Media statement by Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, 7^th March 2012: 

Najib should apologise for his own mistakes first before apologizing for past Barisan Nasional mistakes resulting in the political tsunami four years ago

Four days after the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak extended an apology for past Barisan Nasional (BN) mistakes resulting in its loss of several states and electoral seats in the last general elections, it remains a mystery and state secret what were the mistakes Najib was apologizing for.

Nobody knew what past BN mistakes Najib was confessing and apologizing, allowing the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin to immediately dismiss the need to find out what these “mistakes” were arguing that “the crucial thing now was to look ahead” and the UMNO Information chief Datuk Ahmad Maslan to make nonsense of Najib’s “apology” by declaring that “UMNO needs mandate to fix its mistakes”!

Does Najib himself know what past BN mistakes he was confessing and apologising for in Kedah last Saturday or was it a meaningless political rhetoric just to win votes?

While Najib mull over and decide what were the past BN mistakes which he is prepared to confess and apologise, let him apologise for his own mistakes first, especially those committed during his 35-month premiership.

Najib’s mistakes alone run into scores. Off-hand, just to mention ten, as follows:

1. Illegal, undemocratic and unconstitutional power grab of the Pakatan Rakyat Perak State Government led by Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin which he orchestrated and executed two months before he became Prime Minister.

2. His failure to defend his 1Malaysia policy to create a Malaysia where every Malaysian regards himself or herself as Malaysian first and race, religion, region and socio-economic status second when his Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin declared right from the beginning that he was Malay first and Malaysian second.

3. The politics of hypocrisy where he preached the virtues of moderation in international forums while allowing the rise of extremism, ethnic and religious, in the country spearheaded by UMNO mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia resulting in worsening racial and religious polarisation in his 35 months as Prime Minister with unprecedented political rhetoric of racial hatred and religious intolerance founded on lies and falsehoods and the outsourcing of the politics of extremism by Umno to Perkasa.

4. His speech at the UMNO General Assembly in 2010 warning of “crushed bodies, lives lost” (“walau berkecai tulang dan juga badan, walau bercerai jasad dari nyawa”) to defend UMNO in Putrajaya. Is Najib prepared to apologise and retract this threat by declaring that in keeping with his aim to make Malaysia “the best democracy in the world”, he and all UMNO leaders will fully and peacefully accept the electoral verdict of Malaysians in the next general elections, including a change of government in Putrajaya?

5. Increasing incidence of political violence against opposition politicians and civil society activists like the UMNO Youth and Perkasa attack on anti-Lynas protestors at the Penang Speakers’ Corner injuring two reporters, while the police looked on and did nothing.

6. Worsening corruption in Malaysia with the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2011 falling to the worst-ever ranking of No. 60 and lowest-ever score of 4.3, placing Malaysia at the most corrupt level in the nation’s 55-year history under six Prime Ministers.

7. The death Teoh Beng Hock and the failure to take action against his killers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), as well as to bring to book persons responsible for the death of Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamad at the MACC premjises, V. Kugan in police custody and all other cases of custodial deaths.

8. The return of the politics of Mahathirism, with the present generation of Malaysians still paying for the financial scandals of Tun Mahathir’s 22 years as Prime Minister, as in the recent third and latest RM840 million bailout of former Malaysian Airlines (MAS) chairman Tajudin Ramli with his out-of-court settlement with Danaharta and GLCs.

9. Continued politics of corruption, cronyism and patronage as in the award of RM2.2 billion Kinrara-Damasara Expressway (Kidex) to two companies, Emrail Sdn Bhd and Zabima Engineering Sdn Bhd linked to Umno lawyer Datuk Hafarizam Harun and wife of former Chief Justice, Tun Zaki Azmi and the RM7.1 billion West Coast Expressway from Banting to Taiping awarded to Kumpulan Europlus Bhd for a 60-year concession period.

10. The refusal to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the long-standing problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah which have made Sabahans strangers and minorities in their own land.

There is a long list of “mistakes” made in the past 35 months for Najib to apologise on his own behalf, without yet going into the past BN mistakes resulting in the BN debacle in the last general elections in 2008.

Where will Najib begin?

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