Malaysian PM facing REBELLION across the board due to price hikes & wife ROSMAH - report

International news portal Asia Sentinel said Prime Minister Najib Razak’s subsidy rationalisation programme and lavish lifestyle that he shared with his wife Rosmah Mansor have brought him attacks from every corner, including from within his party UMNO.

Over the span of five months, the magazine said public anger was substantial and had grown on Najib following a series of subsidies cut on fuel and sugar, and giving green light for a 15 percent increase in electricity tariff that started this year despite national powerhouse Tenaga Nasional Berhad’s high profitability.

“(Everything) down to the price of ice has increased in a manner of two weeks. Everything in Malaysia shot up in one month without notice.

The government keeps the ringgit so weak against the US dollar, the cost of living keeps bouncing, and salary increases are nothing. Crime is up, corruption is up. People are getting really upset,” Asia Sentinel quoted an UMNO loyalist as saying.

Not only that, the report said Najib further enraged the public through his lavish lifestyle with his wife, Rosmah Mansor, whom Asia Sentinel described as someone “whose free-spending ways have alienated large swaths of the conservative Malay Muslim community.”

Rosmah’s lavish spending and use of government jet to attend international forum, said Asia Sentinel, did not go down well with UMNO bloggers, and one of it was Mahathir’s loyalist A Kadir Jasin, the former News Straits Times editor in chief.

“We are complaining about the wrong things he is doing in accommodating the wishes of his wife. We are asking the government to be accountable. The PM should answer these allegations. The way he bragged about his wife in public, he was in fact saying that his wife has more influence than him with foreign leaders,” Kadir was quoted saying.

Kadir was referring to the praises given by Najib to Rosmah during the conclusion of UMNO general assembly last year for her networking heroics with foreign counterparts that had helped to bring back students to Malaysia from Egypt.

Comparing Najib to his predecessors Abdullah Badawi and Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Asia Sentinel said the former now suffers the worst sort of contempt compared to the rest.

“Abdullah… was restricted to some segments of UMNO and the ruling elite. With Mahathir, it was disgust and contempt from intellectuals and rights groups. But with Najib – it's across the board and it extends to his wife and friends,” Asia Sentinel said, quoting a source. - Harakahdaily