“One Malaysia” – April Fool’s Slogan to Fool You Again?

By comparison the incoming Prime Minister Najib Razak is luckier thanoutgoing PM Abdullah Badawi. It could be a blessing in disguise that former PM Mahathir selected the not-so-bright Abdullah Badawi as his successor in 2003. It could be a disastrous to have Najib took over instead of Badawi then because the public will make comparison between Mahathir and Najib administration. Now that Badawi screwed up big time people will make comparison between Abdullah Badawi and Najib Razak and you don’t have to be rocket scientist to know who the better leader is. And the public “may” throw their support behind Najib’s administration come next general election if he plays the right game at the right time.

It’s a known fact that the first 100-day is the most crucial period in every Prime Minister or President’s calendar of a country. This is also the time when international policy consultants and public relation specialists make good money as their expertise is in demand. It could range from how a new Prime Minister or President’s hairstyle should be changed to the mandatory ingredients needed in his speeches to the nation. In short, the 100-day is the period for extraordinary marketing bombardment. Outgoing PM Badawi is perhaps the only PM that went through the roller-coaster from a Hero (2004’s general election) to Zero (2008’s general election) and subsequently kicked out from the office. And this is invaluable case-study for Najib Razak so as not to repeat the same silly mistake.

Outgoing Badawi’s sloganeering during 2004’s general election was mind-boggling and worked seamlessly simply because he was perceived to be Mr. Clean, a rare commodity much sought after by the people after 22-year of dictatorship rule by his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad. Heck, Badawi is perhaps the best person to win“Father of Sloganeering” and now that he’s going into retirement he should consider his participation in all those slogan contests. Unfortunately he stopped after the sloganeering phase and thereafter flew out of the county most of the time leaving the country in auto-pilot mode. People may argue that freedom of speech reaches its glory period during Badawi’s administration but you can argue that it could be due to his weaknesses and “don’t care” attitude as well.

Incoming Najib is likely to adopt his mentor Mahathir’s administration style: iron-fist with little space for criticism judging from the recent crackdown. But before that Najib has to perform the SOP (standard operating procedure) and has already started his marketing campaign as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia. He can’t brush away his association with Mongolian Altantuya’s murder so he practically add another item to the sensitive list – the mention of the word Altantuya is an offence *creative huh?*. Anyway Najib’s team has mooted the “One Malaysia”concept, a simple yet powerful slogan that sounds more like a stripped-down of Singapore’s “One People, One Nation, One Singapore”. It would be a miracle for a person who vowed to “bathe the keris in Chinese blood” in 1987 to suddenly make a 360-degrees turn and sincere about having “One Malaysia” concept.

But it is image-building time so basically politicians will do practically anything under the sun and that including washing your toilet bowls if that is what it needs to secure the seat. The time is perfect. Badawi’s weak image makes Najib like an angel especially within UMNO. However outside of UMNO the Chinese and Indian voters are still fuming mad especially the Perakians. He needs to create hopes and promises. His surprising visit to Sin Chew daily was part of the marketing campaign to tell the Chinese “I’m here for you China-man so give me the respect and write only good things about me or else …”. He also threw in RM80 million assistance-packages to Tamil schools and made the representatives from Tamil schools squatting with the mock-checks for a photo session to show the voters from the coming by-elections “See, I’m here for you Indian so respect me and don’t embarrass me again by voting for the opposition this time or else …”.

However compared to Indian, Chinese is harder to please so the time is ripe to pay a visit to China – a copy of what his father did in 1974, a great strategy to remind the Chinese how his father was “Chinese-friendly” 35 years ago and he’s (Najib) no racist and will always appreciate the Chinese-Malaysian contribution. Whether his “One Malaysia” concept is another marketing tool or slogan which will die the natural death the same way as Badawi’s initial approach remains to be seen. Najib holds the key to UMNO and BN’s survival and majority of the people are willing (hopefully) to forgive his past racist remarks if he has the political will to correct the wrongs to bring the country in achieving “One People, One Nation, One Malaysia”. But then when was the last time you managed to train old dog new tricks?