Despite the enthusiastic support it has received from the public, the Save Malaysia movement is unlikely to meet its objective of ousting Prime Minister Najib Razak, at least not until the general election.

The campaign is being pushed by some strange bedfellows who, if not for their common opposition to Najib’s leadership, would be at each other’s throats.

Still, a month after they first held hands for the cameras, the people behind the movement did so again at the much anticipated People’s Congress last Sunday. The movement has since garnered more than 100,000 signatures for its Citizens’ Declaration.

At the Sunday meeting, the movement’s leader, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, said that if millions signed the declaration, then the Yang diPertuan Agong would have to accept it. However, he acknowledged that the Malay rulers did not have the power to remove Najib and that the movement was asking for something extra-constitutional. He said he hoped the rulers would listen to the movement’s “extraordinary” petition.

It is not impossible for Mahathir and his new found friends to get more than a million signatures, perhaps even a few million, but is there a magic number that will compel the King to ask Najib to resign?

Will it even matter?

Najib’s enemies have thrown the sink at him and still he stands. He is in for the long haul and the bulk of Umno’s more than three million members have shown no sign that they are going to abandon their president.

It must be pointed out that removing Najib alone will not fix the country’s problems. Real reforms are needed in this country and it does not start with Najib’s removal because Najib’s replacement would come from the same system that produced him. At the end of the day, Umno will still be the biggest party around, with or without Najib.

The only way to effect reforms is to change the government and this can and must only be done through a general election.

If Mahathir’s movement really wants to save Malaysia, it should be focusing its efforts on taking on and defeating the Umno-led BN government in the next general election as a political entity rather than take long shots with exercises in futility.

However, it is unlikely that the leaders of the Save Malaysia campaign can ever cooperate on anything other than removing Najib, let alone become a united political entity. If that happens, it would truly be extraordinary.