KL’s handling of crisis may tarnish its image; Malaysia is finding that tight control over information and more than 50 years under one coalition is a mismatch for handling a rapidly-growing crisis

KL’s handling of crisis may tarnish its image

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia is finding that tight control over information and more than 50 years under one coalition is a mismatch for handling a rapidly-growing crisis, analysts said.

MARCH 13

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia is finding that tight control over information and more than 50 years under one coalition is a mismatch for handling a rapidly-growing crisis, analysts said.

Tempers flared in Beijing yesterday when relatives of Chinese passengers pressed the Malaysian envoy to China on what information Malaysia’s military had given civil officials concerning the missing Malaysian plane, according to media reports.

“Now is not the time” to reveal it, Ambassador Iskandar Sarudin was quoted as saying, although he did disclose that the last words heard from the flight were: “All right, good night” — the response from the cockpit to Malaysian air traffic controllers saying the flight, two thirds of whose passengers were from China, was entering Vietnamese airspace.

China is calling on Malaysia to be more transparent as Prime Minister Najib Razak lets his cousin, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, who is also Defence Minister, be the face of the investigation into why MH370 vanished on Saturday. It was en route to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.

Mr Najib’s United Malays National Organisation leads the coalition governing Malaysia. Only in recent years has it seen a move towards more competitive elections, in some districts, which 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 Dr Clive Kessler, Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, who has analysed 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 … as a bid to hide the truth.”

Mr Najib’s administration is sending the message that people should let the “government tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it, and not before”, Dr Kessler said. “That’s the way they’ve acted for generations and they are starting to find out it doesn’t work anymore.”

Many newspapers and television networks in Malaysia are controlled by the government directly or indirectly.

Mr Najib needs to assure Malaysians and the international community that his government is doing all it can, said Mizuho Bank economist Vishnu Varathan. “What could have been done was the prime minister delegating the transport secretary to locate 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.”

Compounding the image that the authorities leading the investigation are struggling to communicate effectively, Malaysian Airlines issued three versions of a press statement on Tuesday to correct several errors. One was a reference to an “expensive” rescue operation, which it meant to call “extensive.”

“There are big issues — transparency, information sharing, questions associated with security,” said Dr Bridget Welsh, a political science professor at Singapore Management University. “They are not in control of the discussion and the problem is they’re not instilling confidence. Everyone wants to give them the benefit of the doubt but this is a crisis of credibility for the administration.” AGENCIES