IN a meeting with Umno division chiefs last night, Prime Minister Najib Razak made an extravagant claim: civil servants are returning to Barisan Nasio‎nal.

Was it hyperbole? Was it a throwaway line in a rah-rah session aimed at boosting the morale of Umno warlords in the run-up to the polls? Was it a pick-me-up for Umno chieftains about to embark on branch and divisional meetings?

Or, is it a fact that if the general election were held today, a bulk of the country’s 1.6 million civil servants would vote for Najib and the ruling BN?

Numerous surveys and anecdotal evidence suggest that those in the public sector, especially in the lower grade, are hurting badly from the rising cost of living. Many have had to take on a second job to make ends meet.

Indeed, Bank Negara Malaysia statistics suggest that three out of four Malaysians are unable to raise RM1,000 in an emergency.

Civil servants number heavily in this category.

Recently, civil service union group Cuepacs noted that as many as 100,000 public sector employees were on the cusp of being declared bankrupt after defaulting on loans taken out to cope with the rising cost of living.

Making things even more uncomfortable for the average civil servant is the austerity drive and cost-cutting in a government challenged on the revenue front.

Given this backdrop of hardship and distress, it is hard to imagine anyone being confident enough to claim that civil servants are returning to BN.

It is interesting that at a retreat a couple of weeks ago, Umno officials told senior civil servants to send the message down the ranks that job security could be threatened if BN was no longer in power.

In some of the retreat’s sessions, the stick approach was preferred by Umno leaders, with threats being part of the presentation.

This approach suggests that Najib and gang are still uncertain about the public sector vote that has kept BN in power for so long. Therefore, any claim of civil servants returning support to BN should be taken with cupfuls of salt.

What is clear is that the Najib government needs to go on a charm offensive rather than take the stick approach to retain and, possibly, cajole civil servants to give it another shot in Putrajaya.

The coming months will see whether that pans out. – July 20, 2017.