Category: Media

— Rom Nain
The Malaysian Insider
Jul 11, 2012

JULY 11 — For many, certainly among the educated, urban middle class, it has become quite apparent why this administration has become increasingly unpalatable.

There have been the barefaced lies and arrogant disdain in response to scandals such as the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), Scorpene submarines, and controversial projects such as the Lynas plant.

There also have been the crass accusations and misrepresentations of important and meaningful events like Bersih 3.0, the ongoing blatant buying of the peoples’ votes using public funds and, of course, the continuing, unprovoked character assassination of people and parties who, for some inexplicable reason, seem to scare the living daylights out of the members of this regime.

The call by the Barisan Nasional’s Seri Gading MP, Mohamad Aziz, for Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan to be hanged for treason is a perfect example of this desperation, this stupidity, this insanity.

All this, evidently, has contributed to a general feeling of revulsion among many at the antics of a regime that appears to have gone mad with power. And will do anything to cling on to it, especially at a time when its legitimacy is evidently at an all-time low and is rapidly sinking further.

Indeed, things seem to have all gone wrong for Prime Minister Najib Razak. Continue reading “Smoke and mirrors”

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has belatedly realized that he is losing out in the public relations war over the government’s mishandling of the Bersih 3.0 “sit-in” at Dataran Merdeka on April 28, 2012, as evidenced by the following recent developments:

• Najib upping the ante in the public relations battle with his wild and irresponsible allegation in Gua Musang on Friday that the Bersih 3.0 rally was a coup attempt by the Opposition to topple the government;

• the desperate roping in of three former Inspector-Generals of Police , Tun Haniff Omar, Tan Sri Rahim Noor and Tan Sri Musa Hassan to lend credence to Najib’s wild claim although there is not one iota of evidence that Bersih 3.0 was a coup attempt by the Opposition to topple the government (in fact, all evidence point to the contrary, with hundreds of thousands of Malaysians regardless of race, religion, class, region, age or gender gathering peacefully in the best manifestation of “1Malaysia” for a common cause for clean elections and armed at most with salt and water bottles to protect themselves from tear-gas attacks);

• The recycling of the Economist commentary “It’s that time of year” in the local media almost a week after its first appearance on the Economist website on May 1.

One lesson Najib’s “image” handlers have learnt from the government’s disastrous mishandling of the Bersih 2.0 rally of July 9, 2011 was to better manage the foreign media – and as a result, the Najib administration had a better foreign media perception and coverage on the night of Bersih 3.0 as compared to the night of Bersih 2.0, as illustrated by the Economist commentary of 1ST May. Continue reading “Najib should produce proof or retract and apologise for his wild and irresponsible allegation that Bersih 3.0 “sit-in” was a coup attempt by the Opposition to topple the government”