JJ & 'CHINESE TSUNAMI': Najib's ace strategist or 'HALF-PAST SIX' advisor?

PETALING JAYA - When Jamaluddin Jarjis died on April 4, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak lost his Number One strategist, advisor and friend, according to veteran journalist A Kadir Jasin.

In his latest blog posting, Kadir says Jamaluddin, besides holding the keys to Najib’s propaganda machine, also played a major role in the Prime Minister’s political funding.

He says it appears, according to the reports of those who know Najib well, that the death of the “Prime Minister’s Office’s Number One Operator” has had an obvious effect on Najib’s “emotional and physical” state.

Kadir claims that most of the points for his article were gathered from a conversation he had with a close friend of Jamaluddin’s and from information given by various other sources.

He says Najib will find it difficult to find someone to take the place of Jamaluddin, the man responsible for the design of the Prime Minister’s branding and the marketing of his “American-presidential style” of administration.

Kadir observes that Najib does not seem to govern in the Westminster style, but in the style of an American president, complete with a presidential staff, advisers and special aides. “This style of administration has distanced him from his party in some things – such as 1Malaysia Development Berhad – and distanced him from the Cabinet as well,” he says.

He says he was therefore not surprised that an international news agency referred to Jamaluddin as “the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff”, a familiar title in Washington. “It was in that capacity that he determined how the Prime Minister should carry himself, drawing from what he learned about the White House administration when he was our ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2012.”

Kadir reminds his readers that Jamaluddin was the United States’ “Number One Friend” in Malaysia, pointing out that the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur flew its flag at half-mast on April 5.

He says Jamaluddin’s handiwork could be seen in the campaign for the 13th general election, where Najib was promoted as the principle symbol of the ruling government, with messages such as “I Love PM” and “Support Me, Vote BN”. He points out there was also an intensive and extensive use of new media such as Facebook and Twitter to promote Najib.

“This was the method used by Barack Obama in the 2008 American presidential election,” he notes.

He says Jamaluddin once telephoned him from Washington to say how different Obama was from previous American presidents. “I immediately disagreed,” he declared.

He points out that the strategy Jamaluddin used for Najib in the 2013 election campaign did not bear fruit. “Barisan Nasional came close to being drowned by the Chinese tsunami (to borrow Najib’s words) and many people, including Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Daim Zainuddin, openly attributed BN’s bad performance to strategic mistakes by ‘half-past six’ advisors.”  - FMT