PARALLELS BETWEEN RAZAK AND NAJIB

A commentary by Syed Nadzri, which appeared in the New Straits Times,
Malaysia's English daily. Syed Nadzri is the Group Editor of the New Straits
Times.

Towards the end of one of his meetings with editors a few weeks ago, Najib
Razak was casually asked how he felt about his impending ascension to the prime
ministership with the country going through such a turbulent time.

In the thick of verbal action activities going on around him at that moment,
that question unfortunately got lost in significance.

But the deputy prime minister, ever his cool self, somehow did manage a
spontaneously succinct reply which I thought was noteworthy.

He just smiled and said: "It's nothing compared with what my father went
through because he took over the reins in far more challenging conditions. The
country was reeling from May 13."

Then a distraction forced the subject to be abruptly cut off.

But prevailing conditions do have a way of bringing out this kind of topic
in conversations every now and then - like when in the chat I had with a
minister a few days ago.

Yes, Abdul Razak Hussein, Najib's father, first assumed the national
commander's role as head of the National Operations Council (NOC) in 1969 when
the going was rough and furious. The May 13 race riots had just broken out
(till today it is dubbed the darkest period in the nation's history), and as a
result of the disturbances, emergency rule was declared and the Constitution was
suspended for more than a year with the NOC running the country.

There was much tension in the air, the ruling Alliance did very badly in the
May 11 general election, the northern state of Penang fell to the opposition led
by Gerakan (the east coast state of Kelantan remained under Pas (Pan Malaysian
Islamic Party). Umno was split following pressure on party president and prime
minister Tunku Abdul Rahman to quit, race relations were at a very low ebb and
the government was faced with subversive threats from communist insurgents.

Notice the parallels of some of the above with the present, the convergence
extending even to a racially charged funeral procession held for a
chauvinistically-proclaimed martyr who had been shot by police before May 13.

The similarities don't end there - there were accusations that the MCA, then
the only Chinese partner in the Alliance, was too pro-Malay; and
co-incidentally, a few days before Razak formally took over the helm, floods
strangely also paralysed Kuala Lumpur.

Though he was already running the country by virtue of his position as NOC
head, Razak only officially became UMNO president at the party's general
assembly - its first since the riots - on Jan 23, 1971. With that he became
Malaysia's second prime minister.

Razak as Tunku always mentioned, was a workhorse. In the book K.Das and the
Tunku Tapes compiled by Kua Kia Soong, Tunku had this to say about his
successor:

Tun Razak might not have been lucky as I was because he did not have a Tun
Razak to help him, in the way that I had. All those ministers were new except
for one or two who were with him in the early days.

"And then perhaps Tun Razak's ways of doing things were different from mine
because he was a very hard worker."

Records show that this no-nonsense approach to prevent a recurrence of May
13 was quite evident when Razak took over as he immediately announced his
priorities including amending the Constitution to ensure that "sensitive issues"
would not be challenged simply through blatant politicking and abuse of the
democratic process.

And there lies the inevitability of lining up the similarities in the
challenges and uncanny parallels faced by dad and son - in different eras, of
course - with Najib well on the road to becoming the country's sixth prime
minister 40 years on.

Which brings me back to the chat with the minister late last week which,
given the current climate as well as the background of the person I was speaking
to, was an eye-opener.

The senior politician said the challenges facing Najib seemed to be as
difficult if not more demanding than those faced by his father despite the
tribulations on May 13. But, like the father, Najib would sail through, he
added.

In addition to all, those parallels mentioned above, the minister said Najib
would have to contend with not only MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) but also
other senior Barisan Nasional (National Front) partners losing support,
particularly the MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress) and Gerakan (Malaysian People's
Movement Party).

Then, the minister said, Najib was also against a concerted smear campaign
by the opposition, bloated in proportion and viciousness by the huge strides in
information and communication technology.

"There was no Internet, instant text messaging and mobile phones 40 years
ago," he noted. "Today, slander can travel twice or three times the speed of
sound under the guise of anonymity."

Then, of course, there is the looming global economic crisis, which is said
to be the worst in history. Najib is tackling that today by unveiling another
stimulus package in Parliament.

"From this behaviour and expressions, especially during big and important
meetings, Najib appears to be well in control," he replied.

"He will do well like his father, the workhorse."

And yes, Razak would be 87 tomorrow if he had lived.

(Najib Razak, 55, has been Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister since Jan 7,
2004. He is currently Deputy President of the United Malays National
Organisation (UMNO), Malaysia's largest political party and a founding member of
the Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition, which has been the country's
ruling political party since Malaysia gained independence in 1957.

Najib is slated to succeed Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to be Malaysia's next Prime
Minister once the latter steps down during the UMNO General Assembly scheduled
this month).
-- BERNAMA