Najib Tun Razak today said BN had made “mistakes” in Selangor and has apologised.

"We admit we might have made some mistakes which caused the people to not support us (BN). But we have learnt from our past mistakes and apologise to the people of Selangor if we had made mistakes.    

klang hokkien association najib cny 060212 "And we pledge that as a result, and our awareness on it, we will rise up with renewed vigour to change the landscape of Selangor so that under the BN, we will move forward to a future that is much better," he said when launching the Selangor BN election machinery in Port Klang.     

In his speech which lasted about 30 minutes, Najib, who is also Selangor BN chairman, said since two weeks ago, he had gone down to the ground in Perak, Melaka and Kedah and today was in Selangor, and found the mood in the country now was for the BN to win big when the general election comes.      

The heavy rain that fell before the prime minister's arrival at around 5pm did not dampen the morale of the BN supporters present to hear the message from Najib, who was on a one-day visit to Selangor.     

Calling the crowd "Selangor BN's army", Najib said the BN could wrest back Selangor if the "army" was beefed up further, courageous, smart and willing to work harder than anyone else.     

"The spirit is there, the objectives are clear, the planning is in place...everything is in our favour...let us sound the battle-cry," said Najib in full fervour to thunderous applause from the crowd.     

Najib also said BN members must accept the top leadership's decision in selecting candidates for the coming general election and give their full support to those chosen when it was called.     

"Don't sabotage our own party, because if we do that, it is like scoring an own goal, and when this happens we will lose and then we will have only ourselves to blame," stressed the prime minister.        

"Four years (under the opposition in Selangor) is enough, let's not give them another term because it will be difficult to win back the state after that. This is our best chance to return Selangor to the BN," he said.    

Najib also reminded the candidates to look after the interests of all races and not just any particular race as this would be the basis in ensuring victory for the BN.     

According to him, the BN's fighting spirit took a beating after the political tsumani in the last general election (2008).     

"But in this four years, we have rebuilt the BN election machinery, our fighting sprit is back and we are raring to go," he said.

Goodies for S’gor Indians

Najib meanwhile announced several key initiatives for the Indian community which included the construction of new classroom blocks for National-Type Tamil Primary Schools (SJKTs) in Kapar and Klang and additional places for Indian students at matriculation colleges in the country.    

The prime minister said enough allocations would be provided for the construction of a new block for SJKT Methodist in Kapar as requested by the school's management and parents of the students there.     

In his speech before a crowd exceeding 20,000 people from the community who had gathered for a Ponggal (Indian harvest festival) celebration, Najib said the government was also looking into building three school blocks needed by SJKT Simpang Lima in Klang.     

"The construction of the three blocks is to accomodate the increasing enrolment at the first Tamil cluster school in the country," he said when addressing the crowd at the TNB quarters Kilat Club field.     

Najib also announced that the intake of Indian students at matriculation colleges would be increased from 559 now to more than 1,500 for the 2012/2013 academic term.     

Also present were the prime minister's wife Rosmah Mansor, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim and MIC president G Palanivel.

Dr M: Beware ‘foreign intervention’

Meanwhile former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the Arab regime change riding on the wave of patriotic fervour will not guarantee a lasting peace and stability for it was driven by foreign intervention.     

He said it was a misplaced conception to think that a regime change aided by foreign powers and media campaign as patriotism for they have implicit agenda on the region.     

Foreign powers played a big role in helping anti-government uprisings in the countries considered not protecting the people and acting against their (foreign powers) best interests, he said in his talk on patriotic and politics at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak today.     

Dr Mahathir said any country that changed the government through foreign intervention would not be free from the clutches of foreign powers.     

- Bernama