Najib : A Magnificent Failure! But A Failure nevertheless!

How many of us would be able to walk past a rambutan tree that had low hanging branches overburden with ripe rambutans without reaching out for one ripe, juicy and succulent rambutan?

How many of you have lined up for the Bubur Lambuk at the Masjib Jamek in Kampong Baru to take some for yourself not because you could not afford to buy anything else but because you wanted to have that bubur together with that sumptuous banquet that your wife had already prepared for buka puasa at home? Did it not occur to you that there are many more deserving individuals for whom that bubur lombak would have been more needed?

How many of you have been pulled up for minor traffic infringements and “selesai” the matter with the mata mata there and then rather then having to front up in court to pay the RM$300 fine? How many of you have been able to keep to the speed limits while traveling North, South, East or West on the highway?

Not many I would guess. But that is the nature of the beast in us. We know it is wrong to do these things but we continue to do so because that little voice within us tells us it is okay to do so just as long as you don’t get caught!

  

Our politicians are human too and they too go through the same choices and the same temptations. Members of Parliament are given allocations to spend on their constituents and how they spend these “allocations” is for them to decide. They are given money to spend on elections and if they were to spend that money on their family, girlfriend or mistresses …who is to know but themselves? Ministers are continually expose to situations where their decisions will decide the outcome of money making opportunities for their cronies, friends or whomsoever they choose. And the Prime Minister has it in his power to make people, companies and cronies very rich - if he so wishes it.

If the world was an ideal place then these decisions should be made with the greater interest of the country and its people in mind. Essential infrastructure projects will be awarded to companies that will successfully undertake these projects and finish them within budget and on time. The government will ensure that the supply of water, electricity, petrol, health care, transportation, public safety and other essential services, foodstuff and commodities are in the hands of responsible providers who will make available these services and commodities for the people at a fair price and in the most efficient manner.

Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world. The people need to be policed and laws and regulations must be put in place to make us all do the right things. There are speed limits to be observed. You cannot harm another human being without being punished for it. You cannot harm your wife and children without being punish for it. And so all around us there are these written and unwritten commandments that guides us through life and differentiate us from animals so that we can call ourselves civilized. Over time the Rakyat have been able to live within these written and unwritten commandments. There would be general consensus that by and large Malaysia is a country that is peaceful, harmonious and law abiding – as near as one can get to having a Shangri-La in a world full of conflicts and disquiet.   

But who oversees all this? Who ensures that the balance in our life is kept within acceptable parameters? In different parts of the world they are called by different names.  President, King, Dictators …….. Here in Malaysia we call him the Prime Minister. He heads the government that is task with doing the right and responsible thing for our people and our country. For now that Prime Minister is Najib Razak and he heads the Barisan Nasional government that now govern Malaysia.

This Prime Minister must have integrity. He must be someone we trust, someone we look up to and someone that will put our interest before his own. And most important of all, because we the people are not really that good at looking after ourselves, this Prime Minister must take care of us and not abuse the trust we place in him to do just that. 

And this is where Najib has failed.

Najib has failed magnificently! He has failed in his duty to our country and to us and to Barisan Nasional. And he has done so knowingly because he chooses to put his own and Barisan Nasional interests over ours.

Today we have a Prime Minister who does seem to understand that we no longer trust him to do the right thing for us. And it is a fact that UMNO,MCA, MIC and all those within Barisan Nasional are together colluding for power and profit at the expense of the people and of our country!

It would seems that this Barisan Nasional government is unable to understand even the simple things that we the people have been against for so many years.

It has taken them 50 over years to finally understand that the people of this country are against the ISA.   

It has needed many Malaysians to put their bodies on the line to be whacked and pummeled and many bones to be broken for this BN government to even begin to understand that we want freedom of expressions, civil liberties, clean and fair elections and an immediate stop to rampant corruption and abuse of executive powers by those tasked with the responsibility of governing them: And this same people now demands that the BN government listens and hear what it is the people are saying.

There has been too many deaths of our people while in PDRM and MACC custody and we the people will not endure any more of these deaths….not even one more!

And it has taken all this and many more “incidents” to happen for the people to now tell our political leaders that they must get their act together and do the right thing.

Najib will be the first Prime Minister to be told this at the poll…it has to be at the poll because despite all our protestations since he took office as Prime Minister, Najib is unable to understand his and Barsian Nasional’s predicament. We no longer want them to govern us!

Mahathir and Pak Lah knew their time was over and  resigned before they were voted out by their party rather then by the people. In fact until recently UMNO has been able to cleanse itself by making its leaders understand when it is time to go and the cull have gone on without bloodshed and rancor.

But Najib is a man without substance either as a leader or as an individual. Najib is all glitz and glamour without an underlying veneer of respectability or gumption that you would need to have once the glitz and glamour is stripped away. Angelina Jolene, with or without make up still looks amazing. Najib without his job as Prime Minister is zilch, zero, naught! Yes he is a well-read man and able to sense what the people want from him. He says the right things and he thinks that saying the right thing without doing is enough to placate the people of this country. Stripped of all his public relations exercise and measured against what he promised and what he actually delivered Najib is shown up to be the person he really is – all talk and no substance.       

So what do we do with a Prime Minister that no longer has our trust to govern us?

If UMNO does not remove him then we will. I will certainly not be a party to deceiving the Malaysian people as we moved towards the 13^th general election. I hope that our people will not be fooled by Najib’s expensive attempt to reinvent himself into any semblance of being a “people” Prime Minister, a Prime Minister for “change” or even a Prime Minister that will “transform” our country into a “high income” economy simply by announcing that he intends to do these things. And I hope that the young will see through his superficial attempts to win their approval by being “Mr Cool”.

We are now beyond superficiality. We have entered into the realms of racial and religious conflicts. We now have an economy that requires responsible and knowledgeable management to hopefully become viable and vibrant again. We have rampant corruption by the very people who are tasked with stopping it. Everything points to a need for change.

Change from the clutches of a Barsian Nasional government that understands nothing about good government. Change from a Barsian Nasional government that has actively assisted in the collapse of the traditional structures of our Malaysian society and our Malaysian way of life because of its mistaken belief that they could best retain power by a divide and rule dogma over its own people.

It has now come to this – we believe that removing Najib as Prime Minister will make little difference to our lives – toppling Barisan Nasional will! The message from the people is clear: We have the power to back up our demand for change at the 13^th general election. It will now be up to the Pakatan Rakyat to be the change that we want!