Media statement by Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, 14^th November 2011: 

Will Najib's speech at the UMNO General Assembly next month pass muster for the inaugural International Conference on the Global Movement of the Moderates in January?

This is mind-boggling which completely defies the imagination.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is to launch and institutionalize “the Global Movement of the Moderates” in Kuala Lumpur at the inaugural International Conference on the Global Movement of the Moderates from Jan 17 to 19.

This was revealed by Najib in his talk at the East-West Centre in Honolulu yesterday.

Najib first made the call for a Global Movement of Moderates in his speech at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September last year, urging moderates from all faiths to reclaim the agenda for peace and pragmatism and to marginalize the extremists.

The question that befuddles Malaysians is how Najib can expect his glib call of “Moderates Unite” in international forums to have any credibility when the most extremist racial and religious incitements under his premiership not only emanate from but are nurtured in the UMNO bosom, such as the mainstream media mouthpieces of UMNO particularly Utusan Malaysia?

Whenever Najib goes abroad to address international audiences, he would position himself as the “Great Moderator” taking on all extremists, but inside the country he has done absolutely nothing in the past 31 months to marginalise the racial and religious extremists, signally failing to speak up and speak out against the most irresponsible and reckless incitement of racial hatred and religious tension which have caused the worst racial and religious polarisation in the nation's history.

Was Najib discharging his role as the “moderate” Prime Minister of Malaysia when he allowed UMNO mouthpiece like Utusan Malaysia to go on a rampage of scurrilous lies and falsehoods, inciting racial hatred and religious tensions as making the completely reckless and groundless allegation of a sinister DAP conspiracy to create a Christian Malaysia and appoint a Christian Prime Minister?

Will Najib's speech at the UMNO General Assembly next month (Dec. 1 – 3) pass muster for the inaugural International Conference on the Global Movement of the Moderates in January or will it be another example of the two facets of Najib as Jekyll-and-Hyde?

Will Najib set the tone of a “moderate” Prime Minister at the UMNO General Assembly on Dec. 1 by retracting and apologising for his “crushed bodies, lives lost” speech to the UMNO General Assembly last year and make a firm public commitment that he, UMNO and Barisan Nasional will accept the verdict of the people, including for a change of government in Sri Perdana, Putrajaya in the next general election.

Can Najib pass this test of a “moderate” Prime Minister of Malaysia at the UMNO General Assembly before the inaugural International Conference on the Global Movement of the Moderates the following month?

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Ipoh TimorTimor