Now what, Mr Prime Minister

by Lucius Goon

The Malaysian Insider
Jul 04, 2011

JULY 4 — Unbelievable. Incredible. Astounding. These should be the headlines in the lamestream media following Prime Minister Najib Razak’s u-turn on the Bersih rally on July 9.

It now transpires that he says that Bersih organisers can go ahead and have their gathering in a stadium.

“We are willing to provide a stadium for them to rally but why choose to protest in the streets.

“The government is not against them rallying in a stadium from morning until night. Just don’t hold street protest as it is very risky to the nation,” Najib was quoted as saying by The Malaysian Insider today.

This after he called respected lawyer Ambiga Sreenivasan an enemy of Islam and allowed his government to demonise her and others as enemies of the state.

This after his cousin, Hishammuddin Hussein declared Bersih an illegal organisation and encouraged the police to round up anyone wearing a yellow Bersih T-shirt.

This after the government and police colluded and came up with some false charges of reviving communism and Christian funding for Bersih and justified the use of the emergency detention laws against an elected representative and social activists.

I can imagine that Najib’s aides will try and spin his offer as the sign of a reasonable leader. I am sorry but I can’t buy that version. The handling of the Bersih event has been a joke, showing up cabinet ministers as incompetent and untruthful.

Wouldn’t it have been easier for the Najib administration to offer Bersih the use of the stadium and speak conciliatory language two weeks ago?

Or did Najib and his cabinet believe that ordinary Malaysians would be cowed by communist regime tactics?

Instead they allowed Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa and other individuals like Ali Rustam to run roughshod over the sensibilities of Malaysians.

What a shameful performance by the Najib government.