MP SPEAKS Perhaps those were premier Najib Abdul Razak’s chosen moments.

The moment when tens of thousands of people turned Dataran Merdeka green.

The moment when hundreds of Indian Malaysians called for their rights to be protected.

The moment when scores more turned up at the field in Petaling Jaya to demonstrate against the National Education Blueprint .

It was a weekend of protest in Malaysia.

NONE And interestingly they didn't just demonstrate against core issues but also against Umno and BN rule. It was strong resistance against a corrupt and morally bankrupt federal government which has continuously ignored the rights of the people.

Malaysians have changed since the 2008 general election which was a slap in the face of the ruling coalition which has governed with impunity over decades. The rakyat are now vocally airing their demands, their rights and their aspirations.

This politically maturing society should sit well with the reform agenda of Najib, who parrots his ‘People First, Performance Now’ slogan. But that's not the case.

Protesters are met with bully-boy police personnel who do not hesitate to employ violence against unarmed people.

And their demands have gone largely unheeded - for a clean-up of the electoral system which is ridden with irregularities; a revamp of the education system; a clean and transparent government; independent monitoring of the police force; equal distribution of wealth; the elimination of race-based policies; a judiciary with integrity … the list goes on.

The Umno-led federal government has largely turned a blind eye to these demands.

azlan It has gone after dissidents with a vengeance, accused the opposition of engineering people’s movements, and used force to threaten and intimidate the people.

Najib, his cabinet ministers and the police, who have gone to the mat one too many times for the government, have repeatedly failed to realise they are insulting the people by believing that opposition politicians are doing the thinking for them. They have underestimated the power of the people.

What will Najib do?

Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur was cordoned off over the weekend to ‘green’ marchers, and a notice by Mayor Ahmad Phesal Talib screamed ‘this place is closed for all activities’. And apparently this was due to renovation works.

himpunan hijau green walk dataran sealed 251112 2 The cordon was not breached but the protest message was sent loud and clear - that the operations of the Australian miner, Lynas, must stop immediately.

The government and Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) do not seem to learn from tragedies. Severe birth defects and eight cases of leukaemia in five years in a community of 11,000 people are the consequences of having allowed similar operations at the Asian Rare Earth factory in northern Perak.

The clean-up cost of the factory and dump site is estimated to be US$100 million, the largest in the rare earths industry. But 30 years later, the government is once again game to play with the lives of people.

azlan The radioactive waste to be produced from the Lynas operations in Gebeng, Kuantan, will be dangerous because it is removed from the ground and concentrated by mechanical and chemical processes.

And Australia has said Lynas cannot ship back the waste material.

The AELB, which initially said it is giving Lynas a temporary operating licence on the basis that the waste would be shipped back to Australia, has kept mum.

In all, it was a rather unpleasant weekend for Najib. But these are real issues that the prime minister must seriously consider as the people will not tolerate any more dreck from Najib and his government.

But the question here is: How will Najib will respond to his chosen moments?

CHARLES SANTIAGO is the DAP’s member of parliament for Klang.