LEGITIMACY

steadyaku47 comment : Najib Razak does not understand many things...LEGITIMACY of his position as "elected" leader is one of them. With thanks to Sopian Ahmad.

Sopian Ahmad

There is one thing obvious that PM Najib does not seem to understand about government, in particular, elected representative government. Most probably he must be thinking that once elected he must have been entrusted with a mandate to rule and rule he does, whichever way he thinks is right!

But in a matured democratic system, being elected alone does not fully defined your mandate to rule or to act. On top of being elected, there must be "LEGITIMACY."

What defined that legitimacy is crucial for his credibility to govern. Legitimacy comes from a fair and free election process. The whole procedures of registering voters, establishing the boundaries of the constituencies, the actual preparation of voting papers, ballot boxes, transportation of voting materials add up to determine the legitimacy of the elected post/s held by the participants in a democracy.... very much like what BERSIH is fighting for in Malaysia.

In Malaysia elections have been under questions!

With or without the RM2.6 Billion, unless effective efforts are taken to address those questions, Najib's credibility has been adversely affected.

Once, legitimacy is seen as being eroded, governance started to become ineffective.
That is what is happening in the political scene of Malaysia today.