When it was announced that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak would table Budget 2013 with GE13 in mind, Pakatan Rakyat’s proclivity to describe every Government act as inherently corrupt, insufficient and deluded climbed the intensity scale from shouting to an incoherent scream of rage and glee.
We are long past the point at which Pakatan Rakyat may be taken seriously, and so their cries of cronyism and goodies in a budget that had not even been tabled were met with no more interest than their proposed shadow budget — which was of course rife with cronyism and goodies, but without any indicia of how it would be funded.
Because the Opposition pact ceded any claim to seriousness the day they pretended that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s 2009 promise of a shadow cabinet had never happened, we may reasonably dispense with their concerns, and instead focus on the Budget in its own right.
It is first necessary to remember that the Budget as tabled is openly and unabashedly an election budget — but this is not merely what many corners believe. It is not a “goodies give-away” as some would suggest, but rather not only a chance to offer the rewards of Barisan Nasional’s governance, but also a chance to tell the rakyat how Barisan Nasional would govern if given a new mandate.
Thus it is that Budget 2013 focusses on the things that have made Malaysia’s economy grow and develop — from investment to the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) — while never losing sight of the fact that as the country drives to fully-developed status, there will inevitably be those who are temporarily displaced as a result, and they must be cared-for as well.
The BR1M payments envisaged by the Budget are not “goodies” or “bribes”, but rather a recognition that a growing economy will have friction as it grows, and those caught in the friction must not be left to fend for themselves, regardless of race.
Budget 2013 also embodies Najib’s and Barisan Nasional’s commitment to Malaysia as a multi-racial country, one where races live harmoniously and develop and prosper together. This is a critical feature of Barisan Nasional lost in the give and take of politics: whatever else may be said of prior Prime Ministers, they were unswervingly committed to the notion that Malaysia is stronger as a unified whole, rather than a factionalised group of warring polities.
Najib has recognised this, and so Budget 2013 contains healthy funding for the 1Malaysia projects that are designed to help those in need regardless of race. But Barisan Nasional has not helped make modern Malaysia merely with subsidies; it has also made the nation one of the most attractive international investment destinations. Budget 2013 continues this.
Thus the Budget provides for infrastructure development, capital market development, the continuation of the ETP, and most importantly in these days of ballooning national debt and painful austerity, a careful, moderated decrease in the deficit, designed to make Malaysia attractive as a fiscally prudent nation while maintaining the economic health that is necessarily sacrificed during austerity.
In this way, the Budget not only maintains the Barisan Nasional formula of racial harmony and well-managed economic growth, it reflects Najib’s particular preference for care and moderation in all things. It is a careful document designed not merely to spend but to explain how spending is accomplished, with benchmarks against which spending and performance can be measured — also hallmarks of Najib’s style of governance.
Budget 2013 will now be the subject of some debate, but despite whatever may come next, Najib has clearly put his vision of governance before the rakyat. Budget 2013 is an election budget in the best sense of the term — because it gives Malaysians a clear choice.
And every Malaysian has to choose.