Najib says his job to serve the people, won’t let anyone ‘hijack’ duty

© Provided by The Malay Mail Online Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said he had been democratically elected and only the voters had the power to remove him from office. — File picFaced with pressure both from within his party and the opposition over his administration’s running of the country, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak reiterated his pledge to serve the people and vowed he will not allow anyone to “hijack” that duty.

He acknowledged the criticisms against him and calls from government dissenters for him to resign, but said he had been democratically elected and added that only the voters 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,” the eldest son of the country’s second prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein told a lecture at the Shangri-La Hotel last night.

Najib did not name anyone but it is possible he was making a veiled remark at Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth prime minister who had been taken under the wing of the late Abdul Razak in his early years.

Dr Mahathir has been leading an aggressive campaign against Najib in recent months and evenly openly declared that he was calling for the prime minister’s resignation.

“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,” Najib told the lecture audience of some 500 people.

Najib added that his government has been doing a fine job in running the country since he took helm in 2009 but yet people had made statements like “democracy is dead” which he said was absurd.

“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,” he added.

The Pekan MP went on to give examples of how the country’s situation has improved since he took over which includes the Gross National Income (GNI) growing by 47.7 percent and the creation of 1.8 million jobs since the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) was incepted in 2010.

Najib also reiterated the statement he made today on the ringgit value dropping, saying that people should give it time for it to improve.

“I stand by the statement I made earlier today that the ringgit is somewhat undervalued. In fact, Malaysia’s ringgit performance is because it is painted in the light of the strengthening of the US dollar. As I said, give it time, it will be re-evaluated accordingly,” he said.

Dr Mahathir and the opposition have been highly critical of Najib and his administration over the debt-ridden state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

Dr Mahathir had previously claimed that he had helped Najib become PM and his current leadership was that corrupt that “Malaysia had become a failed state”.