Category: Najib Razak

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, today announced a slew of goodies to mark his 100th day in office, after his image received a tremendous boost with the recent Merdeka Centre opinion poll recording that his popularity rating had rocketted to 65% as compared to 45% a month after he became Prime Minister and 42 per cent just before taking over the premiership from Tun Abdullah on April 3, 2009.

Today’s basket of goodies, with promises of more to come, have not been able however to duplicate the national euphoria and feel good atmosphere which former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had been able to conjure up in his First 100 Days without any Hundred-Day gimmicks and goodies whatsoever.

In the final analysis, the test of Najib’s premiership will not be in the slew of goodies but in his performance and delivery of promises including in the six key areas he cited, namely

• The prevention of crime;
• The fight against corruption;
• Access to quality education;
• The improvement of the living standards for the lower income group;
• Improvement of rural infrastructure;
• Improvement of public transportation.

Conspicuously missing is the centrality of the challenge to make all Malaysians one united people 52 years after Merdeka and 46 years after the formation of Malaysia with Sabah and Sarawak.
Continue reading “No Malaysian will be convinced that Najib is serious about fighting crime unless he appoints a new Inspector-General of Police with the primary task to roll back the tide of crime in the past five years”

Speech by Tengku Razaleigh at HELP University College, KL; July 10, 2009

1. Thank you for inviting me to address you. It’s a pleasure to be here, and to learn from you. You have asked me to talk about Najib’s First 100 Days, and this lecture is in a series called Straight Talk. I shall indeed speak plainly and directly.

2. Let me begin by disappointing you. I am not going to talk about Najib’s First 100 Days because it makes little sense to do so.

3. Our governments are brought to power for five year terms through general elections. The present government was constituted after March 8, 2008 and Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s tenure as Prime Minister resulted from a so-called “smooth transfer of power” between the previous Prime Minister and himself that took a somewhat unsmooth twelve months to carry out. During those months, Najib took on the de facto leadership role domestically while Abdullah warmed our international ties. The first 100 days of this government went by unremarked sometime in June last year.

Continue reading “Razaleigh – NEP has expired. Time for New Deal”

Tomorrow is Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 100th Day as Malaysia’s sixth Prime Minister.

Najib’s baggage as Prime Minister is vividly illustrated by the pathetic episode where Najib’s spinmeister could work up a “song and a dance” over the fact that Najib’s popularity rating in a recent poll had spiralled to 65% as compared to 45% a month after he became Prime Minister and 42 per cent just before taking over the premiership from Tun Abdullah on April 3, 2009.

Yes, it was quite a remarkable 44% recovery from 45% popularity rating in six weeks for Najib to claw back 20 percentage points in the latest Merdeka Centre opinion poll, but his spinmeisters feigned ignorance that it was really a very dismal rating when compared to the five previous Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah who would have no difficulty in securing popularity rating of 95% and over for any opinion poll in their “First 100 Days”.

Can Najib’s upsurge in popularity on his 100th day be sustained with a Barisan Nasional victory in Manek Urai by-election in Kelantan next Tuesday and is he confident enough of his national popularity to seek a motion of confidence when Parliament reconvenes on Oct 19, something he had not dared to do in the recent three-week meeting of Parliament?
Continue reading “Can Najib’s upsurge in popularity on his 100th Day be sustained with a BN victory in Manek Urai by-election and is he confident enough to seek a motion of confidence when Parliament reconvenes on Oct 19?”

Congrats to Datuk Seri Najib Razak for chalking up 65% popularity rating from his first month of 45% as Prime Minister but he must be fully conscious that he has the lowest popularity rating of all six Malaysian Prime Ministers – including his predecessors Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah – in the “First 100 Days”.

In the latest poll conducted among 1,060 registered voters by the Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research between June 19 and July 1, his approval rating has risen to 65 per cent as compared to 45 per cent in mid-May (a month after he became Prime Minister) and 42 per cent just before taking over the premiership from Tun Abdullah on April 3, 2009.

In the latest opinion poll, 22 per cent were dissatisfied with his performance while 13 per cent were undecided.

Seventy-four per cent of Malays polled were satisfied with his performance. The level of support among Chinese and Indians was 48 per cent and 74 per cent respectively.
Continue reading “Congrats to Najib for chalking up 65% popularity rating from his first month of 45% as Prime Minister but…”