Has Lim Kok Wing lost his gull-guli?

A page from 30 years ago: Lim Kok Wing's Guli-Guli

Monday, 25/5/15: In the 80s, Guli-Guli, the pro-harmony comic strip published in the New Sunday Times, defined the younger Lim Kok Wing, just as Kampung Boy had defined Lat. Lim Kok Wing was a politically-correct advertising name known also for spending a lot of time and money on welfare work. The man went on to do bigger things during the 90s and worked closely with several of the country's Administrations, not just in image sprucing exercises but actual political firefighting. A dozen years after Dr M stepped down as Prime Minister, Lim Kok Wing is a towering Malaysian still regarded as a "Mahathir man". His appointment as Najib Razak's advisor, at a time when the Tun is intensifying his scathing attacks on the PM, therefore, got a lot of people's attention.

I'm not sure what Lim Kok Wing is supposed to advise Najib on. I can only hope, for Najib's sake, that his job scope includes managing how the mainstream media (including the NST group that he used to send his drawings to) respond to those attacks by Dr M. Because in my opinion they have not done the PM any favour in this department. What I got from several editors at Utusan Malaysia, NST/Berita Harian and TV3 is that their chief editors have been taking orders from an advisor close to Najib. The same name - Habibur Rahman - kept cropping up in my conversation with them, though none could claim to have met this chap. 

What Najib needs to do is defend and explain his policies, not attack his ex boss. I am quite certain Lim Kok Wing would agree with me, that the PM's existing strategy, which is to attack Mahathir to defend Najib, via the newspapers and prime news, is backfiring. 

But I also doubt that this Habibur Rahman or the other advisers of Najib would take kindly to LKW or anyone else barging into their territories.

The ideal situation is for my friends the Chief Editors at NST, TV3 and Utusan to have the balls (read Life of Annie's Journalists need balls) and stand up against all and anty bad advice coming from people claiming to have Najib Razak's interest at heart. Such advisers were the start of the downfall of Pak Lah not too long ago, these editors would still remember. -rocky's bru