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Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad blogged on the 53rd National Day eve that \u201ctoday the races are more divided than ever\u201d.<\/p>\nFormer Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad blogged on the 53rd National Day eve that \u201ctoday the races are more divided than ever\u201d.<\/p>\n
The implications of Mahathir\u2019s statement merits attention.<\/p>\n
Here we have the country\u2019s longest-serving Prime Minister in fact telling the current Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that despite this year\u2019s Merdeka Month theme: \u201c1Malaysia: Transforming the Nation\u201d and the latter\u2019s 1Malaysia policy and National Transformation Programme for 18 months since assuming the highest office in the land in April last year, national unity and inter-racial relations had never been so bad at present as compared to any time in the 22 years Mahathir had been Prime Minister from 1981 \u2013 2003.<\/p>\n
Would Najib agree to this Mahathir assessment as the present Prime Minister was during those 22 years of Mahathir premiership either Pahang Mentri Besar or a Cabinet Minister, starting as Minister for Youth and Sports before being appointed to Education and later Defence portfolios \u2013 while in Umno, occupying the posts of Umno Youth Leader (especially during the Operation Lalang years) and Umno National Vice President from 1995-2003?<\/p>\n
Even more serious is Mahathir\u2019s virtual dismissal of Najib\u2019s National Transformation Programme, particularly the two Najib signature programmes of 1Malaysia and New Economic Model.<\/p>\n
Mahathir had first opened fire on Najib\u2019s 1Malaysia policy early last month, lamenting that it had failed to unite Malaysians as a whole and urging \u201cfurther explanation\u201d from Najib to prevent the 1Malaysia policy from being interpreted differently by various races.<\/p>\n
The former Prime Minister has followed up with a wholesale attack on Najib\u2019s National Transformation Agenda by the end of the month, declaring his opposition to the New Economic Model (NEM) unveiled by Najib on 30th March this year with the warning that the removal of NEP-style policies could lead to a revolution \u2013 referring specifically to NEM proposals for new affirmative action policies which are market-friendly and needs-based to consider all ethnic groups fairly and equally as long as they are in the low income 40% of households earning less than RM1,500 per month (of which 77.2% are bumiputeras)..<\/p>\n
Mahathir even equated and condemned meritocracy as racism \u2013 when meritocracy is one of the principles of Najib\u2019s \u201c1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now\u201d policy.<\/p>\n
Clearly, on the occasion of the 53rd National Day Mahathir has crossed the Rubicon to become Najib\u2019s biggest antagonist in Umno and the major obstacle to Najib\u2019s 1Malaysia and National Transformation Agenda<\/p>\n
Will Najib back down from his 1Malaysia and National Transformation Agenda?<\/p>\n
If not, who will win the battle in Umno and Barisan Nasional for allegiance \u2013 the Najib or Mahathir forces?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad blogged on the 53rd National Day eve that \u201ctoday the races are more divided than ever\u201d. The implications of Mahathir\u2019s statement merits attention. Here we have the country\u2019s longest-serving Prime Minister in fact telling the current Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that despite this year\u2019s Merdeka Month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}