Dr M's bridge may be crooked but Najib is worse - his HEART is crooked

PETALING JAYA - Political analyst Shahbudin Husin has denounced Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak as a man with a “crooked heart”, basing his judgement on former premier Mahathir Mohamad’s recent statements regarding the so-called “crooked bridge” between Malaysia and Singapore.

Referring to Najib’s recent TV3 interview, Shahbudin said the Prime Minister had ended up “stabbing himself” in his attempt to imply that Mahathir had a selfish interest in insisting that the bridge be built.

Mahathir, in a recent interview, denied that he had any personal interest in the proposed project, challenging his accusers to check on this. He said he wanted the bridge built in the interest of Johor’s economic future.

Mahathir has also alleged that Najib had promised to follow through with the project and that when the former PM asked him about it sometime afterwards, he gave the excuse that there was an agreement between Singapore and Malaysia pertaining to the Causeway that prevented the building of the bridge.

In an interview published online yesterday, Mahathir said he asked Najib to show the agreement, implying that there could not have been any such agreement.

After that meeting, according to Mahathir, Najib did not speak with him for six months.

Shahbudin comments that Najib was rash in giving the excuse. “Did he forget that Mahathir was Prime Minister for 22 years and would have known about such an agreement if there was one?”

He also reminds Najib that the Sultan of Johor had made a call in 2010 that the project be revived.

“It’s clear that in bringing up the question of the crooked bridge, Najib has stabbed and shamed himself,” he said.

“Mahathir has exposed him as someone who doesn’t keep his promise, who would make up excuses by saying something he could not prove, and someone who would treat a revered person shabbily by avoiding him for six months.”

He said Najib’s predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who also had tense relations with Mahathir, “was not so hard-hearted; he did not give Mahathir the cold shoulder”.

Considering the latest revelations by Mahathir, Shahbudin says, one cannot blame members of the public for seeing Najib as a “crooked-hearted” man. - FMT