Malaysia Failing to Manage Crisis Exposes Leadership Limit Malaysia, aspiring to become a developed nation in six years, is finding that more than 50 years under one coalition and tight control over information is a mismatch for handling a rapidly growing crisis followed across the world. China is calling on Malaysia to be more transparent as Prime Minister Najib Razak lets his cousin, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, be the face of the investigation into why a Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS) plane vanished on March 8. It was en route to Beijing with 239 people on board. Investigators from at least nine countries are trying to locate the jet. Najib’s United Malays National Organisation leads the coalition governing the Southeast Asian nation. Only in recent years has it seen a move toward more competitive elections, in some districts, that put a premium on public speaking. The government’s lack of a clear message, compounded by a series of false leads on the plane’s whereabouts and questions on coordination, risks undermining its image internationally. “They’re handling a huge global issue as if it was domestic politics,” said Clive Kessler, Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who has analyzed the nation’s politics for half a century. “With the cause of the disappearance still unknown you can understand the need for discretion and caution but it’s being perceived in Malaysia and elsewhere in the region Other Leaders Other Asian leaders have faced questions for not reacting to crises immediately. Philippine President Benigno Aquino was criticized for taking two days to visit victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan last year. So was China’s former premier, Wen Jiabao, when he took more than two weeks to visit the site of the country’s worst snow storms in 50 years in 2008. In the U.S., President George W. Bush was criticized for his handling of damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 after he remained on vacation as New Orleans flooded. He cut short the break by two days to survey the damage from the air, something he later said was a “huge mistake” since it made him look “detached and uncaring.” Najib needs to assure Malaysians and the international community that his government is doing all it can, said Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. in Singapore. “What could have been done was the prime minister delegating the transport secretary to locating the plane and assigning one other person in charge of investigating the security breach and another to handle international relations,” he said. “It’s not easy to convey all that is happening in the background and the government needs to highlight these things.” bloomberg/news/2014-03-11/malaysia-failing-to-manage-plane-crisis-exposes-leadership-limit.html
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 04:52:34 +0000
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