What is most damning in Tun Dr. Lim Keng Yaik’s second part of his Edge Financial Daily interview yesterday was not his prediction that “Gerakan has lost Penang for good” or his poor assessment of his successor Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon but his contemptuous dismissal of the Najib Razak premiership when he said: “I give up la talking to this government”.
Coming from one who had headed Gerakan as its President for 27 years and was in Barisan Nasional government for 36 years from 1972 to 2008, serving as Cabinet Minister for a quarter of a century, there can be no more categorical a dismissal of the first year of Najib’s new premiership – despite all the Najib sloganeering about 1Malaysia Government Transformation Programme.
It is ironic and tragic that since January 1 this year, Najib’s 1Malaysis slogan and concept had suffered one blow after another, rubbished by none other than by his own people in Umno and government, the most recent example being the vicious and irresponsible exploitation of the race and religion card by Umno leaders and Umno-controlled media like Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian to falsely paint the Penang Pakatan Rakyat state government and Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng as anti-Malay and anti-Islam.
It is sad that Najib does not realize that in condoning the vicious and irresponsible exploitation of the race and religious card by Umno leaders and Umno-controlled media, it is not just the Pakatan Rakyat Penang State Government and Guan Eng who have been put to the test, Najib and his 1Malaysia slogan and concept are themselves on trial.
For Keng Yaik, the verdict on the Najib administration seems foregone with his dismissive statement: “I give up la talking to this government”.
It is reported that the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council is meeting tonight at the coalition’s newly-renovated headquarters on the eighth floor of the Menara Datuk Onn building in Kuala Lumpur.
The BN Supreme Council meeting cannot do better than to place Keng Yaik’s contemptuous dismissal of the Najib premiership as the top item of its agenda and to decide how to salvage the 1Malaysia slogan and concept before it is totally discredited.