Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has said that he will honour a pledge to abolish the sedition act following a hotly contested election in May.
"We will amend the act but we want to keep Malaysia peaceful and harmonious," Mr Najib told BBC World News.
He said that the law was only used against those who undermined stability.
Mr Najib had promised to repeal the sedition law last year along with other security legislation that dates from the British colonial era.
The Malaysian opposition says that the prime minister has used the sedition law to make needless arrests. It says the continuing delay in repealing it proves that Mr Najib is not an "honourable man".
News article and Video of the interview here as Najib is grilled by BBChttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23145379
Having taken office in 2009 with pledges of reform, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said he now intends to hasten their implementation and see the far-reaching changes come into effect.
Chief among these are the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) and Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) that are intended to address citizens’ concerns about how the country is being run -
Now, Najib said it was time to speed up their delivery.
“For my current term, I will focus on accelerating the process of transforming Malaysia,” Najib told the Financial Times in a London interview yesterday. “We have been given the mandate to ensure the GTP and ETP are fully implemented.”
“I want to prove the point that we can make changes from within. We can transform the government and the economy, as well as democracy in Malaysia,” Najib said in the interview.
Najib acknowledged an “unhealthy social polarisation” in the country.
“The way forward for Malaysia is a set of policies that can be accepted by all Malaysians, and be fair to all,” Najib added.
“If a set of policies satisfies one community but not another, then we will never achieve national consensus.
Malaysia needs to maintain an annual growth of about 6 per cent in order to achieve this target, and has so far remained close to the target.
Of greater concern is the mounting debt levels, both public and private, that could derail the progress.
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