“Prime Minister for all Malaysians” - Abdullah’s greatest failure

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

mi1: Pathetic Prime Minister