NAJIB Razak has questioned why some Umno and Barisan Nasional members chose to stay in the Perikatan Nasional government although many have labelled it as a “failed government”.

The former prime minister, who has been active on social media in recent years, said the ministers and deputy ministers from Umno and BN are more eager to save their positions rather than protect the people’s interest.

“I am a bit reluctant to comment on the recent #Kerajaangagal hashtag on social media.

“Actually, I warned Umno last October that the party would bear some of the blame over PN’s failure in the country well, although Umno has no say in the government.

“But it seems Umno and BN leaders value their positions more than anything else. Why are still part of this failed government?” he asked in a Facebook post.

On Friday, PN government was greeted with #Kerajaangagal or failed government as it added yet another deputy minister to the 70-member cabinet.

By 12.45pm, the hashtag had already garnered more than 37,000 tweets on Twitter as social media users took the opportunity to blast Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s administration.

Najib said he started to realise things were going south when Muhyiddin tried to convince the king to declare a state of emergency last October.

He also cited the government’s failure to manage the Covid-19 situation in the country.

“That is why I chose to undergo a 14-day quarantine instead of three days. I have also advised the government to ban inter-state travel immediately as the number of new Covid-19 cases in the peninsula were only in double digits daily, but this call went unheeded.

“If only Covid-19 had been brought under control, the economy back to normal and foreign investments flowing in, the government wouldn’t have to spend so much money on aid packages.

“Even now the prime minister had to admit that the government did not have much money left,” he added.

Najib was last year convicted of charges of criminal breach of trust, money-laundering and abuse of power and is currently appealing against it. He also faces other 1Malaysia Development Berhad-related charges.

The Pekan MP had also led BN to its defeat in the 14th general election in 2018.

Last week, Muhyiddin was quoted as saying the federal government’s coffers have been significantly thinned out to prop up the economy and help Malaysians in the Covid era.

“So much money has been spent last year and this year. Why? For Covid-19. This included various stimulus packages totalling RM340 billion and RM322 billion allocation for the national budget. I went to school, but I am not good at calculation… how much it adds up… it’s more than RM600 billion – that’s a big sum of money.

“What I am trying to say here is, we don’t have much money left. We don’t have as much (money) as before, because the most important thing for us is to ensure our livelihood; we should be able to manage ourselves better,” Muhyiddin was quoted as saying during a Vaisakhi celebration in Petaling Jaya last week. – April 18, 2021.