Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang in
Petaling Jaya on Thursday, 2nd October 2008:
Abdullah’s greatest failure is his
inability to honour his most important pledge to be Prime Minister for
all Malaysians
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi’s greatest failure is his inability to honour his most important
pledge to be Prime Minister for all Malaysians.
This is why his Hari Raya message that “This country belongs to all of
us, everyone of us” and that “No citizen is recognized as being of a
higher status than another in this motherland” fell like a damp squib.
If Abdullah had expressed such sentiments in his first 100 days as Prime
Minister, it would have taken the country by storm like his sonorous
statements made in his first months in office, such as “Work with me,
not for me” and his pledge to be Prime Minister for all Malaysians.
Now, all these high-sounding statements fall flat, devoid of any
inspirational quality, because Abdullah had failed to deliver a single
one of the many grand promises for which he was given the unprecedented
victory of over 91 per cent of parliamentary seats in the 2004 general
election.
Abdullah’s Hari Raya message has only confirmed that the Prime Minister
is suffering from a terminal form of denial syndrome when he said that
the Barisan Nasional (BN) will not fail Malaysians and “whatever the
circumstances”, the government is committed to discharging the trust and
responsibility given it by the people.
How can Abdullah be unaware that it is precisely because the BN
government had failed Malaysians after the unprecedented mandate in the
2004 general election that the BN received such a thrashing in the March
8 general election – the first “political tsunami”?
How can Abdullah be unaware that it is precisely because the BN
government had continued to fail Malaysians that six months later, it
received a second thrashing in the second politicial tsunami during the
Permatang Pauh by-election on August 26?
Furthermore, how can Abdullah be unaware that it is precisely because of
the BN government’s failures resulting in widening and deepening of
multiple crisis of confidence on all fronts which emboldened the “coup
d’etat” in the Umno Supreme Council emergency meeting on Sept. 26,
leaving him with seven days to decide whether to fight or bow down to
pressures to end his premiership in six months’ time and withdraw from
contest for the Umno Presidency?
Abdullah’s Hari Raya message is pathetic reading.
He said “it was saddening when racial issues which can tear apart the
fabric of unity that has been woven together all this while were raised
of late”.
What is even more saddening is his refusal to admit that those who
raised “racial issues which can tear apart the fabric of unity that has
woven together all this while” had all come from inside Umno power
centres, as witnessed the “penumpang” furore created by Umno Bukit
Bendera chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Ismail who is lionized by Umno, and
even appointed as Umno Bukit Bendera division, despite three-year
suspension by Umno Supreme Council.
Is Abdullah capable of redeeming even a single one of his many grand and
high-sounding Prime Ministerial pledges before he fades away from the
Putrajaya corridors of power – which is likely to be sooner than later?
*
Lim
Kit Siang, DAP
Parliamentary leader & MP for Ipoh Timor
http://dapmalaysia.org