Eight reasons why Najib’s legitimacy as Prime Minister is questioned

There are at least eight reasons why there is widespread questioning of the legitimacy of Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the Prime Minister of Malaysia after the 13th general elections on May 5.

1. Najib and Barisan Nasional have only won 47% of the popular vote, while Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Rakyat won the majority popular vote at 51%.
2. The 13GE was the dirtiest elections in the nation’s 56-history of 13 general elections – where there was unprecedented money politics and massive unethical and unprincipled electioneering summed up by Umno/BN triple strategy of “Money Money Money”, “Lies Lies Lies” and “Fear Fear Fear”.

There was also the grave problem of the gerrymandering of the constituencies to benefit Umno/BN, where one vote in Putrajaya (16,000 voters) is equal to nine votes in Kapar (140,000+ voters) – making a total mockery of the “one man, one vote, one value” principle.

If the 13GE had been a clean, free and fair one, the popular vote won by Anwar and Pakatan Rakyat would have exceeded 60 per cent and even reached two-thirds of the total vote, securing the majority of the parliamentary seats to PR (even reaching a total of 125 parliamentary seats comprising 45 for PKR and 40 each for DAP and PAS) instead of the present 89 seats for PR and 133 seats for BN.

3. The peaceful and democratic protest of some one million Malaysian voters, mostly from the young generation of all races, since the 13GE results three weeks ago in “Black 505” ceramahs throughout the country demonstrating the depth and gravity of the problem of public doubts about Najib’s legitimacy as Prime Minister;
4. Najib’s premiership lacks legitimacy as a 1Malaysia government despite his post-election pledge to be Prime Minister for all races, because of the escalation of racial polarisation post 13GE, with Najib himself responsible for initiating such escalation with his statement on the night of the 13GE that the general election outcome was a “Chinese tsunami” – when in fact it was a Malaysian, urban, semi-urban and youth tsunami!

This was followed by a series of provocative, inflammatory and racist reactions and campaigns such as the incendiary headline by UMNO mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia : “Apa Lagi Cina Mahu”; the speech by the former Court of Appeal judge Mohamad Noor Abdullah, which is the most racist and seditious speech ever made in Malaysia in 44 years; the seditious call by the former Education Director-General, Tan Sri Ahmad Arshad for the abolition of Chinese and Tamil primary schools and the attempt by some NGOs to boycott Chinese goods.

5. Najib’s Cabinet does not represent all Malaysians, a belated awareness which has led to the proposal inside the Barisan Nasional that BN parties should respond to the demand by more and more Malaysians for an end to race-based politics and race-based political parties, by merging all component parties under the coalition into a multi-racial party.
6. Najib’s chairs a Cabinet with two illegal Ministers (Paul Low and Abdul Wahid Omar) and three illegal Deputy Ministers (P. Waythamoorthy, J Loga Bala Mohan and Ahmad Bashan Md Hanipah) as these five have not been sworn as Senators before taking their Ministerial oath of office – in fact the five have been left in a constitutional limbo in the past 11 days, as they have not yet been sworn in as Senators and they themselves dare not claim that they are lawful Ministers or Deputy Ministers.

This long-running constitutional farce and charade, causing unprecedented embarrassment to the Yang di Pertuan Agong as well to the nation’s international image, has only underlined the grave question about the legitimacy of Najib’s Cabinet and premiership.

7. The increasingly repressive and undemocratic regime of the Najib premiership, following the partnership of the most “political” Home Minister with the most “political” Inspector-General of Police trampling on democratic and human rights of Pakatan Rakyat leaders and social activists in the past week – with arrests, selective prosecutions and crackdown of freedom of assembly and expression.
8. Continued dependence of the Najib premiership on lies and falsehoods as a form of communication which is totally against all principles of accountability, transparency and good governance, not to mention the Election Integrity Pledge of Transparency International-Malaysia which was signed by Najib with such fanfare during the 13GE campaign.

The latest example of this dependence on lies and falsehoods as a basis of governance is the threat by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, to carry out a witch-hunt against pro-Pakatan Rakyat social media whether Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or blogs, because of the ludicrous claim that DAP had spent RM108 million to employ a “Red Bean Army” of cybertroopers to demonise Umno/Barisan in the cyberspace.

How can a government which could act on such a ludicrous and baseless claim as a basis for state policy enjoy any respect or legitimacy from the citizenry?