Najib Razak is embarking on a massive public relations exercise to win Malaysian hearts and votes! Nothing new except that these events promoting him and his BN government are costing tax payers a lot of money, whether directly or indirectly.
Putrajaya spent a humongous RM27 million to mobilize one million youths (that is, if you believe the numbers that were generously being bandied about) for the three-day National Youth Day celebrations - eighteen times the initial RM1.5 million budget (Webpage http://themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/rm27m-spent-on-million-youths-meet/, posted June 13, 2011). Also to promote the Government Transformation Program (GTP) and Economic Transformation Program (ETP), Putrajaya's media spending was another sizeable RM7.2 million (Webpage http://themalaysianinsider.com/print/malaysia/government-spent-rm7.2m-to-promote-najibs-gtp-etp/, posted June 28, 2011.
Najib's intentions to buy popularity are not cheap at all. When will we stop bankrolling him for these extravaganzas?
Parti Sosialis Malaysia claims that the party is being made a scapegoat by the authorities to prevent the Bersih 2.0 street rally from taking place on July 09. Their secretary-general S Arutchelvan said the use of Section 122 of the Penal Code (for waging war against the King) against the thirty PSM members who were arrested in Penang on Saturday was an underhanded move by the police to justify this. He added that the arrest was planned to create a situation where police would have reason to carry out more arrests.
And communism became the bogeyman just because police found red T-shirts bearing past socialist leaders (i.e. Chin Peng, Abdullah CD, Rashid Maidin and Suraini Abdullah) on the group (Star, June 28, 2011, p 08). Preposterous, isn't it? Ibrahim Ali and Utusan can make all the seditious remarks they wish and still get away with it but it is treason if you wear the wrong T-shirt!
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