Is superstar Najibkanth the host of a travel channel? A pretty or pretty-ugly version of Asha Gill depending on whether you are part of fast-falling 59% of Malaysians who like him, or part of the fast-growing 41% who don't!
And in all these trips Najib has achieved absolutely nothing other than a criminal waste of public money. Along with him for the ride, and further burdening the taxpayer, is the ample, bejeweled and expensively hand-bagged figure of his less-than-popular wife, Rosmah Mansor.
Malaysia, meanwhile, floats along leaderless and ungoverned. Greece is failing, Italy is under siege, Spain is trembling and the global economy is under threat, while Najib is missing and on holiday. To put it mildly, he is shockingly irresponsible. He is also the Finance Minister but does nothing and leaves the economy in the hands of Ahmad Husni, who has proven himself to be little more than a glorified accountant. And not a top tiered one either, let's tell the truth.
Malaysia meanwhile is recoiling from the exposure of huge government waste and corruption in the Auditor-General’s report. Najib is uncaring. He blinks not even an eye at news of a RM10 million super-luxury condo bought for the family of a senior Cabinet minister using the people's money set aside for a national beef production project. Is it really all in the family for the BN? Is it really all about 'You help me, I help you'?
Meanwhile, Malaysians groan under the burden of 5 to 8% inflation on food, caused by Najib’s incompetent policies. Najib’s profligate spending adds to it and in a huge way. He and Umno may think, what's a few hundred millions more when already billions if not a trillion is at stake. Seriously, the cost of delaying Malaysia's cure will be in the trillions. Time as they say is of essence.
Time is invaluable. The LONGER Malaysia delays tough reforms while Umno hunts high and low for non-existent talent to help it out of its hole, the MORE we endanger our children, the HARDER we kill our economy.
Forced to step aside
There can only be one explanation for such a total uncaring attitude by Najib. He has given up.
That's right. He can’t handle the political pressures being piled on him by the Muhyiddin-Mahathir faction. He has neither the intellect nor can he attract the people who can manage the economy. His faux reforms have been proven to be just that. Why not just take it easy and enjoy endless holidays?
Frankly, at this stage of Umno's history, it matters not who is at the helm. None of the current crop of leaders will work. Like a bad boil, Umno has to be pricked and the pus must be freed before healing can take place. But in the meantime, in the words of a writer colleague, GET THE HERE OUT OF HELL and let Malaysia move on. Don't take the nation on your suicide plunge!A Joker Abroad
At the December assembly, Najib and delegates can scream, shout and threaten all they like but things cannot improve. The inevitable will happen. Change will come one way or another. The doctors will tell you, pus will always find a way out. So for those who want to gun after Najib's chair, do it fast. Stop the crap, no one is fooled by the silly bluster! Whichever side wins, Umno will lose. It just does not have the right leaders to survive. So be gone while there is still a Malaysia left. And return ONLY if you can heal yourselves.
For the Umno grassroots - the majority of whom are decent and regular people - as well as other Malaysians, do the same. Draw your battle-lines NOW. Really, this is not the time to go on holiday. Unlike Najib, we are not born with a silver spoon. We need to work for a living and to keep the wheels of the economy churning. Only this time, we must make sure that whatever we make, they don't siphon out immediately. Once bitten, twice shy!
Perhaps Najib will write a travel book after this entitled, “How I and my wife went on serial paid holidays and rubbed shoulders with world leaders while not caring a hoot about the Malaysian economy”.
All that Sky TV needs to do is follow Najib around, and they would have their second season of ”A Joker Abroad”. Except that we Malaysians won't be laughing with the rest of the world. We would be too busy paying for it. Very dearly too!
As if the economic ramifications of a full-blown Greek default were not terrifying enough, the political consequences could be far worse. A chaotic eurozone breakup would cause irreparable damage to the European integration project, the central pillar of Europe's political stability since World War II. It would destabilise not only the highly indebted European periphery, but also core countries such as France and Germany, which have been the architects of the project.
The nightmare scenario would also be a 1930s-style victory for political extremism. Fascism, Nazism, and communism were children of a backlash against globalisation that had been building since the end of the nineteenth century, feeding on the anxieties of groups that felt disenfranchised and threatened by expanding market forces and cosmopolitan elites.
Free trade and the gold standard had required downplaying domestic priorities such as social reform, nation-building and cultural reassertion. Economic crisis and the failure of international cooperation undermined not only globalisation, but also the elites that upheld the existing order.
As my Harvard colleague Jeff Frieden has written, this paved the path for two distinct forms of extremism. Faced with the choice between equity and economic integration, communists chose radical social reform and economic self-sufficiency. Faced with the choice between national assertion and globalism, fascists, Nazis, and nationalists chose nation-building.
Fortunately, fascism, communism and other forms of dictatorships are passé today. But similar tensions between economic integration and local politics have long been simmering. Europe's single market has taken shape much faster than Europe's political community has; economic integration has leaped ahead of political integration.
End of the EU?
The result is that mounting concerns about the erosion of economic security, social stability and cultural identity could not be handled through mainstream political channels. National political structures became too constrained to offer effective remedies, while European institutions still remain too weak to command allegiance.
It is the extreme right that has benefited most from the centrists' failure. In Finland, the heretofore unknown True Finn party capitalised on the resentment around eurozone bailouts to finish a close third in April's general election. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom wields enough power to play kingmaker; without its support, the minority liberal government would collapse. In France, the National Front, which finished second in the 2002 presidential election, has been revitalised under Marine Le Pen.
"When I am president, in a few months' time, the eurozone probably won't exist." - Marine Le Pen |
Nor is the backlash confined to eurozone members. Elsewhere in Scandinavia, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, entered parliament last year with nearly six per cent of the popular vote. In Britain, one recent poll indicated that as many as two-thirds of Conservatives want Britain to leave the European Union.
Political movements of the extreme right have traditionally fed on anti-immigration sentiment. But the Greek, Irish, Portuguese and other bailouts, together with the euro's troubles, have given them fresh ammunition. Their Euro-scepticism certainly appears to be vindicated by events. When Marine Le Pen was recently asked if she would unilaterally withdraw from the euro, she replied confidently: "When I am president, in a few months' time, the eurozone probably won't exist."
Political movements of the extreme right have traditionally fed on anti-immigration sentiment. But the Greek, Irish, Portuguese and other bailouts, together with the euro's troubles, have given them fresh ammunition. Their Euro-scepticism certainly appears to be vindicated by events. When Marine Le Pen was recently asked if she would unilaterally withdraw from the euro, she replied confidently: "When I am president, in a few months' time, the eurozone probably won't exist."
As in the 1930s, the failure of international cooperation has compounded centrist politicians' inability to respond adequately to their domestic constituents' economic, social and cultural demands. The European project and the eurozone have set the terms of debate to such an extent that, with the eurozone in tatters, these elites' legitimacy will receive an even more serious blow.
'Less bad' options
Europe's centrist politicians have committed themselves to a strategy of "more Europe" that is too rapid to ease local anxieties, yet not rapid enough to create a real Europe-wide political community. They have stuck for far too long to an intermediate path that is unstable and beset by tensions. By holding on to a vision of Europe that has proven unviable, Europe's centrist elites are endangering the idea of a unified Europe itself.
Economically, the least bad option is to ensure that the inevitable defaults and departures from the eurozone are carried out in as orderly and coordinated a fashion as possible. Politically, too, a similar reality check is needed. What the current crisis demands is an explicit reorientation away from external financial obligations and austerity to domestic preoccupations and aspirations. Just as healthy domestic economies are the best guarantor of an open world economy, healthy domestic polities are the best guarantor of a stable international order.
The challenge is to develop a new political narrative emphasising national interests and values without overtones of nativism and xenophobia. If centrist elites do not prove themselves up to the task, those of the far right will gladly fill the vacuum, minus the moderation.
That is why outgoing Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou had the right idea with his aborted call for a referendum. That move was a belated attempt to recognise the primacy of domestic politics, even if investors viewed it, in the words of a Financial Times editor, as "playing with fire". Scrapping the referendum simply postpones the day of reckoning and raises the ultimate costs to be paid by Greece's new leadership.
Today, the question is no longer whether politics will become more populist and less internationalist; it is whether the consequences of that shift can be managed without turning ugly. In Europe's politics, as in its economics, it seems there are no good options - only less bad ones.
Europe's centrist politicians have committed themselves to a strategy of "more Europe" that is too rapid to ease local anxieties, yet not rapid enough to create a real Europe-wide political community. They have stuck for far too long to an intermediate path that is unstable and beset by tensions. By holding on to a vision of Europe that has proven unviable, Europe's centrist elites are endangering the idea of a unified Europe itself.
Economically, the least bad option is to ensure that the inevitable defaults and departures from the eurozone are carried out in as orderly and coordinated a fashion as possible. Politically, too, a similar reality check is needed. What the current crisis demands is an explicit reorientation away from external financial obligations and austerity to domestic preoccupations and aspirations. Just as healthy domestic economies are the best guarantor of an open world economy, healthy domestic polities are the best guarantor of a stable international order.
The challenge is to develop a new political narrative emphasising national interests and values without overtones of nativism and xenophobia. If centrist elites do not prove themselves up to the task, those of the far right will gladly fill the vacuum, minus the moderation.
That is why outgoing Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou had the right idea with his aborted call for a referendum. That move was a belated attempt to recognise the primacy of domestic politics, even if investors viewed it, in the words of a Financial Times editor, as "playing with fire". Scrapping the referendum simply postpones the day of reckoning and raises the ultimate costs to be paid by Greece's new leadership.
Today, the question is no longer whether politics will become more populist and less internationalist; it is whether the consequences of that shift can be managed without turning ugly. In Europe's politics, as in its economics, it seems there are no good options - only less bad ones.
Silvio Berlusconi in Rome and Karima el-Mahroug, nicknamed Ruby Heartstealer, in a Milan nightclub. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images
Karima el-Mahroug, the woman who may bring down Silvio Berlusconi, met the Italian prime minister while she was still aged only 17 – under the minimum age for prostitution in Italy – according to leaked evidence from the investigation.
It was reported that she had been at dinners at Berlusconi's mansion, near Milan, which led on to an erotic game known to participants as "bunga bunga".
At one of these, Mahroug, who also uses the nickname Ruby Rubacuore (Ruby Heartstealer), was said to have told prosecutors she sat next to Berlusconi, and that he later took her upstairs and gave her an envelope containing €7,000 (£5,860). She said he also gave her jewellery, but insisted she had not slept with the 74-year-old.
"It the first time in my life that a man has not tried to take me to bed. He behaved like a father, I swear," she told La Repubblica last year.
Their acquaintance came to light after Mahroug was arrested in Milan for allegedly stealing cash. The commander of the police station to which she was taken said she was released after a call from the prime minister's office saying – incorrectly – that she was the granddaughter of Egypt's now former president, Hosni Mubarak.
Mahroug had run away from a care home, but instead of being returned to care she was handed over to Nicole Minetti, a TV presenter turned dental hygienist who acquired a post in Berlusconi's Freedom People party after catching his eye as she cleaned his teeth. Minetti, along with two other close associates of the prime minister, a newscaster on one of his three television channels and a showbusiness talent scout, is now under investigation for aiding and abetting prostitution,
Berlusconi has not denied that he sent an aide to secure the girl's release, claiming: "I'm a person of the heart, and I take action whenever there is someone in need of help."
Prosecutors allege Berlusconi paid for sex with Mahroug, then used his influence to get her out of police custody. He denies any wrongdoing
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