Prime Minister Najib Razak, under scrutiny and criticism from various corners of Malaysian society, last night vowed he would defend his “sacred trust” as premier of Malaysia, and would not let anyone hijack his job from him.
Speaking last night at the 25th Tun Abdul Razak Hussein Lecture at KL’s Shangri-La Hotel, Najib acknowledged that he had been the subject of much criticism, and knew there were calls for him to resign from within and without the ruling UMNO party. However, the PM insisted that he was democratically elected to office, and that only the rakyat had the power to remove him from office.
“People say or sometimes say that I was groomed for leadership from an early age. But that is not quite the truth. One person went so far as to say that he supported me out of gratitude to my father,” he said, in a likely jibe at former PM and one of his most vocal critics, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Najib asserted his claim to the highest political office in the land, saying that the Malaysian people had entrusted him with the duty of leading the nation, and that no one else could remove him from carrying it out.
“It is a sacred trust, and no one should attempt to interfere with or hijack that obligation to lead.
“For it is the people who elected me, and I am proud and humbled to bear that mandate – which is the people’s to give or to take away. It does not belong to any individual, however eminent.
“But I will not serve one man. It is my job to serve the people,” he said.
“Some, however, are so desperate to cast our record in a bad light, that they have said that Malaysia is on its way to becoming a failed state. This is ludicrous. But let the facts speak for themselves.
“Outsiders have attacked us for not taking care of the people’s rights and Tun Mahathir has said, in yet another ridiculously over-the-top statement that ‘democracy is dead’ in Malaysia,” Najib added.
