CHANGING the prime minister now will not affect the government’s ongoing efforts in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, said Najib Razak.

Citing examples of other countries that have undergone a change in their leadership since last year, the Pekan MP said the prime minister must take responsibility for his government’s failure in handling the pandemic.

“What about the failure to manage the pandemic in the past seven months even under an emergency?” the former prime minister asked in a social media posting.

“Someone must take responsibility for the continuous failure, which has only seen many Malaysians dying and many others suffering.” 

He said the government will continue with its policies, and new ones introduced by the new prime minister will convince the people.

“The vaccination programme would not be affected by a change in prime minister as it is not like the ministers who are giving the injections personally,” he said.

Last week, Umno agreed to withdraw support from Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin over his failure in handling several crises and urged for the appointment of an interim prime minister to oversee the battle against Covid-19.

The party said once the pandemic has been contained, a general election could be called.

Following that, Najib had also clarified that Umno was only retracting support for Muhyiddin and not the Perikatan Nasional ruling pact.

Najib also trashed rumours that Umno is hungry for power, hence its attacks on the PN administration.  

He said Umno only wants for the prime minister to take responsibility by stepping down after failing to curb Covid-19 and fix the economy, despite having seven months of absolute power under the emergency.

“Despite Umno ministers closing the front door, there are still people who have opened the back door many times,” he said.

“We see the government today is unstable and has a slim to no majority,” he said, adding this has led to misplaced priorities.

“The government is more concerned about protecting frogs and traitors through the scheme of things,” he said, adding that it has become too much, to the point the king and the Malay rulers have had to voice their concerns.

He said Umno just wants a new prime minister and national security chairman to focus on solving Covid’s problem as soon as possible without thinking about how to retain power or which other “frogs” can be bought.

Najib said after a short period of three to six months, once the country achieves herd immunity and has recovered from Covid-19, Parliament should be dissolved and the mandate will be handed over to the people again to solve the problem of an unstable government full of frogs and traitors – in line with national consensus of February 2020, after the PH government’s collapse.

“Umno wants to hand back power. Umno does not want to buy frogs, there is no ‘scheme of things’ or create an emergency with stupid excuses to retain power.

“So, which part says that Umno is crazy about power? There is no guarantee that Umno or BN will win.”

Najib also added that PN and PH should not be afraid of the people’s mandate, if their administration is as good as they say.

“After all, PN and PH don’t often accuse Umno and BN of being corrupt, racist and incompetent? So, how do Umno and BN have a chance to win?,” he said.

However, he said, regardless of whether they win, the main issue right now is a government with a slim majority is not the people’s choice. – July 11, 2021.