The Penanti by-election is a necessity evil that awaits Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. This by-election will, in fact, be his first acid test since becoming the prime minister of Malaysia.

The nation awoke on the Sunday morning of April 19, surprised to hear the excuse given by Najib it is going to waste a lot of public funds if Barisan Nasional were to contest the by-election. This is, to say the least, a lame excuse given by the BN leader.

Given that the money will not flow out of the country, whatever is spent will help to prime up the country's economic activities. If anything at all, it will benefit the traders when the town is visited by political bigwigs from both BN and Pakatan Rakyat.

Certainly, no one is going to buy such a cheap excuse. To most Malaysians, one more by-election is not going to cost the country any more than the hundreds of millions paid as commission to a company for the purchase of the country's first submarines.

The question is not whether it was a ploy by Anwar Ibrahim or PR to force its state assembly person Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin to resign. If he had been caught for corruption, he should also face the music like any other state assembly persons.

Fairus had to resign because there are issues involving his position as deputy chief minister. This is the kind of integrity and governance that the rakyat would like to see in this country.

As a matter of fact, the two state assembly persons in Perak, accused of corruption and who jumped over to the BN fold, should have been asked to resign to enable by-elections to resolve the Perak political crisis.

One wonders why the BN leaders have failed to remove the black sheep from within their fold.

It is also on record that the former Bukit Selambau state assembly person, V Arumugam, was forced to resign, not by his own party, but because his life was, in fact, threatened by people who wanted to destabilise the Kedah state government.

This is what the rakyat truly despises, especially with the latest drama that destablised the Perak state government. We have seen that in a country where the people are all set to see bigger changes in the political landscape, even a newcomer can win a by-election against the BN candidate.

This happened at Bukit Selambau despite the presence of Umno veteran and Pak Lah's biggest critic, Dr Mahathir Mohamad. It shows that the people are solidly backing Pakatan Rakyat to form the next government.

Anwar Ibrahim's own daughter who contested in the last general elections also beat veteran Umno Wanita leader, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, while Loh Gwo Burne and Hannah Yeoh also easily defeated their opponents from BN.

If anything, the political climate in this country has changed. Yet, within less than 24 hours after Najib told the world that BN might not contest Penanti by-election, Mahathir did not fail to criticise his protégé once again for not leading BN to contest the Penanti by-election.

The world is waiting to see how the new prime minister responds to Mahathir's challenge. Will Najib fall out with his predecessor the way how Pak Lah did? Will he prove himself to be another ‘weak' prime minister - a puppet-on-the-string - who would rather bow to the pressure from his mentor than form an opinion of his own?

Najib and his deputy should know better on how they should handle the Penanti by-election.