The Dr Maharthir vs Najib match is not over

11:15AM Aug 30, 2014

By JD Lovrenciear

The country is still reeling in and over Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s public expression that he is withdrawing his support for the number one leader of the nation.

Secondly, Mahathir’s public criticism over Najib Abdul Razak’s leadership is drawing in all kinds of interpretations that only go to demonstrate that this match-of-our-times is not over - even if the main stream media blanks out the news.

Now, Prime Minister Najib’s recent and first public responseto Mahathir’s assault is also seemingly not believable when he tried to douse the arrowed sparks by saying it is an internal party matter.

There are two issues here and the issues do not negate each other. How could our politicians be so naïve as to think that the citizens are not wary?

The key issue that makes Mahathir’s public outcry through his new-media weapon of political warfare is the fact that he was withdrawing his support for Najib. Leave aside the rationale behind that stance. The point that gawks is the implications.

Mahathir was withdrawing his support for the number one nation-driver. Najib is more than an Umno leader. He is the prime minister of Malaysia’s 28 million people here and is so, too, seen as such all across the globe.  

Suppose a leader or even a former top leader of the opposition bloc said the same. What would be the national stand? What would the Barisan National that is the government in power do? One can only imagine the magnitude of the reverberations.

So for Najib to meekly dismiss Mahathir’s public outcry against him as merely an internal party matter only paints a more questioning picture. The public perception that is, as a result, being fuelled is that all things are certainly then not well within Umno the pack leader of BN.

Unfortunately some politicians have scurried to harp that Mahathir was only criticising. Never mind about the fact that that criticism was against the nation’s number one leader and a public stance made also for the magnifying lens of global opinion.

How do we now deal with this national shame? There is reputation and serious collateral damage here, folks!

Suppose Najib is a written-off failure, then can the people take to the streets to rally behind Mahathir to save the nation from further doom?

Suppose Najib is still endorsed as a capable leader, do the citizens then scream for Mahathir’s neck to rescue the nation from shame and disgrace?

Three monkeys stance?

Or shall we take the position of the proverbial three-monkeys stance: see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil as we pray that the tide will flow by the bridge and soon be forgotten? At least, we Malaysians have a track record for such benignness, let us face it.

No. Something is seriously not right and Malaysians must take personal and collective accountability for all such failures. Otherwise we will all end up as in the story of the sorry frogs in a slow cooking pot of water, i..e we do not even know we are in trouble, serious trouble until it is too late to realise and save the nation.

In short, this is not an internal party problem. It is not even one man against another. It is far beyond speculation that Mahathir is never happy with anyone unless we get a Mahathir-clone to be PM. It is beyond a criticism. It is not a simplistic case of personal opinion - not even one of merely withdrawing support.

Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/273150