Anwar, Najib, Abdullah - who's the best?
Malaysiakini.com
Jul 10, 2008
Neil Khor 

The last couple of weeks have been riveted with challenges and epic battles. There was Wimbeldon tennis, European football and the unending soap opera of Malaysian politics.
MCPX

Whilst the first two sporting events actually enhanced the credibility of their respective sport, Malaysian politicians have shown themselves to be second-rate at best.

Malaysian politicians spent a lot of time plotting and implementing strategies to bring down each other. The problem is that these politicians actually hold our collective fate as a nation in their hands.

The stock market, a clear indicator of our economic health, is not particularly healthy. In fact, last week, the computer system actually gave way with a back-up system that failed to kick in.

Whilst the Anwar-Najib struggle is great for the sale of newspapers and give new life to blogging, it raises two very daunting options for the nation.

Our future leader, it seems, is either a closeted sodomite or an alleged murderer. Few can now believe both to be completely innocent. No matter who wins, the victory will be Pyhrric.

Yet both aspire to the highest office in government without offering any concrete plans to lift Malaysia out of its middle-income economy. Neither of them have been able to spend any time winning the middle-ground.

They appeal to the lowest denominator - those people who believe in gossip and who are too lazy to think.

But think we must. Once there was an English thinker whose name was William. He came from a place name Occam (Hockham, in Surrey) and he came to be known as William of Occam.

My philosophy teacher at UM (yes, in those days we learned such things), told us about this man and his predicament.

When faced with two possibilities, William said that the one with the lest number of causes, factors or variables has the higher probability of being correct. As a Franciscan friar, William was devoted to the vow of poverty.

In this case, on the parsimony of probabilities. His ideas have come down to us from the 14th century and we now call it Occam's Razor.

In the case of the Anwar-Najib political battle, we must apply the concept of Occam's Razor. Let us not trouble ourselves with which salacious allegation against them is more probable.

Both being politicians, every allegation is just as probable. But the real test is based upon a far simpler line of questioning.

Malaysians need to ask whether these two leaders have our best interest at heart. They jostle and fight but what have either got to offer us? What sort of leadership can each provide?

The leader with the most probable plan and with the most effective implementation strategy will have our interests at heart.

That leader appears to be Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The PM may never be able to live down the label of mediocrity that his detractors have so effectively tarred him.

But right now, it seems that he is a better option when compared with either Anwar or Najib.

Perhaps, that is his method of surviving as PM. Perhaps, he is the accidental politician. But somebody up there surely loves him.

Copyright © 1999-2007 Mkini Dotcom Sdn. Bhd.
Source : http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/85901