Clear out the home minister, Mr PM — Othman Wahab
APRIL 29 — Do yourself a favour, Datuk Seri Najib Razak: Sack your home minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. He is making you look silly.
The man is plain incompetent. I believe he did not advise you on the groundswell of support for Bersih 3.0.
After all, only recently he told the whole world that there was little traction for Bersih 3.0. Then he said that the gathering was not a security threat, only to change his mind a few days before the event.
Remember, this was the same minister who completely misread Bersih 2.0. Obviously, the Johor politician is not a student of history.
Today, he said that the police action of seizing the equipment of journalists was part of the standard operating procedure of the police.
That would be true if this were North Korea, but surely a government that is trumpeting its successful political transformation programme cannot like to be lumped together with Pyongyang.
I can only imagine that the cops seized the equipment because they were afraid that their use of force would have been well documented. Memo to the cops: Many Malaysians at the rally had mobile phones and their own cameras!
Coming back to Hishammuddin; he serves at the pleasure of the PM. Najib should understand that people expect their ministers to act with sense and speak with intelligence.
His home minister does not measure up in either category.
* Othman Wahab reads The Malaysian Insider.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider
