Because he simply can’t win any?
His response today:
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today lashed out at PKR for playing political games at the time when the nation should be united in focusing on solving the global economic crisis.
“The resignation is politically motivated and a political game just for their own purposes and self-interests,” he told reporters in Klang.
“The people generally do not like by-elections that are held deliberately,” he added.
He said that by-elections should not be called for wantonly but only held if “the state representative had passed away”.
“There is so much time, energy and money being spent on by-elections that we do not even need.
“There is so much politicking in the country when we should have instead focused on fixing the economy, prioritising the people’s benefits. We should move forward (beyond this),” he said.
Ok, I’ll be fair and start with the self-crit.
It’s not ideal that PKR has to face the situation we’re in. In an ideal world, Fairus would have been a great DCM, and all would be well.
But Fairus, by the sounds of it, probably was not. We have to admit the shortcomings of our more limited and resource-strapped past, and contrary to the BN spirit, acknowledge our present weaknesses.
If Fairus is, for argument’s sake, truly dishonest or inept, what should we do? Let him stay on? Subject the rakyat to a second rate leader?
Or do we practice a spirit of constant improvement, and seek to provide ever better service to the people? Unlike BN, we remove people who aren’t perceived to be fully clean.
Yes, by-elections are a costly two weeks (the cost to Najib being that he actually has to *give back* some of that money he stole from the people of Penanti *to* the people of Penanti), and yes, we’ve all got by-election fatigue.
But let’s not lose sight of what’s important - providing the best available leadership to the people of Penanti, Penang and Malaysia.
Two weeks of hassle for up to four years of better quality. I think that’s a fair deal.
I’ll admit that once again, Najib is playing some smart cards - trying to take a middle ground, people centric angle.
(Elsewhere, his 1Malaysia rhetoric fails to jive with his Umno-owned Utusan headlines of “Bangkitlah Melayu,” and use of NGO proxies to placate his party faithful while trying to be Obama/Anwar No. 2)
People judge on actions though, not just words.
What about his colleague Khir Toyo, who demanded Eli’s resignation? Wouldn’t that have necessitated a by-election?
And we all know that Najib is allergic to elections anyway. It appears more his style to take power by initiating corruption investigations, and then using carrots and sticks to entice the weaker Pakatan representatives to his fold.
It’s a bit more credible to knock elections when a) you’ve been winning them, and b) you’ve demonstrated a commitment to having elections when really necessary (say for instance, oh, taking over a state government).
Failing which, your own sincerity in defending the welfare of the people is mildly suspect.
Instead of all this nyeh-nyoh whining and merajuk, win Penanti in a fair fightlah, then you can talk all you want about how BN loves the people more than Pakatan.
Better yet!! Practice what you preach! If you don’t want a by-election then give a walkoverLAH!
Either way, as long as you don’t try and pull some Perak style bullshit with Fairus, we’ll have our candidate for Penanti, ready to take on all comers :)
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