Kit Siang: Najib, ‘listen, listen, listen’

The veteran politician says that if the PM is not willing to 'listen, listen, listen', then Malaysians should give BN the boot in the next polls.

KUALA LUMPUR: The latest debacle of a pro-government NGO leader rebuking a law student has dealt another blow to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s administration ahead of a crucial general election.

Weighing in on the incident, Lim Kit Siang said it reflected the double failure of the prime minister’s two most important policies – his transformation programmes and his 1Malaysia slogan.

“If Najib’s transformation programmes are to have any hope of success, they must be based on two-way communication and dialogue between the government and the governed and not on a ‘listen, listen, listen!’ one-way traffic imposed by the government on the governed,” he added.

However, the DAP leader said it was obvious that Najib’s administration had turned a deaf ear.

“Or the chief economist of Bank Islam Azrul Azwar Ahmad Tajudin would not have been suspended following media reports on a presentation he made at a forum in Singapore last Thursday predicting a narrow victory for Pakatan Rakyat in the 13th general election,” he pointed out.

Lim also noted that Johor Menteri Besar Ghani Othman had predicted almost the same scenario as Azrul, where he told Kulai Chinese organisations last Tuesday that Pakatan could win the general election with a slim majority.

“Would Ghani be asked to resign as menteri besar?” he asked.

Lim stressed that the era of the government knows best and the “listen, listen, listen” culture propounded by Suara Wanita 1Malaysia (SW1M) president Sharifah Zohar Jabeen were over.

Sharifah drew scorn when a video of her berating student KS Bawani at a university forum went viral on the Internet.

Demanding that the student stop talking, Sharifah had uttered the word “listen” several times and even snatched the microphone from Bawani.

‘Hallow and hypocritical 1Malaysia’

According to the DAP leader, the latest episode highlighted both the “hollowness and hypocrisy” of Najib’s 1Malaysia policy.

“It suffered a fatal blow right at the beginning when Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin distanced himself from it by declaring that he was ‘Malay first, Malaysian second’.

“Although Sharifah is an 1Malaysia activist and exponent, she is totally bereft of the 1Malaysia spirit when she could berate Bawani and said if the student is critical of local policies, she could ‘go to Cuba, Argentina, Libya, go everywhere”, asking ‘What are you doing in Malaysia?’,” he added.

Reminiscing, the veteran politician recalled an incident in Parliament during the 1970s when he was stopped during his speech by a Umno Cabinet minister, who told him that if he was so critical of Umno-BN policies, he should leave Malaysia.

“And my instant retort to him was that if he did not want to hear what I had to say on behalf of Malaysians who sent me to Parliament, he was the one who should leave Malaysia!” he added.

Lim said Sharifah was the latest in the long-line of anti-1Malaysia sentiments expressed by so-called advocates and exponents of Najib’s 1Malaysia policy, who were all products of the Biro Tata Negara.

“Najib, ‘Listen, listen, listen!’ – Is the prime minister prepared in the interest of ushering in honest and ethical politics in Malaysia, to immediately send out a directive to all Umno-BN leaders and mainstream media to stop fabricating lies and false and baseless allegations implying that Pakatan leaders are traitors and anti-national because they disagree with Umno-BN, especially as Pakatan leaders are as nationalistic and patriotic, if not even more, than Umno-BN leaders?

“If ‘Najib – Listen, listen, listen!’ does not work, then the only option left to Malaysians is to vote for change of the federal government in Putrajaya in the 13GE – the first time in 55 years,” he said.