How to get Najib to quit as PM

The calls for his ouster have so far been coming from people with no locus standi.

COMMENT

There have been increasingly shrill, even desperate, calls of late for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to step down for any number of reasons, including for matters beyond his control. So far, not one of these calls has been even remotely convincing. The jury is still out on whether Najib, an industrial economist by training, cannot be relied on to manage the economy, especially now that the ringgit is weakening and searching questions are being raised on the national debt burden.

These calls for Najib to quit emanate not from Umno or Barisan Nasional, but from people who have clearly nothing to do with whether the Prime Minister stays or goes. Neither would they be involved in choosing a new Prime Minister. In short, they have no locus standi.

The latest theory being advanced by these voices in the political wilderness is that Umno/BN will lose Putrajaya come 2018 if Najib continues as Prime Minister.

They say that even a week is a long time in politics. The year 2018 is more than a week away.

Najib or no Najib, Umno/BN has to resign itself to the fact that it would lose Putrajaya some day, if not sooner, certainly later. No party in the world has ruled forever.

One way to remove Najib is for the Deputy Prime Minister to refuse to serve under the Prime Minister. Muhyiddin Yassin, as Umno Deputy President, can announce that he will concentrate on party work.

This is an important point since those who want to hasten Najib’s exit have Muhyiddin in mind to replace him as Prime Minister and Acting Umno President.

That would draw a line in the sand, especially since the Deputy Prime Minister himself has maintained an ominous silence on whether Najib should quit his job.

If Muhyiddin doesn’t take such a step, i.e. quit as DPM, there’s nothing that those screaming for Najib’s hide can do if he continues to occupy the Prime Minister’s chair.

The BN, assuming that it can suddenly take leave of its senses, can also introduce a no-confidence motion in Parliament through two MPs, one to propose, and another to second it. There’s very little likelihood that this would happen. Even if it happens, the Speaker can reject it on the grounds that there’s no provision for it. It happened when Najib’s predecessor, Abdullah Badawi, was Prime Minister.

It’s true that the first people to fight among themselves when the economy heads south or is perceived to have been mismanaged are Malay leaders. That has always been a curse in Malay politics, which has splintered political parties and spawned new ones. But this phenomenon has yet to happen this time.

The ones making a racket are political has-beens with a strong sense of proprietorship. They dash off comments on the issue in their blogs at regular intervals, issue statements at every opportunity or go on the offensive in the social media.

We can be forgiven, at this stage, for thinking that the hysterical few belabour under the delusion that the Prime Minister’s job belongs to the Umno President in perpetuity. If Najib resigns as Prime Minister, he must offer the resignation of the entire Cabinet and Government. He can’t resign alone.

That would open the proverbial floodgates, indeed even Pandora’s Box, since the BN component parties in Sabah and Sarawak can opt to stay neutral in the choice of a new Prime Minister. The political temperature is increasing in Borneo.

Supreme insult

It’s an open secret that Putrajaya has been party to illegalities in Sabah, as the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) Report has confirmed.

Besides, questions are being raised on Malaysia’s legitimacy in Borneo, a reference to the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), which called for a new Federation – Malaysia – and not Malaya renaming itself Malaysia and incorporating Sabah and Sarawak as the 12th and 13th states. MA63 is about an Equal Partnership of Sabah, Sarawak and the peninsula, and again, not Sabah and Sarawak being the 12th and 13th states.

It would be folly of the highest order for Umno to continue to take Sabah and Sarawak for granted. There are no guarantees in life and Najib’s idea that the two Borneo nations are BN’s electoral Fixed Deposits is deemed the supreme insult. Already, the 1Malaysia gesture in Sabah and Sarawak is not being delivered with the forefinger but the middle finger, especially among the Gen-Y. The social media in Borneo is completely against Umno and BN.

Leaving aside the issue of the missing in action government jet, many of the reasons advanced for Najib’s premature departure range from the petty to the personal and offensive. If it can be proven that Najib did abuse his position and allowed his wife to make use of the government jet for unofficial purposes, it would be a different matter. He would have to immediately quit as Prime Minister on this issue alone.

It’s true, for one, that Najib was photographed by the Washington Post playing golf with US President Barack Hussein Obama in Honolulu, Hawaii, as the east coast states in the peninsula in particular reeled under the worst floods in living memory.

It’s not as if Najib was so callous as to fly off for a year-end holiday oblivious to the sufferings of the people. Najib is not a one-man show. Had the Meteorological Department, the National Security Council, and the National Disaster Management and Relief Committee not been sleeping on the job, the Prime Minister would not have been in Hawaii but with the people.

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