By Lim Kit Siang, MP for Gelang Patah

It is both ironic and tragic that the Prime Minister, Najib Razak could point to Brazil’s 1-7 massacre by Germany in the World Cup as the fate of absence of leadership when he himself has set Malaysia on auto-pilot without any leadership from him in the past year.

Where is Najib’s leadership in his 1Malaysia signature policy to create a Malaysia where every Malaysian would regard himself or herself as Malaysian first and race, religion or region second – in contrast to the “Malay first, Malaysia second” policy enunciated by his deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin?

Where is Najib’s leadership in his Global Movement of Moderates for “the voices of moderation to drown the voices of extremism” when in the past year, there has been an incessant stoking and incitement of racial and religious hatred, tension and conflict in the country resulting in the worst racial and religious polarisation in the nation’s history?

Where is Najib’s leadership in the war against corruption, with Malaysia placed in the worst ranking of Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) during his premiership 2009 – 2013 when compared to the premiership of the two previous Prime Ministers,Mahathir and Abdullah – and what is even more mortifying to Malaysians, being overtaken by countries which had worse TI CPI rankings in the past like Taiwan, Spain, South Korea and Hungary and in danger of being left behind by other countries regarded in the past as even more corrupt like Turkey, Thailand, China or even Indonesia in the not too distant future?

Coincidentally, the latest update of the Asianomics Country Report today painted a gloomy outlook for Malaysia, predicting failure for the second phase of Putrajaya’s economic transformation plan due to Najib’s lack of will and leadership although he remained secure as Prime Minister as there is no worthy successor.

Even international observers and analysts have despaired at Najib’s lack of leadership!

The Cabinet meeting today does not indicate that Najib is prepared to provide the leadership to lead the country, as he preferred to leave it to coast along on auto-pilot.
This was the reason for my five tweets before the Cabinet meeting this morning:

1. All eyes on today’s Cabinet meeting – second after inclusion of Liow Tiong Lai, Wee Ka Siong, Mah Siew Keong. Will it behave like three monkeys – no see, no hear, no talk?

2. Will Ministers suffer collective attack and ignore Muhyiddin’s May 13 threat altogether? Or endorse “reminder” version? Or distance from it?

3. One Minister says national unity “more and more fragile today”. Another says racial tension “on the rise” and religious bigotry “getting worse”

4. But Najib Cabinet blind to these developments which are most comic if not very serious with arch-extremists calling for action against extremists?

5. Malaysians and world waiting – is Najib government really on auto-pilot with “do nothing” as its governing motto? Final test of Najib’s transformation!

Najib does not seem to be ready or able to provide the leadership which the government and country had been lacking for the past 14 months since the 13th general elections in May last year.

It will really be ironic and tragic if Najib is forecasting the disastrous future of his government and the country under his premiership when he used the analogy of Brazil’s shocking 1-7 loss to Germany in the World Cup semi-finals.