End of the rope for Najib
From Douglas Tan, via e-mail, Free Malaysia Today
Over the past few months, we have all seen the steep decline of our Prime Minister. From calling on youth to “defend Putrajaya” as though the nation is expecting an invasion, to being unable to back up his own 1Malaysia policy when asked by a student at a recent Malaysian Student Leader’s Summit.
It truly seems that Najib is unable to do anything right at the moment. First he attacks the Opposition parties outright, claiming that they would destroy this nation and that Barisan Nasional is the shining light to guide the nation forward. To ask the youth to help defend Putrajaya against the Opposition is nothing short of pretentious, as though Umno/BN has the divine right to govern this country infinitum.
This was quickly followed by Bersih 2.0, where he exposed himself as a lame duck leader. Instead of assuming a non-partisan role and showing true leadership, he aligned himself more as Umno president than the Prime Minister of Malaysia by demonising the coalition as an “illegal organisation” and stooping so low to the extent of roping in mosque ceramahs to spread their propaganda of the so-called “perhimpunan haram”.
His handling of Bersih 2.0 in itself was nothing short of despicable. If he truly recognised the event to be a national crisis, he himself should have been in Kuala Lumpur that day to defuse the situation. Instead, he found himself in Terengganu, with his tail between his legs, smiling at the co-op event, as though he found the hyped-up illegal rally in Kuala Lumpur to be a mere inconvenience to his schedule.
In the lack of true leadership, he “tai-chied” all of the responsibility onto his cousin’s shoulders. Hishammudin didn’t fair much better, especially with his justification of the clampdown on civil liberties, to the extent that those who knew him declared him as sounding “mentally impaired”!
As though this was not bad enough, the cover up of Tung Shin Hospital episode, the police violence and the subsequent spread of lies through the media had caused a self-inflicted international black eye. Ignoring all of this, he proceeded to meet the Queen of England in a stunning yellow dress, just in case he failed to get the message.
Although he had managed to establish ties with the Vatican, his subsequent comments to the Christian community did little to them to endear him, especially when he implied that Christians were intolerant, when that clearly is not the case.
His wife’s extravagance would distance him further from the grassroots as allegations that she purchased a US$24 million ring had sent shock waves through the community, especially at a time that the Rakyat are told to tighten our belts in the midst of reduced subsidies and rising prices.
