By Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz | January 15, 2013
FMT

Last Friday night as I came back from a ceramah in Sabak Bernam, I stopped over at the Sungai Buluh Restoren Jejantas. There was an unusually large number of vehicles in the parking bays.

In the surau, there were many people sleeping and resting. How come there were so many people, I asked at this late hour (it was 2am).

When a friend asked a passerby where are these people from, he said they were from Perak and some from Penang. They have come to participate in the Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat (KL112) rally at Stadium Merdeka on Saturday (Jan 12).

The whole country, it seemed, was galvanised and geared to participate in the KL112 assembly.

Now, that’s all that matters as we inch closer to the 13th general election.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s time is running out.

The tens of thousands who rallied at KL112 on Saturday was proof of Umno’s end. What we achieved and celebrated at KL112 was the coming together of the various races in Malaysia, something which Umno and Barisan Nasional did not want us to achieve.

What the astute observer would have also noticed was that majority of the marchers were young people. So we know whom the young people will vote.
This gathering as with the previous assemblies regarding Bersih, brought the various communities together.

This is a portent combination that is not going to be liked by Umno and BN.

Suddenly Malays realised they can bond together with Chinese and Indians and discover they are after all normal people.

Non-Malays get to fraternise with Malays and discover too, the Malays are normal people – sharing the same aspirations and are fired by the same motivations, to see this country elect a good government.

What we achieved was to give courage to one another that we can change the current regime. By coming together we gave courage to each other knowing we can overcome this corrupt government.

We have shown we can assemble peacefully and that trouble begins only when Umno thugs are around.

The police stayed away wisely as the majority in the force have no stomach serving as symbols of repression and legalised violence.

They stayed away because the waves of consciousness and civility are overwhelming on the side of the majority.

Najib’s popularity a hype

We can now dismiss the views of Dr Mahathir Mohamad who ruled this country for 22 out of the 55 years. Mahathir forgets that it is Umno, Perikatan and BN that have ruled the country since independence.

Umno has been responsible for making 8.7 million Malays live with an income of RM1,500 per month.

Umno has been responsible for making Malays be beggars in their own country.

Umno rule is about to end. All the hype about the Najib’s popularity being the saving grace is just that – all hype.

It’s an image crafted deviously by practitioners of the black art of propaganda.

Popularity does not solve the fact that the economy is going bad.

Popularity does not solve the fact that this country is brought nearer to bankruptcy because of profligate spending, because of corruption and because of outright incompetence.

Najib has been part of the same government since 1976. Now, pray tell everyone, what else can Umno and Najib do that has not been done?

If we keep invertebrate Najib around, everything will be sold off to Syed Mokkhtar Al-Bukhari.

We will have another 50 deals involving the purchase of rapid intervention vehicles at RM500,000 above market price each. Then we will have the feigned ignorance of the defence minister as the standard Umno leader’s response.

We will have new versions of Scorpene deals, and new versions over the purchase of RM7 billion worth of armoured personnel carriers (APCs).

Another five years of wanton pillage and rape of this country.

Do we really want this?

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman but has now joined DAP. He is a FMT columnist.