The Malaysian Insider

MARCH 19 — Every time some politician makes an ill-advised remark about race or religion, there will be the inevitable deluge of comments reminding him where his true allegiance belongs. If the politician speaks out for the Malays or Islam, the chorus will be: “Remember, you are beholden to Malaysians, not the Malays/Muslims,” and if the politician speaks out for the non-Malays or non-Muslims, it will be, “Remember, you are beholden to the Malays, not the non-Malays.”

What infuriates me is that I agree with both sides — and yet they are both so insufferably smug in excluding other Malaysians and Malaysian concerns from their vision of what Malaysia should be.

MARCH 12 — Malaysian democracy is in trouble once again. The Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club (BNBBC) wants to strip the Dewan Rakyat of some of its most basic institutions, and the Federal government is obstinately refusing to co-operate with the states which want to return local government to the grassroots.

The official reason for not permitting local elections is that it will not enhance the efficiency of local government. Curiously, this has not been substantiated with actual evidence.

MARCH 9 — Najib Razak was supposed to be a better Prime Minister than Abdullah Badawi. Has Najib’s regime turned out well for Umno? Maybe. But it has put our country on a worse footing than before. Najib replaced Pak Lah because the Umno warlords wanted to protect their own interests, rather than that of the country’s.

The biggest problem people had with Pak Lah was that he was weak. He said nice things, but he didn’t have the willpower to see them through. He was a career civil servant, not a politician. So we got Najib — a consummate politician.

But Pak Lah’s weakness was a double-edged sword. He let a lot of people get away with saying nasty things — our nation’s dirty laundry of corruption and racism was aired like never before during his time.

MARCH 1 — The more I learn about 1 Malaysia and the Najib Razak administration, the more convinced I am that this is all just another giant farce.

I cannot tell where this perception that Najib is more competent or principled than his predecessor is coming from.

1 Malaysia is all propaganda without results, and the actions of our government show it is more concerned with a good show rather than substance.

FEB 12 — The cracks in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia regime are showing. It does not please me to say this, because I genuinely wanted all these much-vaunted promises to come true. But 1Malaysia is clearly failing, and the Prime Minister is showing himself to be the weak leader I was afraid he was going to be.

I tend to support Pakatan Rakyat, but I’m no partisan. I would be quite happy to see Barisan Nasional adopt Pakatan’s policies and principles, and apply its fifty-years worth of experience and tradition to bringing these ideas to life. The problem is, Barisan clearly has no intention of doing this, and Prime Minister Najib is too weak to lead Barisan in the direction which we Malaysians want it to go.