokrat dan penjawat jawatan awam yang berjaya.

Semasa berkhidmat sebagai penjawat awam dan Menteri di dalam Kabinet, Pak Lah telah menunjukkan prestasi yang memberangsangkan. Beliau merupakan Menteri Luar Malaysia yang amat berjaya.

Walau bagaimana pun, sebagai pemimpin tertinggi negara, Pak Lah tidak berapa menyerlah. Tetapi itu bukan bererti bahawa Pak Lah tidak patut dihargai.

Pak Lah patut dihargai kerana berusaha membuat pembaharuan, contohnya, di dalam badan perundangan dan penghakiman.

Salam Persaraan, Pak Lah.

Crafting a Dignified Exit for Pak lah

Flashback Mahathir: Mahathir cried when he made a shock announcement of his intention to retire from all government and political posts. He was eventually persuaded to stay on as UMNO President and Prime Minister until the conclusion of the OIC summit. The infamous cry-at-the-rostrum event marked the commencement of Mahathir long farewell party.

Fast forward Pak Lah: People are still waiting when to cry because Pak Lah has yet to make clear of his intention to quit. He has been persuaded to consider relinquishing both his posts as UMNO President and Prime Minister as soon as possible. But in reality, Pak Lah wanted a long farewell party for him too, just like Mahathir’s.

Really, Pak Lah wanted to quit with dignity. He thinks that he deserved a dignified exit. He loves UMNO, even when times were bad. He never quit UMNO (i.e. unlike Mahathir/Ku Li). He never joined Semangat 46 (i.e. unlike Ku Li). He never joined any other party, and never spoke at the same platform as the opposition to speak against UMNO (i.e. unlike Mahathir). He has no record of going against the party at any point of time.

However, being a loyal UMNO member is not a good enough criterion to be a good leader of UMNO. You need to be able to command respect, and unite the members. You need to also command respect from the other members of the component parties, and unite them. You need to command respect from the people, and unite all Malaysians.

Unfortunately, under Pak Lah, UMNO has become disunited, the component parties have become disunited, and Malaysians has become disunited. Pak Lah tried, but is still unable to command respect from people at all levels: in UMNO, in Barisan, and other Malaysians.

Pak Lah’s latest move to persuade UMNO Supreme Council to agree on the postponement of UMNO elections will add further discontent among the UMNO grassroots.

If Pak Lah decides not to contest the UMNO Presidency post, then why should there be further delay until March to decide on the successor? What further wonders can Pak Lah do during the short transition period, other than going from a farewell party to another?

On the other hand, what good can Pak Lah do if he decides to contest the UMNO Presidency post? If another contender managed to secure enough nominations to go against him, it is already a sign of gross protests from the ground. It will be even more humiliating if Pak Lah is unable or barely secure enough nominations for the UMNO President post. This will of course be an undignified exit for Pak Lah.

So, Jurublog reckons that Pak Lah will use the Hari Raya festivities to greet people and make him feel good and dignified. The papers will portray Pak Lah as a much loved PM, and people want him to continue serving as PM and undertake the necessary reforms. But despite the “overwhelming” show of support, Pak Lah will then make a tearful announcement not to contest in the UMNO elections to enable UMNO move on and select his successor through the party democratic process. Again, Pak Lah will be praise for his courage and dignity.

Even Khairy has been crafting a possible exit. Khairy has complained that he was being sabotaged and barred from meeting some of his supporters, the same allegations that Mukhriz has earlier made. Khairy has also lambasted the UMNO Supreme Council decision to delay the party elections as complicating matters. In any case, should Khairy eventually lost the UMNO Youth Chief contest, he already has a few reasons to explain for the lost. Of course, Khairy can still win the post, as he should be contestant with the deepest pocket of them all.

Let us wait for Pak Lah’s announcement during the Hari Raya festivities on his future undertakings.

But beware, there is Brother Anwar Bin Ibrahim, who always wants to be in the limelight and steal the show. I am sure that Anwar will announce the submission of notice to the Speaker for a vote of no confidence against the PM on the very day Pak Lah makes his announcement.

Subprime Crisis and Malaysia's Supreme Crisis

Subprime [pronounced as suhb-prahym] means being less than top quality. It should not be mistaken with Supreme [pronounced as suh-preem], which means the highest rank or the greatest.

The current world economic crisis essentially started with the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States. During the period of property boom in the US, there was a tendency to give (subprime) loans to borrowers with poor credit ratings (i.e. due to low income, no credit history, employment status etc), with the hope that the loans will eventually worked out as the loans were backed by appreciating value of the properties. Well, it did not eventually worked out as the US property market went bust and house sales continued to decline. Borrowers who are not well off (some unemployed) cannot repay their loans and eventually defaulted.

That was only part of the story. Concurrent with having given out the subprime mortgages, the financial experts performed their magic by bundling (i.e. putting together) these low quality mortgages with some other higher grade investment papers to create various forms of asset backed securities of investment grade, with insurance backing. Hence, when the subprime mortgages became bad due to high level defaults, these investments in the so-called investment grade asset backed securities became near worthless. So, the institutional investors who invested in the financial instruments linked to the subprime mortgages suffered severe losses.

Bear Sterns hedge funds were among the initial casualties, back in June 2007. The extend of losses resulting from the subprime crisis were somehow suppressed by the Americans until the second major wave of failures surfaced last week. Lehman Brothers collapsed and Merill Lynch has to be sold to Bank of America. We may be going into a long and deep economic turmoil.

Talking about the subprime crisis, I wish to relate a story told by a friend of mine sometime after March 2008 General Election. Pak Lah (as the then Finance Minister), at an international conference on investment in Malaysia, spoke about the subprime [suhb-prahym] crisis. True to Pak Lah’s ingenuity, he pronounced the crisis as supreme [suh-preem] crisis (and that too, in front of so many international institutional investors).

I guess Pak Lah had the foresight then that the subprime crisis will eventually turn out to be a supreme crisis.

However the joke was that Pak Lah must have been mistaken the word subprime with supreme and vice versa. It continued that UMNO Supreme Council was actually functioning as a Subprime Council, endorsing whatever was being dictated by the present UMNO leadership. In addition, we still have Pak Lah as the SubPrime Minister.

Of the General and his Major

If I recall correctly, a few years ago, Najib had a lavish wedding reception for one of his children (whom he had from his first marriage). True to Rosmah’s reputation, she (and not the boy’s actual mother) was at the helm of the organising committee for the reception. Without doubt, Rosmah was quite a good organiser.

During the reception speech, Najib delivered quite an amusing anecdote about an army General and his Major. As the Defence Minister then, Najib liken himself as the General in his household. On the other hand, Rosmah is the Major. Of course, by seniority, General ranked much higher than the Major. Najib continued to say that as a General, he will make the general decisions, and likewise, Rosmah will be the one who make the major decisions. The crowd burst into spontaneous laughter upon hearing the joke.

The joke actually continued beyond the wedding reception. Rosmah was alleged to be the real “power” behind the Ministry of Defence. At one instance, she was alleged to have chaired a procurement meeting at the MOD, with Najib being in attendance! There are many other stories circulating regarding her lavish spending spree everytime she’s overseas together with Najib who’s on official trip.

With the recent swap in portfolio, Pak Lah is now the Minister of Defence. Rumour has it that the new General (Pak Lah) has quite a few people with the rank of Major in his “Kitchen Cabinet” (as opposed to the formal Malaysian Cabinet). And this rank and file has always existed since Pak Lah became the Prime Minister. So, as the story unfolds, Pak Lah will continue to make general decisions regarding the well being of us Malaysians, and his other household henchmen will be the ones who will continue to dictate the major decision making exercises.

Pak Lah surprised by Muhyiddin's call to quit earlier

Sigh.

Pak Lah still cannot properly answer impromptu questions. Yesterday, in response to another impromptu question, Pak Lah said that he was surprised with Muhyiddin’s call to hasten the power transition.

I was not surprised.

May be Pak Lah can never cleverly interpret the subtle hints given by his fellow party members since the dismal election results. (Note: Pak Lah may maintain that it was not a DISMAL result, as he was quoted as saying that, in other countries, such results would be termed as a landslide victory).

Firstly, Pak Lah ignored the calls for a thorough post-mortem on the election results. Should not he be surprised that a lot of people were unhappy with the election results?

Pak Lah’s supporters have also been vocal in criticising those people who asked the PM to take responsibility in respect the dismal results. Mahathir, Ku Li and Mukhriz were vocal in asking Pak Lah to take responsibility. Pak Lah again ignored these calls. Instead, he engineered a pact with Najib for power transition in 2010. Should not he be surprised that his fellow party members were taken aback with the rather long transition plan?

Ghafur and Anifah were among those who declined to be appointed as Pak Lah’s cabinet members. Should not he be surprised that these people were unhappy with his leadership?

Anwar made a successful comeback with a convincing win in Permatang Pauh, just nearby Pak Lah’s constituency of Kepala Batas in Penang. Should not he be surprised that even his fellow state brethrens rejected his leadership?

Ahmad Ismail made a well publicised remark on the Chinese during the by-election. As a result, MCA severed their ties with Bukit Bendera’s UMNO. Gerakan, on the other hand, severed their ties with Penang UMNO. Penang UMNO is headed by Pak Lah. Should he be surprised that even other BN component parties reject his leadership?

One thing that I noticed is that Pak Lah will not react immediately on critical matters unless it has something to do with him. You can criticise UMNO. You can criticise BN. You can criticise other leaders in UMNO or BN. You can criticise and undermine the Malays. You can talk big and create rumours of new government. You can threaten to quit BN. You can do all these things, but never mention Pak Lah or PM as part of your statement. If you do, then you will get immediate reaction from him. If not, Pak Lah will take a while (and wait for input from his troop of advisers) to comment on the matter.

I bet that Pak Lah will say that he is surprised when some BN parliamentarians start to defect before the end of this month. But I will not be surprised if Pak Lah insisted on clinging to power, even with the defections.

Now, to avoid any more surprises on him, Pak Lah wants all talks in respect of the power transition be stopped. Expect his clowns to support the call and start demonising Muhyiddin.

What a solution. Neither clever nor wise.

Sigh.

Being Clever but Not Wise

No. I am not referring to Pak Lah. Rather, I am referring to Pak Lah’s troop of advisers.

Probably Pak Lah needs a troop of advisers because he is neither. He is naïve. You would notice that Pak Lah found it difficult to answer impromptu questions from the press. If he did, he would fumble.

On the 8 March 2008 election night, when asked about the defeat of Samy Vellu, Shahrizat and other senior BN politicians, he said, “Dah kalah, kalah lah”. (Translated: “Let it be that they are defeated”). A wise leader would look in retrospect, followed by a forward looking statement. Mahathir, for example would have said, “These are good leaders who had served their constituency well, and have served in my cabinet. I would like to thank them for their contributions, and hope that they will continue to serve the people, albeit in different capacity. We will look into the reasons for the defeat, and take appropriate corrective action to garner back support to Barisan.”

Pak Lah and his troop of advisers also failed to understand the sentiments from the ground. When a lot of your top ranking people became war casualties, a general should act to maintain and garner support from the loyal soldiers who have fought the battle. In Pak Lah case, noting that UMNO lost quite a few top ranking leaders during the election, Pak Lah happily appointed those people who did not even contest the election as his cabinet members. If those non-contestants are worthy leaders, it should be okay. The problem was that those elected as senators to then become ministers/deputy ministers were perceived as the very people that would lost the contest should they become candidates in the election.

And Pak Lah always acted indecisively or way too late. When Ahmad Ismail’s racial remark case came into fore, he should have put a lit into it. Ahmad Ismail was actually talking about the Chinese community during the Permatang Pauh by-election. Pak Lah should have said to Ahmad Ismail, “In the by-election, we were contesting against a Malay candidate from an opposition party. Apart from trying to win the Malay votes, we are also trying to woo the Chinese to vote for Barisan. It is therefore inappropriate for Ahmad Ismail to even talk about pre-Merdeka Chinese during the by-election speech. I would recommend that UMNO Supreme Council take stern action to put this to a stop.”

I do not like people who try to stoke racial tensions. I deplore the way Sin Chew Jit Poh has been playing up the matter. I also noticed that apart from NST, all other English newspapers have been attacking the Malay leaders who tried to defend the Malay rights. May be they are preparing for any eventuality for a Pakatan-led government. Tun Mahathir has not been spared by a barrage of criticisms when he questioned the need for an apology by Najib, even from The Star newspaper.

I would predict that this trend of undermining the Malay and their rights and privileges would continue as long as we continue to have a weak leader like Pak Lah. On the other hand, we may loose it all together should we have somebody like Anwar as a leader. We cannot afford to have somebody who owes a lot to other people for support, and end up sacrificing the interests of his own community.

Is Pak Lah only good at doing nothing?

I was so alarmed when Armed Forces chief, General Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Zainal actually told the Government to take stern action against those who stoke racial sentiments as it could create chaos and disorder.

Such statement from the highest ranking military man indicates the alarming inaction by the present leadership on the very issue.

Pak Lah, it seems, is good at doing nothing. On the other hand, he is also not good in doing anything. As the PM, it is not good for him to do nothing. But he is definitely not a good man who did nothing. (Am I making sense here?)

ABU - Anything Besides UMNO aka Asal Bukan UMNO

ABU seems to be the party of choice at the current moment.

There are so much negative vibes on UMNO that anything that is being done to positively support the main Malay-based party will be ignored or attacked. On the other hand, anything that is being done by the opposition will be accepted as truthful.

The non-Malays had virtually abandoned UMNO during the 8 March General Election. And UMNO has yet to regain support from the non-Malays well after the General Election. Even some UMNO party members are still distancing themselves from the party.

People (especially the non-Malays) still believes that Anwar is no sodomite, despite the swearing on Quran by Saiful. People still believes that Najib was involved in Altantuya’s murder, despite Najib’s recent swear in the Mosque.

Anwar’s reasoning for not swearing on the sodomy case is well accepted as very logical by the non-Malays, and supported by PAS. They believe that Anwar has no cronies, despite the known fact that he had nurtured many of them during his tenure in the government, and that they will be re-activated once he is back in power. They also believe that Anwar has no money, despite Permatang Pauh flourishing with PKR banners and other election goodies at PKR’s booths.

Statutory declarations issued by the opposition will simply be accepted as gospel truth. Never mind whether they border around criminal defamation. Najib and/or Rosmah were believed to be involved in the murder because there is statutory declaration to that effect. Now they are being accused of practising non-Islamic rituals. Anwar is not guilty because the Pusrawi doctor issued a statutory declaration. Anything else to point on Anwar's guilt will be part of government's conspiracy.

I blame the ABU syndrome on Pak Lah. He should realise that he is the main reason for the current fall of UMNO - he is a very weak leader.

Pak Lah's perceived communication problem

I went for my Friday prayers at Masjid Putrajaya today. I saw Pak Lah entering the mosque during the second part of the sermon. Late as usual, even for Friday prayers.

But then, if he were to come earlier, he would have slept during the sermon. That would also be not right.

Pak Lah really has a perceived communication problem. When I went to Kongres Ekonomi Bumiputera at PWTC last month, I fell asleep during his speech because it was so boring and not inspirational at all. And I was not the only person who fell asleep during the speech. Almost all of my friends dozed off, and at least one went back home in the middle of Pak Lah’s speech because it was so torturing to him. At times during the speech, Pak Lah raised his voice a bit, to stress certain points. A saw certain members of the audience waking up from their slumber and started to clap. And Pak Lah would have thought that the audience were indeed fascinated with his speech.

When I asked a journalist who was seated next to me on the gist of the speech, the reporter himself politely said to me that it was usual for journalists to listen to Pak Lah’s blabber. They will reconvene among themselves later to decide what story to write on Pak Lah.

Such is our current the state of affairs. When people talk, Pak Lah sleeps. And when Pak Lah talks, people will fell asleep. When people talk, Pak Lah seldom listens. He only listen to the selected few around him. Likewise, when Pak Lah speaks, the people would rather not listen. That's because of the flip floping of decisions. Such is the communication problem between the government and the people at large.

So when Pak Lah made a sincere effort to experience first hand the problems with the current public transportation system, even BigDog suggested that it has to do with more money for Scomi. See http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/more-money-for-scomi/

That is all because it is rare to see Pak Lah being on the ground. Just to share my own experience, on more than several occasions during Mahathir’s time, I would bump into Mahathir during weekends, making unofficial visits to certain spots in KL city (Central Market, Dataran Merdeka, etc) to look at its cleanliness and other stuffs. And Mahathir would write notes onto his little pocket notebook on matters of interest to him. Perhaps those were action notes to be given to the relevant authorities then. And Mahathir did those spot checks without the fanfare of journalists and TV crews.