COMMENT | The combination of his political thuggery and arrogance has never endeared Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to the Malaysian rakyat, despite his best efforts to woo them.

Good leaders motivate, not manipulate. Good leaders know what they want of the rakyat, and do not give confusing messages. Good leaders consider the needs of the electorate, not of themselves.

Good leaders think of long-term benefits, not short-term gains.
At the “Malaysian Chinese Patriotic Rally” held at the Putra World Trade Centre on Sept 16, Najib told the Chinese community that if trouble and violence were to engulf Malaysia, the Chinese would be the first to be targeted.

Why use fear to frighten the Chinese? Chinese votes should not be obtained through intimidation.

Najib reeled-off the names of the Chinese billionaires among the top 10 richest people in Malaysia, and stressed that it was his party, Umno-Baru, which had provided them with the opportunities to make them mega rich.

The warning not to bite the hand that once fed them was evident; but a week later, on Sept 23, Najib praised the entrepreneurs for their hard work. Gone was the violent rhetoric. Instead, he talked about building more vernacular schools, and that cultural diversity was a source of national strength. Flip-flopping comes naturally to him.

Najib’s former mentor, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, now trades barbs with him, from the other side of the political divide, but Najib has no desire to reform.

Having criticised Mahathir for his role in the massive Bank Negara forex trading losses, and for paying a lobbyist to arrange a meeting with former President Bush, Najib continued to emulate his former boss, instead of doing the right thing.

Najib is a man of few words, who hates being pressured. His press conferences are either over in a flash, or do not materialise. Two Australian journalists, reporters from ABC, were arrested and deported for daring to ask Najib about the millions of ringgit being deposited into his personal bank account.

Despite being the PM, he is timid and fears confrontation. When Mat Over, the washed-out actor, slapped a person who asked Najib a question during the Q & A session of one talk, Najib merely smiled. He should have demanded Mat Over’s immediate arrest and apology. He should have told the audience, that awkward questions should not be met with violence.

Najib tweets trivial things

Most heads of state drone on about substantive issues, such as national policy or international diplomacy. Many of Najib’s tweets are about trivial things, like playing with his pet cat, Kiky.

While many leaders try to avoid meeting the American president, Najib copied Mahathir, and paid a lobbyist to arrange a meeting with Donald Trump.

He presumably thought that being with Trump, at the White House, could be used to exonerate him. His trip would have been used as propaganda for GE14, when the kampung folk, his power-base, will be told, that he was not arrested by the American Department of Justice (DOJ), and has therefore been exonerated from involvement in the 1MDB scandal.

There is one flaw. The kampung folk do not identify with Trump, the white supremacist, who refused entry to Muslims and who wants to punish Muslims. Unlike Trump, Obama is their man and such was their fondness for Obama, that a poster of Obama with Najib stayed for several months, on a billboard at the Maju junction, near the Pertama Complex, in Kuala Lumpur. Obama’s second name, Hussein, and the fact that he lived in Indonesia, endeared them to him.

Najib claims that Mahathir was guilty of many financial scandals. Knowing about the 1MDB scandal should prompt us to focus on 1MDB instead of waiting another 20 years for it to be regurgitated, by another contender in a power struggle. Our investigations into the 1MDB scandal, and the other major scandals, should be done now, while the witnesses are alive, when our memories are fresh and before the evidence is destroyed or spirited away.

“Cash is King” best describes Najib’s tenure. The rural folk are paid to attend audiences, are bussed to the venue and taken home again, given a meal and pocket money. Spoiling the people is counter-productive, and only good for short-term gain, as the electorate will in future, only vote if the price is right.

Nobody has been caught up in more scandals than Najib and the self-styled “First Lady of Malaysia” (FLOM), who use private jets to fly overseas, on ostensible official trips. If the expenses of MPs had to be tabulated and itemised, Najib and FLOM would be ahead of all the MPs lumped into one.

So what does Najib really stand for? He talks about Malaysia being a moderate nation, but does nothing about extremists in our midsHis administration has cancelled a beer festival, after protestations from PAS.

Shops demand “Muslim only” patrons and the latest to reject non-Muslim clients is a laundromat in Muar, Johor.

It is a pity that this particular laundromat cannot clean-up MO1.

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MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, Twitter.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.