 |
"Essentially, it's a call you have to make on the basis of a feel-good factor, and that's when you press the button," Najib told the Wall Street Journal, noting that the Government had to fulfil its promises to the people.
"You can have all the polling numbers but you must have the sense that this is the right time. I hope it will be the right time soon enough, but we still have not delivered on our promises and it's important for people to have the feeling that the reforms we have promised will actually benefit them," he said.
Najib acknowledged that the deteriorating global economic environment, especially with Europe's debt crisis, could be a factor on when to dissolve parliament.
"But so far we are still quite comfortable because our exposure to the EU in terms of total trade is only about 9 per cent.So, we are less vulnerable".
"But a Euro-zone collapse or some other catastrophe there will affect the whole world," he said.
The general election has to be called before April 2013, but speculation has been rife that it could be held in the coming months.
Acknowledging the recent acquittal of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of the sodomy charge, Najib also said it underscored the depth of the reform process.
"It shows that, as chief executive of the country, I don't interfere in the judiciary," Najib said.
Anwar was acquitted last week on a charge of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.
The judge ruled that there was a lack of corroborative evidence in the two-year long trial to penalise the former deputy prime minister.
Once the verdict was released, "all of the tension surrounding the trial suddenly fell away and people suddenly realised that there are more important things than just the Anwar issue".
"What is important now is that we move forward," Star newspaper quoted Najib as saying
No comments:
Post a Comment