Parliament Dissolved – Next, Psychological Warfare

Given a choice, Malaysian (PM) Najib Razak would like to cling to power via emergency rule, the same way his father did after 1969 racial riots post opposition huge victory in the general election during the same year.

However unlike 44 years ago, today is the age of information where people get the latest update and alternative news faster than government-controlled print and electronic media. Essentially, it would be extremely difficult to architect a full-proof plan to justify a declaration of a state of national emergency or “Darurat” by the King and thereafter suspension of the Parliament before the prime minister (via a national council) enjoys absolute power in the name of a caretaker government.

Damn you Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg!!! How the current regime wishes Internet, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Smartphones and whatnot do not exist. It would be easier to cook up some stories without the internet.

That was the reason why the Sabah invasion was viewed with great suspicion, especially when the highly popular (*grin*) Najib stubbornly refused to dissolve the Parliament despite being the most popular prime minister this country have ever had. Just what was he really scared of? It’s funny that he was so indecisive on this matter but was super confident he wouldn’t get caught bonking an actress at Port Dickson and sharing Razak Baginda’s Mongolian mistress (*grin*).



For God sake, Najib has a whopping 1.5 Million Facebook Likes while his nearest competitor Anwar Ibrahim has merely 460,000 Likes. On the other hand, DAP heavyweight Lim Kit Siang has a paltry 115,000 Likes while PAS Guru Nik Aziz has 871,000 Likes. But even then, PM Najib has more “Likes” than all the three opposition chiefs combined.

So, what gives? If that was not enough, Najib can still depends on his mentor Mahathir Mohamad’s staggering 2 Million Facebook Likes to help him send the opposition packing with tail behind their legs. Actually it’s no longer about cyber warfare between BN (Barisan Nasional) and opposition PR (Pakatan Rakyat).




Opposition did well in Mar 2008 general election primarily because of internet and hatred towards BN’s arrogance. Fast forward five years later, BN is on par with opposition PR in the social media presence. BN has been spending millions of dollars on battalions of cyber troopers in their payroll, never mind they couldn’t counter effectively the mismanagement of the present regime.

For the 13th General Election, it is not about merely cyber war anymore. That was so yesterday. This round, it’s about “Psychological Warfare” on the cyberspace. In fact, BN has been using such weapon with great success in the name of 13 May 1969 racial riots, minus the internet tool. And every time former dictator Mahathir sensed a little uprising from the people, he would conveniently whipped out this weapon and Malaysians obediently voted him to power out of fear – for a good 22 years.



Thanks to the internet, the present regime can no longer monopolize its media in brainwashing people with its propaganda. The alternative media of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blogs have given space to the opposition in airing their voices. Playing in the cyberspace is one thing but conducting psychological warfare in cyberspace is another thing.

The biggest thing that had happened prior to today’s Parliament dissolution was the announcement that DAP Supremo Lim Kit Siang would be contesting Gelang Patah parliamentary seat, bringing the 13th General Election to the state of Johor – BN stronghold. It was a brilliant move both tactically and psychologically.



Tactically, Kit Siang’s move from his safe seat in Ipoh Timor (won with 21,000 majority) would add additional seat to the opposition. Kit Siang is like one giant mine clearing machine – clearing landmines for the soldiers’ assault thereafter. He is one stubborn fearless leader who enjoys going into enemies’ territory and create havocs out of it.

Despite trying to calm their fear about Kit Siang’s entrance into their fortress, the fact is Najib administration is extremely nervous with their fix-deposit Johor. Psychologically, Kit Siang is leading the opposition bombardment into UMNO’s last bastion, and that’s bad news because the 2-year-old Kit Siang was bringing with him the “motivation” weapon too. Interestingly, despite being his birthplace, Kit Siang has never contest in Johor before.



If former premier Mahathir’s latest speech in Johor Baru was any indicator, Najib administration is trembling at the sight of DAP’s flags in the state. Mahathir commented that Kit Siang was so stupid to attack UMNO’s fortress in Johor and it didn’t make sense. Well, if Kit Siang was really that stupid, why should the genius Mahathir so concern about it, let alone alerted the enemy?

It was like former Iraq President Saddam Hussein asking why the Americans were so stupid to invade the country and warned they’ve covered the land with landmines. Get the juice? It shows even Mahathir was worried about onslaught by DAP’s heavyweights. Now that Kit Siang has invited Mahathir to contest in Gelang Patah, BN’s morale would be further cracked if the latter chicken out.



Another DAP big gun confirmed to be fighting along side Kit Siang in Johor is none other than a brilliant political strategist - Liew Chin Tong. Only a few know about this low profile strategist but DAP may not be able to capture Penang in the last general election without him.

Liew who won the Bukit Bendera constituency in Penang in 2008 with a majority of 16,000 votes has decided to leave his “safe” seat to challenge Kluang, another seat held by the ruling government in Johor. If everything goes according to the plan, both Kit Siang and Chin Tong would add 2 new parliamentary seats to the opposition’s pocket. DAP could be sending more heavyweights into the warzone in the coming weeks so stay tune.

One of the factors that could swing in Najib administration favour is a low Chinese turnout during the polling day. This is because majority of Chinese voters are opposition supporters. But Malaysian Chinese voters are also super “kiasi” in the event of a riot should the incumbent BN regime refuses to transfer power peacefully if they lose the 13th general election.

Hence it was a brilliant tactical move by opposition de-facto leader Anwar Ibrahim in bringing four retired generals into the opposition camp, led by former army chief General (Rtd) Md Hashim Hussein – Lieutenant-General (Rtd) Abdul Ghafir Abdul Hamid (Army); Brigadier-General (Rtd) Abdul Hadi Abdul Khattab (AirForce); Laksamana Pertama (Rtd) Haji Imran Abd Hamid (Navy) and Brigadier-General (Rtd) Najmi Ahmad .



To add salt into injury, former army chief General (Rtd) Md Hashim Hussein was named as the PKR candidate for the parliamentary seat Johor Baru, a move that could send BN regime running for their money. Psychologically, the strategy could see Chinese voters flocking to the polling centers with the assurance by the retired generals that the country’s army is apolitical and loyal only to the King.

Of course not all psychological warfare by the opposition was executed smoothly. Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng wasted precious time toying with Penang BN chief Teng Chang Yeow. Teng has no intention nor the courage to face Guan Eng heads on in the coming election, but rather to lure the chief minister hoping for him to make mistake so that the government-controlled media could spin some childish stories in order to boost BN’s morale.

Why do you think both sides of political divide were claiming victory before even Najib Razak found his gut, stuffed somewhere inside his closet, to dissolve the parliament today? Well, of course to boost morale as part of the “Psychological Warfare”, silly.

There’re two instances where the ground machineries would not work – arrogance due to over confidence and low morale due to anticipation of a loss. Of course along the way, you’ll get entertained by certain politician who knows nuts about psychological warfare such as MCA President Chua Soi Lek who dare not challenge Lim Kit Siang but chicken out with lame excuse that he can’t be parachuted into Gelang Patah.

If that was not comical enough, he even performed a self-praising stunt – MCA report card with flying colours. No wonder Selangor MCA chief, Donald Duck (Lim) begged the voters not to make MCA “eat egg”, literally means not to wipe MCA out during the election.



While the opposition has tons of talents and giants to be unleashed as candidates, the same cannot be said about Najib’s camp. Obviously BN does not have sufficient good candidates to impress voters. When even expired MIC Samy Vellu offered himself as winnable candidate, you do not have to be rocket scientist to understand Najib’s dilemma. 

Najib’s biggest nightmare could be the candidate’s list. There would be many unhappy candidates wannabe who would sabotage its own well-greased machineries upon discovered that their names were not favoured. Facing an internal revolt, the Election Commission may have hard time allocating free postal votes to BN candidates if massive votes swing to the opposition.



If you care to listen to Najib Razak’s parliament dissolution announcement at 11:30 am just now, you may be able to sense how tense the situations were. Najib made an error in his speech about the date of dissolution – he mentioned 2012 instead of 2013. And when he walked around shaking his comrades’ hands, it was a sombre atmosphere, as if it was a farewell send-off (*grin*).

Perhaps Najib Razak knew something that we don’t from the military intelligence when he unexpectedly promise to ensure a peaceful transition of power should the federal or any state government switch hands post 13th General Election 2013. But he may not mean what he said but merely to ensure minimal impact or volatility to the stock market.

Malaysian Loves Corruption & Can’t Live Without It

If there’s one hot topic of discussion during the coming Chinese New Year, it has to be the Mother of General Elections – the 2013 Malaysia General Election. This is perhaps the final time family members would sit together, cracking garlic-flavour groundnuts sipping Anglia Shandy or Carlsberg, and debate over who and which party to elect – either current regime (BN) or opposition (PR).

This is also the time family members get to brainwash each other on which party to vote for the next federal government. The swing in support to either BN or PR would be fierce and wilder than Dow Jones during sub-prime crisis.

Of course PM Najib Razak’s PR team realizes the significance of this and has spent many hours on the drawing board preparing scripts to attract Chinese voters. That’s why PM Najib looks more Chinese than all the past prime ministers combined.

To a certain extent, he’s even more Chinese than the Chinese themselves (*tongue-in-cheek*). There’re thousands hanging buntings by the roadsides depicting him wearing Chinese traditional costume with his Chinese New Year message. Heck, he even tried his Chinese-friendly trick on radio station by having conversation in Mandarin with his son, although the stunt turns out rather funny (*grin*) and weird. If only he has the stamina he may just put on the lion dance costume and jump around your house begging for your votes.



Ultimately, the question will be – which party to choose and why? If your answer is the opposition because the current regime is corrupt, then get ready for a rude awakening – the so-called corrupt BN (Barisan Nasional) will win the next general election hands down. In case you’re still scratching your head peeling kuaci, the voters who voted opposition back in 2008 did not do so primarily because the current regime was corrupted.

If that was the main reason, how on earth could former PM Mahathir rule this land for a whopping 22 years, despite the fact that his regime opened the floodgates of corruption and racism? In actual fact, Malaysian Chinese and Malays love corruption, without them realizing it.

Like it or not, corruption has been part and parcel of Malaysian culture, thanks to Father of Corruption – Mahathir Mohamad. That was why a study done some moons ago found that graduates actually thought corruption was not such a big deal after all. Corruption has been ingrained into the mindset of Malaysian citizens so much so that it’s almost legal and inseparable entity from daily lifes.

Corruption was like lion-dance during Chinese New Year and “meriam-buloh” during Hari Raya festivals. While Malaysian Chinese consider corruption as a main ingredient to get business going, Malaysian Malays consider corruption as “rezeki”. That’s why the opposition can only go so far by drumming government massive corruptions as the reason why they should be booted from Putrajaya.



Do you really think corruption will disappear into thin air after opposition wins the next general election and form the federal government? Why do you think everybody rush to lick Lim Guan Eng and Anwar Ibrahim boots to be fielded as candidates? And do you really think Sabah’s King of Frogs Jeffrey Kitingan, Wilfred Bumburing and Yong Teck Lee really want to take care of the Sabahan?

Pleeeeze!!! With the exception of probably Lim Kit Siang and Nik Aziz, you can’t really trust the rest of the opposition politicians. If they have no intention of enriching themselves, then President Obama is still a virgin. Ever wonder why Mahathir confidently declared he will not leave the country before the next election results are announced? That’s because he was dead sure the current corrupt regime will still form the next federal government.

If the recent AES implementation criticisms by the public was any indicator, it shows that the public can’t live without corruption, well, at least majority of them. Malaysian drivers like to speed and drive as if they’re Formula-1 drivers and they have no plan of changing their lifestyle (or rather drive-style). And AES was a classic example of how zero corruption will affect their lifes.

While they accept the reality that they would be caught breaking the laws, they want the flexibility to negotiate their way out through bribes. And you can’t “kautim” (settle) by giving money to the AES camera on the spot, can you? These people would rather pay RM50 as “coffee-money” for each of 10 traffic offences than to pay full RM300 for 2 offence tickets, literally speaking.



From sales executives to company directors, 90% of their business deals involve “under-table” money, one way or another. If the only thing that opposition can promise is eliminate corruption, then a sizeable Chinese and Malays would rather vote for the corrupt regime, if that was how they secured their current businesses or “rezeki” in the first place. So, does that mean the current corrupt regime should be returned to power?

Well, perhaps the answer can be found by the recent advise from Mahathir himself - choose between the lesser of two evils. Of course when Mahathir blogged his advise, he was referring to the possibility of violent demonstration should the opposition lose in the coming election, although I can’t figure out till today how can one lose something that it does not possess in the first place (*grin*).

Since the opposition has not win the federal government since independence, there’s no benchmark of how corrupted they would become. Thus, the perception of the general public – the BN regime is tremendously corrupt while the PR regime will be mildly corrupt, if the latter choose to corrupt after all. The choice is pretty obvious based on Mahathir’s “choose between the lesser of two evils” theory.  
The good news for the opposition fans – the corrupt Chinese businessmen are flexible to switch sides and butter the opposition’s bread should there be a change in government. The bad news – the corrupt Chinese businessmen are worry and perceive a lesser corrupt governments to mean lesser business deals for them.



While we’re still adamant the current BN regime will win the next general election, there’s a distant possibility the opposition may get enough seats to form the next government – via defections from BN camp. But for that to happen, a hung government must happen and the BN regime does not play dirty such as blocking opposition from entering the palace, intimidating and “hiding” opposition politicians, withheld official votes count, massive blackouts at counting centres and even declare the election results null and voids due to phantom voters.

Can you see how phantom voters can act as double-edged sword? Now, has anyone wonders what happen to the disappearance of PM Najib during 1st-Jan-2013, when he should be doing the New Year countdown instead of his deputy?

Underground naughty rumours has it that when the PM should be shouting “Happy New Year”, he had instead flew into a resort in Hong Kong. The interesting part was where all the local tycoons were summoned to a private meeting with the prime minister. But we’ll reserve that article for another day (*grin*). As of now, the opposition needs to behave - lock in existing supporters while compete for fence-sitters. But going by the rate on how PAS and DAP childishly playing the religion cards the same way BN used to play, no wonder Mahathir is grining from ear to ear.

Worst still, some opposition figures are already counting their chicks before they’re hatched, when they should instead presenting their arsenal of propositions for the betterment of the people.

It’s Not About the Rally, It’s About the Chinese Voters

Tomorrow’s rally, known as #KL112 (referring to Kuala Lumpur Jan 12th), to be held at Merdeka Stadium from 2pm – 5pm, should be the mother of all rallies considering that it involves some heavyweight NGOs namely Bersih (for clean and fair election), Royalti (for petroleum royalty), Anti-Lynas (to prevent rare earth plant in Gebeng, Kuantan), Anti Felda Global Ventures (to protest the listing of FGV), and whatnot.

This should be an interesting and colourful Olympic-like demonstration as each of them will have their own colour T-shirt – Bersih’s yellow, Royalti’s red, Anti Lynas’s green, Anti Felda’s orange. The objective – to gather 1 million demonstrators at Merdeka Stadium that has a capacity of 30,000 seats.

This will be the last demonstration of such size before the next mother of all elections is called – Malaysian’s 13th general election, which must be held latest by 27th June 2013. #KL112 must generate nothing less than 250,000 participants tomorrow. Anything less than this, a figure generated during Bersih 3.0, is considered a failure. Besides not wanting to anger more people than it already has, the present BN-regime under PM Najib Razak was also interested to see the crowds that opposition-PR can attract.

Anything less than 250,000 would mean the support for the opposition is declining, literally speaking. Anything more than 250,000 could send Najib administration back to the drawing board about new strategies to fish for support.



Now that the police has kindly promise to assist the demonstrators and pledged to facilitate the mammoth event despite eleventh hour attempt by certain quarters within UMNO warlords to create havoc by forcing the organizer to use Bukit Jalil Stadium instead, there’re more reasons for the 250,000 record to be broken.

Heck, the police had even pledged not to use FRU to happy-spray chemical-laced water and tear-gas while forming a special squad – media police – to escort and protect journalists. When was the last time you see such a darling police serving their duties in protecting innocent citizens (*grin*)? But will 250,000 turnout guarantee a new government taking over post general election?



We’ve written about the farewell party for PM Najib Razak. Unless he secures two-third majority, which is unlikely, he’s toast as far as UMNO warlords are concerned. Now, how does the UMNO Godfather, Dr M, knows the party he created can win the next general election while at the same time continues to weaken Najib’s powerbase? Simple – Dr M knows the Chinese voters are back to the present federal government’s lap, although not in a huge percentage. Yes, as much as it hurts, the Chinese voters will again help the corrupt BN secures its position come next general election.

When old dictator Mahathir Mohamad declared his supposedly retirement many moons ago, everyone seems to be rejoicing. There was this famous radio DJ who was attached to a local Chinese radio station who was very popular because he used to advice listeners with marriage or relationship problems.

Almost everyone who called in listened to his advises as if it was Gospel of Truth. Over time, the arrogant radio DJ learnt his lesson after confronted by angry guys whose wife were ill-advised to divorce their partner. When this DJ ran a radio talk for peoples opinion about newly Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi taking over the throne, he openly declared Badawi was Chinese Justice Pao.



Boy, when a listener called in to offer his piece of opinion – that leaders from UMNO are equally corrupt – this DJ whacked the poor caller left, right, center and whatnot. This DJ who was a master in marriage counselling suddenly found a newly God to worship. Amusingly, this same DJ was spotted attending Bersih 3.0 together with his wife, 10 years after he (almost) pledged his soul to Badawi.

If only this chap knew the God he worshipped was actually a Sleeping God, he would have been a little humble (*tongue-in-cheek*) and wise. Now, how successful is the marketing ploy – 1Malaysia – in brainwashing the Chinese voters?

Couple of months ago during a radio talk, some Chinese listeners offered their cup of praises to Najib’s 1Malaysia. They were in love with 1Malaysia marketing strategy so much so that they actually sympatize with PM Najib’s noble sloganeering that attracted criticisms. They even asked the Chinese to give the 1Malaysia some time to prove its sincere intention.

And why do you think Mahathir commented that there should be nothing more the Chinese can ask from the government? Mahathir was sending signals (or rather threats) that the Chinese will be punished economically, if BN does not win the next general election handsomely. While the government’s scare tactic using racial riots doesn’t work, the economic scare tactic works flawlessly.



Last year, when I asked my Chinese friends to attend Bersih 3.0 together, just for the fun of it, most of them chickened out due to the possibility of getting arrested. This year, when I asked my same pool of Chinese friends to go for #KL112, they said if the opposition takes over, stock market will collapse, property market will tumbles, FDI will suddenly disappear, crimes will shoot up because the police will not care and tons of grandmother justifications.

So, are the Malaysian Chinese voters a bunch of cowards? Looks like it. Are the Malaysian Chinese voters a bunch of selfish and ignorant people? Absolutely. Are all the Malaysian Chinese voters hopeless? Fortunately not all of them. Will we ever see the same percentage of Chinese voters who voted for opposition in 2008 to vote in the same pattern again? Unfortunately they won’t.

And to think most of my Chinese friends are professionals with tertiary education yet to have such mentality is certainly alarming, at least to the opposition. No wonder BN warlords are still arrogant and still plundering the nation’s fortunes. With Chinese voters flocking back to BN’s arm, who cares if tomorrow’s demonstration can attract 100,000 or even 200,000 of same pool of die-hard opposition fans?

But if it can attracts 1,000,000 people, then it would be another different story. And we’ve not even talk about UMNO (or rather Mahathir) dirty tactics to stay in power even if the opposition wins with slim majority. But again, this article may be a reverse psychology attempt to provoke the Chinese, so go figure (*evil smile*).