Is March 27 D-Day for Najib?

It is hard to tell whether Pakatan Harapan would support Zaid Ibrahim’s proposal for a rally to urge the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

At this juncture, there is no firm decision made by the coalition, as their main focus is apparently on the Sarawak state elections to win some state seats, maybe a few more than in the last state elections. The bigger kill everyone is waiting for, of course, is to win more federal seats in the coming general election.

March 27? I think it is just on the back-burner, unlikely to drum up enough momentum like Bersih 4. It is not that Pakatan would not work with Dr Mahathir Mohamad for a common objective, but the 5W and 1H of the rally has not been answered adequately.

Unlike in the past, when he was still prime minister, most people would remain sceptical if March 27 was mainly to rally behind Dr Mahathir and to urge Najib’s resignation.

There are just too many factors involved to consider before Pakatan throws its support behind the former prime minister.

For one, Zaid, who recently turned an ally of Dr Mahathir, picked a date which was made unilaterally. Why Sunday March 27, and not any other dates?

In fact, most other street protests that were organised either by Bersih or other non-government organisations were mainly held on Saturdays.

No clear agenda

My question to Zaid is whether the date was picked after properly consulting both the opposition and civil society movement Bersih? Zaid’s intentions may be good, and his agenda is the same as Bersih 2.0 chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah and her steering committee.

But before proceeding with his plan, he should consider that a good plan can only be executed when there is support from the grassroots; otherwise, Zaid might as well abandon the idea and wait for the next big tide. One man can catalyse change, but it is near to impossible without the support of Bersih and the opposition.

Bersih is, in fact, a movement consisting of a wide spectrum of NGOs and members of the public. It is also largely supported by the opposition.

Chin has responded to Zaid’s urging by stating that the agenda is still muddled. What is clear, however, is that when Zaid announced the date, he had apparently not consulted Chin or any of the steering committee members.

In fact, one of the agenda set for Bersih 4 event in August last year was to urge Najib’s resignation over the 1MDB scandal. Dr Mahathir was also there at the rally.

It is not that Najib had not been told to step down, in fact, the message was already conveyed by a few hundred thousand Bersih supporters, comprising Malaysians from all walks of life.

Under normal circumstances, a leader who still wants to retain some form of dignity would have stepped down, but Najib still has the tenacity to stay on.

True reform or just Najib’s resignation?

Most people like me would be asking whether the March 27 rally would be to seek true reform after Najib has been removed, or is it just aimed at maintaining the status quo?

For example, after Najib has gone, would the new prime minister from Umno work with Pakatan leaders to form a unity government with an objective of cleaning up corruption and ensuring that a clean and fair election would be possible in the next general election?

This is the kind of question that disgruntled Umno members who rally with Dr Mahathir has to answer to the opposition before they can expect to see their response; otherwise, I believe Pakatan will only show a lukewarm response to the March 27 rally.

If Dr Mahathir’s idea of a March 27 Arab Spring (or whatever you call it) is merely to push for Najib’s resignation, without promises for reform, I doubt that both Bersih and the opposition would even consider lending their support, except to save the country from further decline.

The terms and conditions have not been properly thrashed out yet; until a framework is drawn up, March 27 might just turn out to be another rally for disgruntled Umno members.

Zaid and Dr M should think clearly

When the opposition urged a no-confidence vote in Parliament, there was hardly any support from Dr Mahathir's camp. With only 89 lawmakers in a Parliament of 222 members of Parliament, there was no way for Pakatan to succeed if Dr Mahathir’s camp refused to throw in their support.

At the same time, dissenting Umno members who turned up at the Bersih 4 rally were near to zilch, despite Bersih stating that it was an independent civil society movement.

Now, could the same people expect both the opposition and Bersih to lend their support for the March rally? I doubt so.

Both Dr Mahathir and Zaid should do some soul-searching. Unless they have a very good proposition, they might as well abandon the March rally for now.

Instead, they should conserve their energy and wait for the next major rally or move, before throwing in their support. Realistically, a small number of dissatisfied Umno leaders will not affect Najib’s position, unless Umno’s own position is threatened when these leaders and their members voted for Pakatan in the 14th general election. Once the momentum at the grassroots level picks up, that more people have vowed to vote for Pakatan if Najib remained in his office, I am sure that even Umno council members themselves would urge Najib to step down.

It is incidents such as Dr Mahathir turning up at the Bersih rally last year that will truly shake up Umno. In fact, when Dr Mahathir turned up at Bersih 4, he was able to shake Najib’s position. For this same reason, Najib’s own men were trying to downplay Dr Mahathir’s appearance at the Bersih 4 rally.

Dr Mahathir, in the eyes of many, would have been the last person to join any Bersih rally, but his example will embolden more Umno members to join Bersih rallies in the future. I am sure that Umno leaders were red-eyed when they saw Dr Mahathir turning up at the rally; they tried to silence him.

What would motivate us?

To many of us, Najib has failed to fulfil his promise to deliver his so-called Government Transformation Plan since becoming prime minister in 2009. Despite promises that the Election Commission would work with both Bersih and TindakMalaysia, we saw one of the worst-run elections in 2013, and it is expected to get dirtier in the next election.

Prior to the last general election, Najib told an audience in a ceramah that all political donations should not enter personal accounts; but after it was exposed by the Wall Street Journal and Sarawak Report that US$600 million had been funnelled into his private accounts, people were simply sceptical with Najib.

The evidence was hardly disputable, and Najib and his men could only say that the remainder of the money had been returned to the ‘donor’. If it was true, why would Najib not produce the documents to show the world that the money had indeed been returned? To date, Najib has not even attempted to show documentary proof to the people asking the questions, has he?

To say the least, many of us would love to show our support for March 27 rally. However, unless we see it is worth the time, many of us who are ordinary citizen would choose to sleep in on a Sunday morning rather than to turn up under the hot sun.

We would go, if the urging for Najib’s resignation also includes the formation of a unity government, where reforms can be subsequently introduced.

In fact, knowing that Najib (and his wife, Rosmah Mansor) are now a major liability to Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN), many of us would prefer to have him remain as prime minister for now, in order to see BN, and Umno in particular, being punished in the next general election.

With this in mind, it is unlikely that the opposition parties would give Dr Mahathir their support, and March 27 would fail to achieve its objectives. In fact, the turnout on that day would indicate the kind of support that Dr Mahathir still commands within Umno.

---

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008. -Mkini