Happy birthday, Dato’ Sri
Salleh Said Keruak
Dato’ Sri Haji Mohammad Najib Tun Haji Abdul Razak was born 63 years go today on 23rd July 1953. This is his 40th year in politics, which means he has been in politics more than half his life. And no one can deny it has been a very challenging 40 years, especially over the last ten years since 2006 when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad decided he has had enough of retirement and made a comeback to the Malaysian political scene.
Any person would have given up by now rather than endure ten years of constant barraging from Mahathir. At first Mahathir pestered Najib to oust Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and when Najib disagreed, and instead openly expressed support for the Prime Minister, Mahathir attacked him. And then, after Najib took over as Prime Minister three years later, Mahathir continued to attack him on all sorts of issues, the latest, of course, being about 1MDB.
Najib is the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia but probably the first to suffer such harassment from an ex-Prime Minister. Nowhere else in the world does this happen where an ex-Prime Minister demonstrates utter disrespect and contempt for a sitting Prime Minister. And this is not something new but something that Mahathir has been perpetuating over the last ten years and against two Prime Ministers.
