In rash defiance of the old axiom “when you find yourself in a hole,
stop digging”, Barisan Nasional has responded to the success of the
Bersih 3.0 rally the only way it apparently knows how; with more of the
lies, fraud, threats, thefts and other dirty deeds that have made it so
deeply and increasingly unpopular.
Claims that Bersih 3.0 was not
a call for clean and fair elections but an attempted coup against the
government have only served to underscore Malaysians’ belief that the
regime has no intention whatever of reforming the rotten electoral
system.
And popular suspicion that BN has no intention of
relinquishing power even if defeated in the next general election has
been further aroused by regime-sponsored attacks on Bersih leaders and
opposition ceramahs.
Many see these attacks as just a foretaste
of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s notoriously stated determination
to defend Putrajaya even at the expense of crushed bodies and lost
lives.
And a reminder of the fact that, like his father, Abdul
Razak Hussein, long suspected of fomenting the May 13, 1969 riots to
wrest the prime ministership from Tunku Abdul Rahman, the allegedly
“moderate” Najib has already presided over crushed bodies and lost
lives.
The
murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu by two of his
bodyguards still continues to haunt Najib, as does the still-unresolved
suspicious death of the witness to alleged opposition corruption, Teoh
Beng Hock, at the hands of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission
(MACC).
Yet following the Bersih 3.0 rally, the same discredited
MACC has had the effrontery to offer its services to determine the
cleanliness or otherwise of opposition candidates in the next general
election.
And as if to highlight the complete failure by the MACC
to investigate the Scorpene submarines scandal that involved the murder
of Altantuya, Malaysia’s current defence minister has crowed that he,
Najib and other BN figures are safe from subpoena by French authorities
currently examining this sordid affair.
Meanwhile, the
widely-suspected beneficiary of the billion-ringgit “commission” on the
Scorpene submarines purchase, Najib himself, has been busily spending
untold millions of public money in a desperate bid buy himself and his
rotten regime out of trouble.
Obsessed with the concept of millions
In
fact he seems to be obsessed with the concept of millions, having
recently spent countless numbers of them on a ridiculous event devised
to demonstrate his popularity, a five-day so-called “Millions of Youths”
gathering at the very venue he vows to defend, if necessary, with
crushed bodies and lost lives, Putrajaya.
Billed as a celebration
of National Youth Day and hyped as one of the world’s top 10 festivals,
this blatant attempt to outshine and outnumber the Bersih 3.0 rally
provided Najib a golden opportunity to showcase his principal talents:
perversion of the truth and pathetic self-praise.
Professing
himself “overwhelmed” with the turnout, he urged a crowd decked-out in
free “I love PM” T-shirts not to let a “handful of youths,” by which of
course he meant the massive Bersih 3.0 rally, “hijack the country’s
agenda and image.”
“Do not let them seize power,” he went on,
falsely accusing Bersih attendees of “street riots, hurling stones and
kicking policemen”, and calling on his captive audience not to “fall
prey to instigation and slanders posted on the Internet and speeches of
irresponsible people who incite us.”
He
then interrupted this litany of lies to deliver one of his trademark
Freudian slips, evoking recollections of his wife’s multi-million-dollar
diamond ring with the bizarre remark that “we should know how to choose
between diamonds and gems”.
And having thus strayed onto the
topic of his widely-despised spouse, he pressed on with the self-adoring
observation that he hoped that all the T-shirts and signs bearing the
message “I love PM” and “We love PM” would “not make my wife jealous as
this expression of love reflects the respect and love of the leader.”
Next,
as if this load of hogwash hadn’t been enough to convince a majority of
Malaysians of their fast-fading love and respect for his so-called
leadership, Najib addressed a crowd of petty traders purpose-assembled
at Dataran Merdeka in a clear studied insult to Bersih 3.0.
Standing
on the very site from which Bersih 3.0 participants were so unjustly
excluded, he lamented that the April 28 rally had cost petty traders
“millions” in losses before declaring that “this group must be protected
and the BN government will continue to defend them.”
Apparently
it didn’t occur to Najib that the “millions” he falsely claimed that his
minions had lost due to Bersih 3.0 would only serve to remind the rest
of us, as if we needed reminding, of the billions that Malaysia has lost
through the fraud, theft and incompetence of BN and its cronies.
But
such an obvious fact didn’t deter him from typically promising to
throwing even more public money away on one of his trademark “You help
me, I help you” exercises: the slashing of traders’ licence fees, a 50
percent discount on fines for such infractions as late renewal of
licences, and the possibility of some kind of social security initiative
for traders.
Money-mad to the point of mania
And
in case anybody in Malaysia retains a shred of doubt that Najib and his
accomplices are money-mad to the point of mania, the regime has brought
a civil suit against selected Bersih leaders for the cost of alleged
damages to police equipment in the course of the recent rally.
Of
course Najib hasn’t been alone in digging ever deeper into the depths
of the hole he’s in. All the usual suspects like Dr Mahathir Mohamad and
the rest of the crew have been out there shovelling for all they’re
worth.
Ably assisted, as ever, by Bernama and the rest
of the ‘mainstream’ media who never tire in their efforts to bolster the
regime’s terminally soiled reputation while simultaneously throwing
dirt on the opposition.
But though these media’s names are mud
and they know it, and so are those of their masters, they clearly can’t
help go on digging the hole that will bury them. And the rest of us can
hardly wait to see the crater collapse.
DEAN
JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his
Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors
writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published
books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia',
‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia' and ‘1Malaysia.con'.
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