COMMENT Today, Najib Razak celebrates his 7th anniversary as prime minister of Malaysia, a position he assumed in 2009. I’m compelled to think that only for that year, April 3 was the real April Fool’s Day. Malaysians were the fools.

In my article for the book ‘Tipping Points’ (edited by Oon Yeoh) in which I assessed Najib’s first 100 days as prime minister, I raised serious doubt about his ability to run the country. I also questioned his slogan ‘1Malaysia’ which was supposedly aimed at uniting the people. I said it would end up being an empty slogan.

I repeated my criticism of it shortly afterwards in an article for Malaysiakini. It was in relation to a speech he had made at the 2009 Umno General Assembly...