I would hold the election after Raya

Yes, if I were Najib, I would hold the general election after Hari Raya. If not, then this would be the last Hari Raya with him as Prime Minister. If not, then next Hari Raya we would be visiting either Anwar or Muhyiddin Yassin at Putrajaya.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy 2 trial is going just like Sodomy 1.

Anwar’s team of lawyers are smarter than the prosecutors. They have managed to turn the trial into political grandstanding.

The issue is no longer whether Anwar did or did not commit the act of sodomy. The issue is whether the prosecution can prove that he did so. So they are fighting on technicalities. And the technicalities appear focused on the matter of fabrication of evidence.

That was what happened in the Sodomy 1 trial. And that is what is also happening in the Sodomy 2 trial.

If Najib Tun Razak hopes to convict Anwar and send him to jail, that will happen, of course. That happened in Sodomy 1 and it will happen in Sodomy 2 as well. However, just like what happened in Sodomy 1, the people will not believe that Anwar received a fair trial.

So, if Najib plans to hold the general election after they convict Anwar and send him to jail, in the hope that Anwar would be discredited and Pakatan Rakyat would lose the moral high ground, that is not going to happen. Instead, Anwar’s credibility would be enhanced and Pakatan Rakyat would gain more ground.

So, it is no point in holding the general election after they convict Anwar and send him to jail. Pakatan Rakyat would, in fact, benefit from that. Najib would be doing Pakatan Rakyat a favour by sending Anwar to jail on what most would consider a sham trial on trumped-up charges and fabricated evidence.

Yes, things are not going well for Najib. Anwar’s team has skilfully refocused attention not to the whether Anwar did or did not commit sodomy but to whether he is or is not getting a fair trial. The bungling fools in the prosecution are convincing everyone that the evidence is being fabricated to gain a conviction.

Anwar is going to jail. But he is not going to jail as a disgraced criminal. He is not going to jail because he committed sodomy. He is going to jail because they are giving him a sham jail.

Never mind whether Anwar is really guilty of sodomy. It matters not whether he did or did not commit the crime. What does matter is they can’t prove it and they fabricated the evidence to justify sending him to jail.

Things are indeed not going well for Najib. The Sodomy 2 trial is a foregone conclusion. But it is going to hurt Najib more than it is going to hurt Anwar. It is going to damage Barisan Nasional more than it is going to damage Pakatan Rakyat.

So, holding the general election after they send Anwar to jail will do more harm than good to Barisan Nasional. So they had better hold the election now, after Hari Raya.

The economy is not doing well. The UK and the US are bracing themselves for a crash landing.

In October, Najib will be presenting his budget for 2012. It was supposed to be an election budget. But no amount of window-dressing is going to convince anyone that everything is peachy rosy and honky dory.

Najib’s budget is going to be torn to pieces. They will strip it naked and it will be seen for what it is: rhetoric with no substance. So, holding the election after the budget, which means after Anwar’s trial as well, is going to be a double whammy for Barisan Nasional.

Umno is imploding. Najib is going to face what Dr Mahathir Mohamad faced in mid-2002. In 2002, Umno closed in on Dr Mahathir and forced his hand. In an emotional moment of weakness, Dr Mahathir announced his resignation and handed power to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on 1 November 2003.

Najib is fighting on three fronts. On one front is Anwar. On the second front is the doomed economy. More importantly, however, on the third front is Umno that wants Najib’s head on a silver platter.

Rosmah Mansor has been very silent of late. She has been told that a Prime Minister’s wife must be seen, not heard. In Rosmah’s case, it is better that she is not seen as well.

Rosmah is Najib’s Khairy. She is to Najib what Khairy was to Abdullah Badawi. And for that same reason Najib has Dr Mahathir breathing down his neck.

Yes, the world is crumbling around Najib. Time is ticking away and is getting shorter. Time is not on Najib’s side. Time is a luxury he can’t afford.

Najib must call for the general election after Hari Raya if he wants to make it till Christmas. If not, he would go down in history as Malaysia’s Prime Minister who ruled the shortest.

Yes, if I were Najib, I would hold the general election after Hari Raya. If not, then this would be the last Hari Raya with him as Prime Minister. If not, then next Hari Raya we would be visiting either Anwar or Muhyiddin Yassin at Putrajaya.

That is what I would do if I were Najib. I would hold the general election after Hari Raya. Then I would catch Pakatan Rakyat unprepared.

Pakatan Rakyat is not yet ready for the elections. They still have not sorted out the seat allocations. In fact, they have not even started talking yet. And they are far from even sorting out the list of candidates.

Pakatan Rakyat is still sleeping. If the general election is held after Hari Raya, Pakatan Rakyat will be caught with its pants down. Pakatan Rakyat will be like the Americans at Pearl Harbour. They would be bombed and sunk just like at Pearl Harbour.

Yes, call the election after Hari Raya and watch Pakatan Rakyat scramble like cockroaches when the light is switched on. That is what will happen if the election is called after Hari Raya.

If I were Najib, I would hold the general election after Hari Raya and solve all my problems. It then matters not what type of trial Anwar is subjected to. It then matters not what happens to the economy. It then matters not what Umno is trying to do to me.

By the time it does matter the general election would be over and I would be installed as the legitimate Prime Minister. Then that would give me five years to solve all my problems. And in five years all my problems today would no longer be problems.

That is why I would hold the general election after Hari Raya if I were Najib. But then I am not Najib. And that is why Najib will fall, because he is not me and he would not do what I would do if I were him.