How Najib trapped hundreds of Ustaz and Ustazah for a 1Malaysia Budget 2012

Ustaz (male Islamic teachers) and ustazah (female Islamic teachers) in Gombak cannot help but feel taken for a ride by Prime Minister Najib Razak and his administration. A few days before his much-hyped Budget 2012 was unveiled on October 7, all of them had received a letter from the district Education office or Pejabat Pelajaran Daerah to attend a half-day course at the SRJK(C) Kundang school.

This raised eyebrows as many wondered what could be so important that such short notice was given to demand their attendance for the course. The location of the school sparked suspicion as there were Islamic religious schools in the Gombak area, which could be better used to host the course.

Budget 2012: Signal of early polls

Many of the goodies in Budget 2012 are targeted at BN’s vote bank.

KUALA LUMPUR: Budget 2012 signals Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s preparation for early polls, with much of the handouts targeted at retaining Barisan Nasional’s traditional vote bank.

Many of the allocations are targeted at key constituents such as the civil service and Bumiputera voters. These form BN’s core power base. But the budget also contains provisions obviously meant to widen support among the lower-income group and the country’s youth.

The announcement of a half-a-month’s bonus payouts, raising the civil service retirement age from 58 to 60 years and RM500 cash handouts to public service pensioners were clear indicators of the significance of civil service support in maintaining a BN government.