Window for Najib to hold 14GE this year closing as UMNO/BN leaders panic over serious challenge by Pakatan Harapan, after finalizing new structure and leadership line-up,  to topple Najib and UMNO/BN in Putrajaya

It was panic stations for UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers for the last three days.

They just did not believe that it was possible for Pakatan Harapan leaders to resolve their differences and for  the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council to conclude   its Thursday night meeting fruitfully and productively, with a midnight media conference and announcement of the new Pakatan Harapan structure, logo  and leadership line-up.

UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers never believed that a reconciliation  between Mahathir and Anwar Ibrahim was at all possible!

This was why in the initial panic responses, UMNO/BN leaders and propagandists forgot their false but  carefully contrived “black ops” demonization campaign of lies, fake news and concocted  stories to picture DAP has the evil force dominating and running the Pakatan Harapan with me as the “dictator of dictators” who had made the leaders of PKR, Amanah and Pribumi Bersatu, namely Mohamad Sabu, Azmin Ali, Rafizi Ramli, Nurul Izzah, Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad into my stooges and puppets, completely at my “beck and call” and obedient to my  every directive and wish.

The Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak, was so shocked that he  shot off an immediate statement  demanding an explanation for the  absence of the DAP leaders in the top three positions in the Pakatan Harapan, asking whether the DAP had been sidelined.

How can the DAP be sidelined, when according to the “black ops” propaganda campaign of the UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers for the past few years, the DAP was the mastermind of every action and step among the Opposition parties – presumably including every action taken by PAS leaders when PAS was in Pakatan Rakyat before the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang  buried Pakatan Rakyat at the June 2015 PAS Muktamar?

It just never occurred to UMNO/BN leaders that the Pakatan Harapan is a different creature from Barisan Nasional, in that the former is a genuine coalition of equal parties based on  consensus among them while the latter is a fake coalition where UMNO exercises political hegemony, deciding unilaterally the Barisan Nasional policies and directions.

The  new Pakatan Harapan structure, logo and leadership line-up so unhinged UMNO/BN leaders that several UMNO leaders went into hysteria.

UMNO Minister for Rural and Regional Development, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob  for instance raised  the spectre of a non-Malay from DAP as  Prime Minister, uttering gibberish like:

“In the end, we Malays will be split into three if this happens, if they (the opposition) form the government , DAP will have the most seats, and constitutionally, they are entitled to decide who will be prime minister.

“If Lim Guan Eng wants to become prime minster, then he will be (if the opposition wins). If they don’t dare to put Guan Eng (as prime minister), they can put up a Malay, but it will be a Malay like the Selangor menteri besar, who cannot make decisions because everything is controlled by Teresa Kok, Hannah Yeoh and whomever.”

The Foreign Minister, Datuk Seri Anifah Aman warned Barisan Nasional supporters to expect revenge if the opposition forms the next government.

Trying to salvage the runaway situation, the UMNO Youth Leader and Minister for Youth and Sports, Khairy Jamaluddin, invented a new “black ops” propaganda line, claiming that DAP, as “the party which holds the most parliamentary seats in Dewan Rakyat will decide on the Pakatan Harapan’s policies and manifestos”.

Let me assure them that the DAP is not sidelined in Pakatan Harapan, that no single political party can decide and dictate the Pakatan Harapan’s polices and manifestos, and that there will no revenge binge by Pakatan Harapan when it forms the Federal Government in Putrajaya.

The initial UMNOI/BN shock reactions have now worn off  and we can now see a new  carefully-crafted propaganda strategy – to run down the Mahathir-Anwar reconciliation and to forecast  that Pakatan Harapan is doomed to failure when it is in fact the greatest  challenge to  Malaysians to elect a new Federal Government in  Putrajaya to re-set national policies and directions.

But the palpable fear that the days of UMNO/BN coalition in Putrajaya are numbered are evident from the reactions of UMNO leaders, whether the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister or in particular the Communications and Multimedia Minister.

Something is very wrong when Najib had to go to Sembrong to ensure that his cousin and whom Najib clearly  prefers to be his successor as Prime Minister. Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, could retain his parliamentary seat!

Datuk Zahid Hamidi should realise by now that his infamous comparison of the Pakatan Harapan leadership line-up  as “three captains with different route maps” makes no sense whatsoever on serious reflection.

But it is  Salleh Said Keruak’s latest statement that “Without PAS, Harapan’s Putrajaya hopes doomed” is most revealing of all – for Salleh is  actually trying to assure the UMNO/Barisan grassroots members that  they should not abandon a sinking ship but continue to  hope that  UMNO/BN could still be re-elected as the Federal Government in the 14th General Election!

No wonder Najib and UMNO had been working so hard to woo the support of  the PAS leadership, and it can be said without fear of contradiction that never had a PAS President been so close to the UMNO President as Hadi with Najib – even closer than the relationship between the previous PAS President, Tan Sri Asri Musa with Najib’s father, Tun Razak, when PAS was in Barisan Nasional from 1973 – 1978.

Salleh claimed that Pakatan Harapan’s dream of taking over Putrajaya in the 14th General Election is dissipating without the support of PAS.

Salleh does not seem to know that Pakatan Harapan had been formed without PAS since Sept 2015, but he is clearly worried about the re-ignition of new hopes among Malaysian voters that  it is possible  effect political change in Putrajaya in the 14GE as a result of the new Pakatan Harapan structure, logo and leadership line-up.

I believe Najib has not completely given up the option of holding the 14GE this year, but the new Pakatan Harapan structure, logo and leadership line-up have upset Najib’s plans for the 14GE, as Malaysian voters can hope again that it is possible to end UMNO/BN federal rule in the next general election.

Najib is now in the classic Hamlet role in Shakespeare’s plays – to be or not to be, to call or not to call general election this year.

The  window for Najib to decide whether to hold 14GE this year is closing in the next few weeks, in the midst of a new development which is causing panic among UMNO/BN leaders and propagandists because there is a new air in Malaysian politics – that Malaysian voters can again hope and work for political change in Putrajaya in the 14GE!

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 July 2017, 6:30 am and is filed under
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1MDB scandal and Malaysia as global kleptocracy are  potent  signs that something is very wrong and even rotten in Malaysia and that the nation has lost its moral moorings of its  founding years of Merdeka and Malaysia

Yesterday was the eighth anniversary of the murder of an idealistic young Malaysian, Teoh Beng Hock in Shah Alam, who died because of a  baseless allegation of corruption  involving RM2,400 for 1,500 Malaysian flags used in the Merdeka celebrations in 2008, where the institutions of state were misused by the powers-that-be to persecute political opponents.

If a RM2,400 case could cost a life to be lost, how many lives should be lost over the 1MDB financial scandal?

The 1MDB scandal, which catapulted Malaysia into stratospheric infamy as a global kleptocracy, is one of astronomical proportion and could involve RM50 to RM55 billion – which means that  some 100 million people (more than three times the population of Malaysia) would have to die if a person’s life could be lost over a RM2,400 allegation.

This highlights the monstrosity of the 1MDB scandal!

Recently, there were glowing reports about the benevolence  of one 1MDB mastermind, Penang billionaire Jho Low, who donated hundreds of millions of ringgit to charitable foundations.

This was also about the time when the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared that “Not everything about the 1MDB is bad or negative” and lamented that  many Malaysians were  unaware that 1MDB had contributed a lot of good in many ways, like spending RM57 million since 2011  to finance 5,700 Malaysians to perform the haj.

Nobody knows what are the total debts which had been piled up by 1MDB, which eventually would have to be paid by future generations of Malaysians.

This is because the last accounts of 1MDB to be audited and published was up to the end of March 2014, with three years of outstanding 1MDB accounts from 2014 to 2017 a mystery even to Cabinet Ministers!

The total debts of 1MDB could be in the region of RM50 – RM55 billion, which would put the RM56 million allocated by 1MDB to sponsor pilgrims to Mecca in the past six years since 2011 a mere drop in the ocean as it represents only a paltry 0.1 per cent of the total 1MDB debts.

If 1MDB had allocated 1% of its total debts to sponsor pilgrims to perform haj in Mecca, then 57,100 Muslims and not just 5,711 persons would have benefitted, with the total allocation in the region of RM560 million and not just RM56 million.

In fact, the  RM117 million (US$27.3 million) 22-carat rare pink diamond necklace stolen from 1MDB funds by Jho Low and given to the “wife of MO1” would be able by itself  to immediately sponsor over 11,000 haj pilgrims from Malaysia – not just 5,711 pilgrims in six years!

Today, another Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri bin Aziz claimed ignorance of the identity of “MO1”, asking “Who the hell is MO1?”

Asked about another Minister, Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan’s open admission at a BBC interview last September that “MO1” is none other than Najib, Nazri said “as far as we know, MO1 is nobody. Even that (Rahman saying Najib is MO1) is just speculation. It’s not factual.”

Nazri is not the only Minister who had publicly declared ignorance about the identity of “M01”.

Last month, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein cast doubts when asked about Rahman’s claim that “MO1” was Najib, saying: “For all we know it could be anyone. ‘MOI’ could be (second Finance Minster) Johari Ghani.”

Everybody in this ceramah of over a thousand people know who is “MO1” and “wife of MO1”,  and Malaysians must ask why there are so many “idiots” in the 35-strong Cabinet – as many  Ministers have claimed such ignorance like the Minister for Rural and Regional Development, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, the Minister for Housing and Local Government, Tan Sri Noh Omar and the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong.

These Ministers have publicly stated that they did not know who is “MO1” despite Rahman’s categoricial statement that “only an idiot doesn’t know who that person was”.

Malaysians must ask why, by Rahman’s own definition,  there are so many “idiots” in the Malaysian Cabinet, and why there is a higher proportion of “idiots” in the Cabinet as compared to the population at large!

The international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal and Malaysia becoming a  global kleptocracy in a short span of a few years  are the most powerful evidence that something is very wrong and even rotten in Malaysia, as they are potent signs that the nation has lost its moral moorings of its  founding years of Merdeka and Malaysia.

Malaysians have betrayed both the Malaysian Constitution and  the Rukunegara principles or Malaysia would not have become a global kleptocracy.

How could Malaysia become a global kleptocracy if Malaysians had stayed true and loyal to the Malaysian Constitution,  where Islam is proclaimed at the official religion with freedom of religion for the great religions which have found a home in Malaysia – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikkhism and Taoism?

How could Malaysia become a global kleptocracy if Malaysians had stayed true and loyal to the five principles of Rukunegara, in particular on Belief in God, Upholding the Constitution, Rule of Law and Good Behaviour and Morality?

In the 13th General Election in 2013, the majority of Malaysian voters wanted  a change of Federal government in Putrajaya, and if the electoral system had been democratic, fair and just effecting a change of Federal Government in accordance with the democratic will of the majority of 53% of the electorate, Malaysia would not have landed up as a global kleptocracy today.

In the past four years, the hopes and confidence of Malaysians that the electoral system is capable of effecting far-reaching political change fell to a low-point, with the results of the 13GE, the disintegration of Pakatan Rakyat with the betrayal of PAS in deviating from the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework and the seeming inability of the rest of the Opposition Parties to present a united and cohesive front.

All this pessimism have dissipated in the past four days with the resolution of the differences in Pakatan Harapan and the announcement of the structure, logo and leadership line-up of the Pakatan Harapan coalition of DAP, PKR, Amanah and Pribumi Bersatu.

In the last four days, there is a new air, hope and confidence among Malaysians, who  have re-ignited hope and confidence that the 14th General Election is capable of installing in Putrajaya a new Federal government  from Pakatan Harapan to replace UMNO/Barisan Nasional as well as to replace Najib as Prime Minister.

Malaysians owe it  to our children and children’s children, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans or Orang Asli, to unite as one as Malaysians and to tell the nation and the world that Malaysia does not want to be a global kleptocracy, but to reclaim our heritage as declared in the Merdeka and Malaysia Proclamations in 1957 and 1963 that we “shall be for ever a sovereign democratic and independent State founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of its people and the maintenance of a just peace among all nations”.

(Speech at the Pakatan Harapan Ceramah ‘Sayangi Malaysia, Hapus Kleptokrasi’ at IDCC, Section 15, Shah Alam on Monday, July 17, 2017 at 10 pm)

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 July 2017, 9:07 am and is filed under
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Mahathir effect threatens Umno vote bank

Shannon Teoh

Straits Times Singapore

JULY 18, 2017

Umno ratcheted up the racial rhetoric last weekend, highlighting concerns within the ruling party that its grip on the crucial Malay vote bank could slip after Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad formally took charge of the opposition last Friday.

The former prime minister led the dominant Malay party for 22 years before retiring in 2003 and, despite misgivings from civil society, the opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH) alliance aims to use the 92-year-old’s influence to break Umno’s stranglehold on the Malay community that makes up the majority in more than half of the parliamentary districts.

With a general election due in a year’s time, politicians and analysts expect to see increased pandering to Malay-Muslim insecurities in the coming months.

On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said polls would be held after September, amid speculation that Prime Minister Najib Razak would call an election after the Aug 19-30 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.

“Umno has to work extra hard to defend its turf as Barisan Nasional’s (BN) ethnic minority parties have so far not mounted a credible challenge against the opposition… leading to a more racially tinged campaign from both sides,” Vriens & Partners political analyst Adib Zalkapli told The Straits Times.

PH comprises Anwar Ibrahim’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Dr Mahathir’s Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Amanah Negara.

Observers were expecting the lion’s share of the Malay votes to go to the Umno-led BN and Parti Islam SeMalaysia, which left the opposition in 2015 after accusing Chinese- dominated DAP of being anti-Islam. But Dr Mahathir’s pre-eminence has reset calculations and reignited the battle for Malay support.

Umno got the ball rolling immediately last weekend, insisting that Dr Mahathir was only a puppet, and that the DAP held the real power in the PH as it had the most lawmakers among the four PH partners.

“This is how the opposition clouds the matter. If DAP is not the leader, they are pretending. How can the party with the least seats become the leader?” said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim, referring to the fact that PPBM has only one MP.

Rural and Regional Development Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob also warned that “we Malays will be split into three… DAP will have the most seats and, constitutionally, they are entitled to decide who will be prime minister”.

Datuk Seri Najib took a more nuanced approach by asking his former boss, Dr Mahathir, to take a clear stance on the repeated charges of sexual misconduct against Anwar, who is currently in jail after a 2015 conviction for sodomy, considered highly taboo for Muslims.

“Does Dr Mahathir still stand by his 1998 statement accusing Anwar of unnatural acts? He even said Anwar was a leader without honour, and cannot lead the country,” said Mr Najib, referring to what Dr Mahathir had said when he sacked Anwar, who was deputy prime minister, that year.

DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang dismissed the attacks, mocking Umno for panicking over PH’s new leadership structure, where top positions are taken by Malay leaders. Anwar is de facto leader, his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail is the president and Dr Mahathir, the chairman.

“We can now see a new carefully crafted propaganda strategy – to run down the Mahathir-Anwar reconciliation,” said Mr Lim.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 July 2017, 6:28 pm and is filed under
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Will Parliament be dissolved after Najib presents his 2018 budget of goodies on Oct. 27?

Sitting on stage with Tun Dr.  Mahathir Mohamad at the Pakatan Harapan Ceramah “Sayangi Malaysia, Hapus Kleptokrasi” at IDCC in Shah Alam last night, I told the former Prime Minister that the current  Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak may be taking a leaf from his  premiership in 1999 and dissolve Parliament after he had presented his 2018 budget of goodies on Oct. 27, 2017 for the holding of the 14th General Election  – which was what Mahathir did for the 10th General Election after presenting the 2000 budget on Oct. 28, 1999, dissolving Parliament in the midst of parliamentary debate on the new budget on 10th November with  Nomination  on 20th Nov and Polling on 29th Nov. 1999.

The speech by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi at the UMNO Hari Raya open house  that the next general election would not take place in the next three months dovetailed into the possibility that the 14th General Election could be held after the presentation of the 2018 Budget in Parliament on Oct. 27.

One indication that the 14th  general election could be held this year rather than next is the announcement by the Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Datuk Razali Ismail that good news await the Felda community with Najib expected  to announce, among others, measures to be taken by the government to help reduce the financial burdens of Felda settlers at the 2017 Felda Settler’s celebration this Sunday.

Yesterday, the Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak said that the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) national project might be costly, but it is Najib’s “gift” to the people of Malaysia.

This is of course a very cock-eyed argument, for the money did not come from Najib’s private pockets but from funds from the Treasury.

On the basis of Salleh’s logic, the iconic twin Towers are a “gift” from Mahathir to the people of Malaysia – and if so, how can Salleh be leading  pack of propaganda hounds to keep barking at Mahathir?

Malaysians do not need any gift from Najib, but only good governance and accountability, especially with regard to the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal which has plunged Malaysia into the infamy of a global kleptocracy.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 July 2017, 1:13 pm and is filed under
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If Apandi is so God-fearing, he should not be Attorney-General of a global kleptocracy

Replying to the former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who said at the Pakatan Harapan Ceramah “Sayangi Malaysia, Hapus Kleptokrasi” in Shah Alam on Monday night that if Pakatan Harapan forms the government after the next general election, it would summon the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali over the allegation that he used the Official Secrets Act (OSA) to hide evidence in the 1MDB scandal, Apandi replied:

“I do not fear anyone, including Mahathir. I don’t fear human beings, but I fear Allah.”

If Apandi is so God-fearing, he should not be Attorney-General of a global kleptocracy.

Let me remind Apandi of the following Quranic injunctions:

“Do not act wickedly in the land spreading corruption, disorder or mischief. [Quran 2.60]”;

“Do not confound the truth with falsehood, nor knowingly hide the truth [Quran 2.42]”.

Yesterday, Mahathir challenged the Prime Minister, Datuk Najib Razak to join him at the “Nothing to Hide 2.0” forum next month in answering allegations of misconduct in their respective premierships.

Mahathir said he will be answering all questions asked of him, including whether he himself had stolen any public funds.

He said Najib should attend, too, and give answers or make accusations against him.

Mahathir said: “We will give explanations to everyone.”

It would appear that Najib’s answer to Mahathir’s challenge is the announcement of the membership and terms of reference of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI)into the Bank Negara forex losses a quarter of a century ago.

Up to now, Najib has failed to respond to the question uppermost in everybody’s mind, why there is  a RCI into Bank Negara forex losses a quarter of a century ago, but no RCI into a bigger, more monstrous and  very current financial scandal, the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal which made Malaysia overnight into a global kleptocracy?

Why “nothing to hide” investigation into the Bank Negara forex losses a quarter of a century ago but no “nothing to hide” investigation into the 1MDB international money-laundering scandal which had made Malaysia into a global kleptocracy?

It would appear  from the three-month time-frame for the RCI to complete its inquiry, that the RCI into the Bank Negara forex losses was specially tailored for the 14th General Election to help Najib fight Mahathir.

This will be another gross abuse of powers by Najib, his Cabinet and his Attorney-General in having a RCI into Bank Negara forex losses a quarter of a century ago but not a RCI into a greater and more monstrous financial scandal.

What Najib and his Cabinet should do is to also have a RCI into the 1MDB scandal with a similar time-frame to finish investigations within three months!

(Media Statement in Putrajaya on Wednesday, 19th July 2017)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 July 2017, 10:25 am and is filed under
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Questions for Najib on the indictment of two French executives in connection with graft over Scorpene submarine sale to Malaysia fifteen years ago in  2002

I have several questions for the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on the indictment of two French executives in connection with graft over the Scorpene submarine sale to Malaysia fifteen years ago in 2002.

Firstly, did the Cabinet discuss the subject at its weekly meeting today, as there was ample time for a report on the matter to be made to the Cabinet, and if so, what is the outcome of the Cabinet discussion.

Secondly, are  the Attorney-General Chambers, the Police and the Malaysian Anti-Co0rruption Commission re-opening investigations into corruption allegations connected with the French Scorpene submarine  sale to Malaysia in 2012, and if not, why not.

Thirdly, if the government can set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate into the Bank Negara foreign exchange losses some 25 years ago, why is the government not setting  up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into corruption allegations in the Scorpene submarine deal fifteen years ago; and if this was because the Prime Minister himself, who was the Defence Minister at the time, would be the subject of investigations into the Scorpene submarine corruption deal?

Is Najib prepared to subject himself to full corruption investigations into the Scorpene submarine deal 15 years ago when he was the Defence Minister?

Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported that two French executives who have been charged with corruption of the Scorpene submarine sale to Malaysia are  Phillippe Japiot, former chairperson of French naval dockyards unit DCNI and Jean-Paul Perrier, former chief executive of the French defence and electronics giant Thales.

Japiot is reported to have been  indicted for “abuse of social assets” and Perrier for “complicity in the abuse of social assets”.

Japiot and Perrier joined two other executives who are under investigation in France in the same case – Dominique Castellan, also a former DCNI president, and Bernard Baiocco, former president of Thales International Asia.

Finally, is Najib prepared to present a White Paper to MPs on Monday followed with a wide-ranging debate  when Parliament reconvenes on international corruption allegations in connection with the 2002 US$1.1 billion sale of the two French-made Scorpene submarines to Malaysia?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 July 2017, 5:39 pm and is filed under
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Sad reflection on Najib not so much on Sarifuddin that the propaganda offensive against Mahathir and Pakatan Harapan leaders have reached a new low, scraping the bottom of the barrel, in personal attacks

After 52 years in politics, I thought no propaganda offensive and lies, however bizarre or outlandish, would have surprised me but I was wrong.

I refer to the scurrilous attack by Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s aide, Tengku Sarifuddin Tengku Ahmad on former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, playing on Mahathir’s description of himself as “top dog” of Pakatan Harapan and claiming that in reality the “top dog’s leash in Kit Siang’s hand”.

In my 52 years in Malaysian politics, I had faced six Prime Ministers – Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein Onn, Tun Mahathir Mohamad, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib himself, but I had never descended to the gutter level of making personal attacks on anyone or them, always respecting the highest offices in the land and the personalities involved.

The term “top dog” may not be the most apt and correct term, but it must be regarded as an absolute “No No” in Malaysian politics to have to raid the animal kingdom to lower the bar in personal attacks on political opponents, especially a former Prime Minister who had been the longest-serving premier in the nation’s history!

It is a sad reflection on Najib himself, and not so much on Sarifuddin (who is utterly of no consequence) that the propaganda offensive against Mahathir and Pakatan Harapan leaders have reached such a new depth, scraping the bottom of the barrel, in personal attacks.

In my experience of six Prime Ministers, I have not seen a Prime Minister who has been under such a siege on all fronts as the present one.

Despite herculean efforts and astronomical expenses to present Najib as a respected world leader, the 1MDB scandal has refused to die – on the contrary, becoming even more monstrous in magnitude and criminality with every passing month.

The latest blows were:

Firstly, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ)’s third forfeiture suits totaling US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland derived from funds money-laundered from stolen 1MDB, increased from US$3.5 billion in the initial US DOJ suits last July to US$4.5 billion which also saw US DOJ indictment of the largest kleptocratic suit increasing from 126 pages to 251 pages; and

Secondly, the conviction and imprisonment of the fifth former banker in Singapore, Yeo Jiawei, a wealth planner with BSI Singapore, for embezzlement and money-laundering of 1MDB money.

Before Yeo, four bankers received jail sentences and fines for similar offences in Singaporean courts.

Singapore has also closed down the branches of two foreign banks for moving 1MDB-tainted money.

Singaporean prosecutors have also claimed that about US$1 billion (RM4.3 billion) of 1MDB funds meant for a joint-venture with Arab firm Petro Saudi International Ltd made its way into the bank accounts of Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low.

In Malaysia, the Cabinet, Parliament and top national institutions like the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Police and Bank Negara, all took part in an elaborate charade pretending that the world’s largest kleptocracy scandal and Malaysia being regarded word-wide as a global kleptocracy do not exist.

Nobody dare to ask who is “MO1” or “wife of MO1”, although every informed Malaysian know their identities.

Instead of full accountability and good governance, we have infantile attempts to defend the indefensible, like the utterly inane analogy given by the UMNO Information Chief and former UMNO Minister to justify the 1MDB scandal:

“If I give my son RM10, it is a normal transaction between father and son. But if my son buys drugs with the money and he is caught, then you cannot blame the father.”

I do not think Malaysian educational standards have sunk to such an extent that the current batch of Malaysian students in school could not debunk this high UMNO official’s inane analogy.

This is an occasion  where the saying “When it rains, its pours” is most apt, as apart from the cascading 1MDB international scandal, other Najib scandals like the French indictment of two French executives in connection with graft over the US$1.1 billion Scorpene submarine sale to Malaysia fifteen years ago in 2002 have also come alive.

Last night, Najib told his UMNO division chiefs that a majority of the 1.6 million civil servants are returning to support the Barisan Nasional government.

When and how long did Najib and Barisan Nasional government lose the support of the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants?

Najib is whistling in the dark, for three reasons:

Najib has lost the support of the majority of Malays in the country.

Najib has lost the support of the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants in the country.

Never before in UMNO history has an UMNO President like Najib who have lost the support of a higher percentage of UMNO members – and we are talking about 3.5 million UMNO members.

Najib cannot recover support from these three sectors by getting his aide to scrape the bottom of the barrel to unleash the most personal and scurrilous attacks on Mahathir and Pakatan Harapan leaders.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 20 July 2017, 11:36 am and is filed under
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Malaysia Airlines’ latest losses occurred during Najib’s time

P Gunasegaram

Malaysiakini

18 Jul 2017

A QUESTION OF BUSINESS |
 During electioneering, it is common to make political capital out of everything. Malaysia Airlines Bhd was not spared when Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak blamed one of his “predecessors” at a Hari Raya open house earlier this month for “horrendous decisions”.

He was very obviously referring to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, although he did not name him. But to be fair, Mahathir was not responsible for the latest disaster at Malaysia Airlines. Paradoxically this happened largely during Najib’s time.

This latest disaster which resulted in losses of billions of ringgit and required a RM6 billion injection of capital and privatisation in 2014 by Khazanah Nasional Bhd, the previous major shareholder and now sole shareholder, resulted after Malaysia Airlines was turned around in 2007.

What Najib was referring to was the previous disastrous privatisation of Malaysia Airlines, to a Mahathir-Daim crony Tajudin Ramli who bought a controlling near 30% stake in the airline in 1994 for RM1.8 billion. After mismanaging the airline into the ground, he sold back his stake in the airline to the government – at the same price – in 2000. The market price was less than half that.

Turned around in 2007

Najib’s immediate predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi brought in Idris Jala from Shell to turn around Malaysia Airlines in 2005, the same Idris who would head the Performance Management and Delivery Unit or Pemandu at the PM’s Department in 2009 and join the cabinet.

Two years later, in 2007, Malaysia Airlines had turned around. In Idris’ first year on the job, he reduced the losses to RM133 million and turned the company back into the black with a record profit of RM853 million in 2007, according to this letter written by a former investor relations manager at Malaysia Airlines, Song Eu Jin, to Malaysiakini.

“The profit in 2007 was the highest in MAS’ corporate history and was earned through a massive operational cost reduction of RM745 million as well as on the back of record revenues of RM9.4 billion. The profit numbers were real as reflected in the cash balance at that time of RM5.3 billion which had grown from RM1.5 billion at the end of 2005, when Idris joined MAS (Malaysia Airline’s forerunner),” the letter said.

But in 2009, Idris left Malaysia Airlines to join Najib’s cabinet and head Pemandu. A succession of CEOs after him proved to be incapable and sent the airline down back into losses of billions of ringgit yet again. And no mistake about it, this happened during Najib’s time.

Horrendous decisions but by whom?

This is what Najib said at the open house: “The history of MAS was fraught with, I would say, horrendous decisions in the past. I’m not going down that road but that was a nightmare that was inflicted upon MAS that was done by one of my predecessors.

“But I will put it right. I will make sure MAS recovers and becomes one of the leading airlines in the world,” said Najib to applause from thousands in the audience present at the event. How ironic that is when the latest problems occurred during his time entirely.

I have followed the Malaysia Airlines saga over the years – from the 80s onwards and read up its history before that. Idris did turn the airline around solidly although it incurred a huge hedging loss of RM557 million in 2009 on fuel when fuel prices fell. The contracts had to be marked to market.

The way he did this was to focus on two things – yield and load factor. Yield represents the unit amount that the airline got from selling tickets and load factor is a measure of how much aircraft are filled. The right pricing of seats results in the best combination in terms of unit revenues from seats sold and load factor to maximise revenue.

In practice, this revenue management system is extremely complicated and uses sophisticated computer modelling which critically requires right inputs. That focus helped Malaysia Airlines increase revenues, helped along by an important fact – the airlines’ services were among the best in the world, as measured by Skytrax, the industry standard by which airlines are measured. Skytrax gave five-star status to Malaysia Airlines, with less than two handfuls among hundreds of airlines in the world qualifying.

Meantime, on the cost side, Malaysia Airlines’ was among the lowest in the world for full-service carriers but still advances were made here as well. The combined reduction in costs with an accompanying increase in revenues was what turned Malaysia Airlines around under Idris.

Subsequent CEOs lost focus. They thought budget carrier AirAsia was the competition when Malaysia Airlines was a full-service, five-star airline. Yield dropped, load factors went up too much but still revenues were not enough. Fuel prices continued to climb, exerting further pressure. Revenue management deteriorated.

And then came the two unfortunate crashes of 2014 which depressed revenues even further.

When Khazanah Nasional came in with their recovery programme during and post privatisation in 2014, I was flummoxed – nothing about revenue management, it was about cutting costs. But with unit costs for Malaysia Airlines still among the lowest in the full-service industry, revenue management was the key.

Enter Mueller

Khazanah Nasional went on a worldwide search for a CEO and found Christoph Mueller, a German, who reputedly turned around Ireland’s Aer Lingus. He joined in May 2015. He continued with extreme cost-cutting, shrunk the airline to a regional one, maintaining one flight to Europe, London. He made a deal with Emirates (the airline) for code sharing, all but killing Malaysia Airlines’ more international routes.

I was not impressed with him – turnaround means making unprofitable routes profitable, not cutting them and keeping only profitable ones – any fool can do that and show a profit, albeit a shrunken one which will never recover to the levels seen before. It meant that Malaysia Airlines’ main competitors would be the low-cost airlines – yes, AirAsia again.

Mueller’s cost-cutting would lose Malaysia Airlines five-star rating, one of its main assets. Because of the drop in level of service as a result of severe cutbacks, Malaysia Airlines asked not to be rated anymore. Insiders maintain to me that he was scathing about that rating, saying that many airlines had better service than Malaysia Airlines.

That and the frequent reference to Malaysia Airlines’ previous two crashes – both of which could not be pinned on the airline itself – made me wonder whether he was the best person to be running Malaysia Airlines. On the one hand, he runs down highly-rated services, on the other he makes frequent references to crashes to show his difficult position, both not in the interests of the airline itself.

Barely a year into his three-year tenure, Mueller announced his intention to resign “for personal reasons” but six months later in September 2016, he joined Emirates as chief digital officer, the same airline with which he negotiated the code-share agreement as CEO of Malaysia Airlines. What a conflict of interest!

On balance, my opinion is that Mueller was bad for Malaysia Airlines and I find it difficult to understand why his hiring did not have stringent conditions attached about joining competitor airlines.

His successor Irishman Peter Bellew, who took over in July 2016, was then chief operations officer at Malaysia Airlines. He was hired from low-cost airline Ryanair and had no experience in a full-service airline before that. However, he has said that Malaysia Airlines is trying to regain its 5-star status.

Recently I travelled to and fro London on Malaysia Airlines and the service and quality of food have indeed improved, a good sign. But it will take more than that to successfully turn around Malaysia Airlines.

An inconsequential airline

A targeted profit only in 2018 is rather late in the day given that most airlines made good profits recently because of the sharp drop in fuel prices. Despite all that cost-cutting and low fuel prices, Malaysia Airlines is bleeding. Why?

The answer lies in revenue management – how come Malaysia Airlines fares can be lower than AirAsia’s which is a low-cost airline. Surely that is indication that prices have been too low, especially since load factors remain high? Malaysia Airlines has got revenue management wrong and it still remains suspect.

And then strategy – how can you expect to succeed regionally as a full-service airline when there are so many low-cost airlines in the space? Surely you must try the longer international routes and make them profitable instead.

The times I have flown to London on the airline, the flights were full on the A380s. Yet Malaysia Airlines has plans to downgrade this route using lower capacity, smaller A350s. This will substantially reduce its competitiveness in terms of comfort relative to other major full-service carriers.

One more thing, since privatisation nobody knows how much money Malaysia Airlines is losing and what are its yields and load factors. Its performance has become rather opaque because the quarterly reports are not anything like what it was before when it was publicly listed. That makes it more difficult to make conclusions.

But the way it is going, it may be that Malaysia Airlines may eventually become somewhere between a low-cost and full-service airline, neither here nor there, floundering between small profits and losses – an inconsequential airline in other words.

What a comedown for a once proud brand!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 21 July 2017, 6:17 am and is filed under
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Najib in panic mode

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is in panic mode.

His latest attack of nerves that he would fulfill the “RAHMAN” prophecy as the last UMNO Prime Minister in Malaysia in the 14th General Election came about because of  an unprecedented  concatenation of external and internal developments.

Externally, the 1MDB scandal which had brought Malaysia worst infamy and ill-repute in nation’s history transforming Malaysia  overnight into a global kleptocracy, has just refused to die.

Although Najib had wished in his 2016 New Year Message on 31st December 2015 that his RM50 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion donation twin mega scandals had been resolved an d were no more issues, events have proved that he could not be more wrong.

For almost every month in the past 19 months since Najib’s 2016 New Year Message, the 1MDB scandal, far from disappearing into thin air, has gathered increasing speed, momentum and power  as the biggest  kleptocratic scandal in the world, promising even  to out-live Najib’s premiership.

In July 2016, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its largest kleptocratic lawsuits to forfeit over US$1 billion of 1MDB-linked assets  embezzled from 1MDB funds and money-laundered through American banks, a detailed lawsuit covering some 126 pages which highlighted the role of “MO1”.

Eleven months later, in June 2017, despite the elaborate charade by the Malaysian Government and  key national institutions that there is no such thing as the 1MDB scandal and no 1MDB funds had been lost, US DOJ filed a third series of forfeiture litigation against 1MDB-linked assets, increasing the total worth of the assets targeted for  forfeitures  to US$1.7 billion derived from the embezzlement and money-laundering of some US$4.5 billion 1MDB funds.

The US DOJ forfeiture litigation, spelling out the details of the international web of 1MDB money-laundering, was expanded from 126 pages in July 2016 to 251 pages in June 2017. From “MO1”, the US DOJ suits in June 2017  mentioned “wife of MO1” and the RM117 million 22-carat diamond necklace presented as a gift to “wife of MO1” from embezzled and laundered 1MDB funds.

When US DOJ first filed the kleptocratic forfeiture suits  of 1MDB-linked assets in July 2016,  Barack Obama was the US President.  When US DOJ filed the third series of kleptocratic forfeiture suits of 1MDB-linked assets in June 2017, Donald Trump was the US President.

So much for all the misleading talk and speculation that the US DOJ kleptocratic suits had been politically motivated and could be settled provided there is personal chemistry and magical relations between the occupants of Sri Perdana and the White House.

The next break in the US DOJ investigations into the 1MDB scandal would the criminal charges against the mastermind of 1MDB scandal, Penang billionaire Low Tasek Joh, also known as Jho Low, as reported in the international media earlier this year.

The US action  is part of global investigations from about 10 countries based on billions of dollars embezzled and money-laundered from 1MDB.

There was also recent action in Singapore, with the  conviction and imprisonment of  the fifth former banker in Singapore, Yeo Jiawei, a wealth planner with BSI Singapore, for embezzlement and money-laundering of 1MDB money.

Singapore has also closed down the branches of two foreign banks for moving 1MDB-tainted money.

Yesterday, it was reported that a United Kingdom Opposition MP, Ann Clwyd (Labour)  had tabled an early day motion (EDM) in the House of Commons on the 1MDB scandal.

The motion stated that the House of Commons was alarmed by the allegation of misappropriation that supposedly took place in 1MDB, and encouraged the Malaysian government to allow international observers to be present in the 14th general election.

The immediate question is whether the Malaysian Parliament, which is reconvening on Monday, will stop its “ostrich” stance of “burying its head in the sand” and allow a full debate on the 1MDB scandal, although I have my greatest doubts as I had been suspended from Parliament for six months precisely because I wanted the Prime Minister to give full accounting for the 1MDB scandal.

But the 1MDB scandal is not the only past scandal Najib has to worry about, as another “phantom” has come alive, with the French authorities indicting two French executives in connection with graft over the US$1.1 billion Scorpene submarine sale to Malaysia fifteen years ago in 2002 – when Najib was the Defence Minister!

But Najib’s problems are not merely international ones, but local as well.

I find it  most interesting and intriguing the statement yesterday by the UMNO Secretary-General Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor last night that all 191 UMNO division leaders fully supported  the leadership of Najib as party president and prime minister.

Tengku Adnan said the cohesive support was revealed by the 191 division chiefs in a closed-door meeting with the Prime Minister at Seri Perdana the previous  night – that all  the Umno division heads told the prime minister that they were all behind him for religion, race, and country.

Which UMNO division head would be foolhardy as to say otherwise, even if Najib is  no more his icon?

What is intriguing about Tengku Adnan’s revelation is that it is at this meeting that Najib had told his UMNO division chiefs that a majority of the 1.6 million civil servants were returning to support the Barisan Nasional government.

What is the basis of Najib’s confidence that the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants have returned to the fold of BN?

Najib  now has to face his demons, admit that neither he nor the UMNO/BN coalition are   invincible in the next general election as he has feet of clay, and that he faces three formidable challenges:

– bLoss of support of the majority of Malays in the country.

– Loss of support  of the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants in the country.

– Loss of  the support of the highest percentage of UMNO members (at present, 3.5 million UMNO members) by any UMNO President in UMNO history.

Following the announcement of the Pakatan Harapan structure, logo and line-up on 14th July 2017, Pakatan Harapan stands an opportunity to defeat the UMNO/BN coalition to form the new Federal Government in Putrajaya in the 14th General Election.

This is why Najib is in panic mode.

(Media Conference Statement at Wisma DAP Penang on Friday, 21st July 2017 at 11.15 am)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 21 July 2017, 11:48 am and is filed under
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Each of the 100,000 Felda settlers would be allocated RM70,000 if the US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets which US DOJ wanted to forfeit is allocated among the Felda settlers

The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today announced a special incentive of RM5,000 each for 94,956 Felda families.

The first reaction of Felda citizens is why the special incentive of RM15,000 for each of the Felda families before the 13th General Election has shrunk to only a third of the 2013 amount of RM5,000?

Najib’s announcement makes me think of two things:

Firstly, about the US$23.7 million 22-carat pink diamond necklace which was given to “wife of MO1” by 1MDB scandal mastermind, Penang billionaire Jho Low from money-laundered 1MDB funds. On the basis of RM5,000 special incentive to each of the Felda families, how many Felda families could benefit just from the 22-carat pink diamond necklace?  Easily more than 22,000 Felda families as the pink diamond necklace  cost RM117 million in Malaysian currency.

Secondly, the US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets which the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) wants to forfeit as they were derived from stolen 1MDB funds which were  money-laundered through American banks. If these US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets, which were meant for the people of Malaysia, had been fairly allocated among the 100,000 Felda families, each Felda family would be able to get over RM70,000, converting the US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets into Malaysian currency terms.

There are too many scandals in the country which directly affect the livelihood of Malaysians, whether it be the 1MDB scandal which had given the country the international infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy or the equally monstrous Felda and FGV scandals.

Parliament will reconvene tomorrow and Pakatan Harapan Members of Parliament will speak up for the 100,000 Felda families to demand full accountability for the Felda and FGV scandals and why the special incentives announced today for the Felda families were such a great disappointment as compared to the “goodies” announced for Felda families before the 13th general election.

(Speech  at the Pakatan Harapan Hari Raya Aidilfitri reception at Mempaga 3 Felda scheme, Bentong on Sunday, 23rd July 2017 at 4 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 23 July 2017, 5:03 pm and is filed under
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Free advice to Najib and his propagandists  – be consistent and credible or all their propaganda campaign of lies, fake news and false information  will come to nought like MCA complaining about losing support of 85 per cent of Chinese voters in 13th General Election

I want to give the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his propagandists  a piece of free advice, that they should be consistent and credible or  their propaganda campaign of lies, fake news and false information  will come to nought like MCA complaining about losing the support of 85 per cent of Chinese voters in the 13th General Election.

The highly-oiled-and-financed  UMNO/BN propaganda machinery suffered  a paroxysm of doubt, uncertainty, contradiction and loss of direction when the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council on 14th July announced the new Pakatan Harapan structure, logo and leadership line-up, achieving what Najib’s kitchen Cabinet had thought impossible – the Mahathir-Anwar reconciliation after almost two decades of bitter political enmity.

The path-breaking Pakatan Harapan announcement, which reignited hopes among Malaysians that it is possible to dream and slog for political change in Putrajaya in the forthcoming 14th General Election, was a major blow to the UMNO/BN propaganda offensive of lies, fake news and false information built around the fairy tale  DAP leaders and I myself in particular are the puppet-masters in Pakatan Harapan, and somehow, strong characters and personalities like Mohamad Sabu, Rafizi Ramli, Azmin Ali, Nurul Izzah, Wan Azizah, Anwar Ibrahim, Muhyiddin Yassin and Mahathir Mohamad have suddenly all become my stooges and puppets, at my beck and call!

This was why the Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak thought he had found a chink in the Pakatan Harapan armour and was  the first to jump out to champion the DAP, demanding to know the reason for  the absence of the DAP leaders among the top three Pakatan Harapan leaders,  whether the DAP had been sidelined and marginalized.

Various variations of this theme for a propaganda counter-attack by the UMNO/BN leaders and propagandists were tried out in the ensuing days, but they were trapped by the contradiction between claiming DAP leaders were the puppet-masters in Pakatan Harapan and alleging that DAP leaders had been sidelined and marginalized in Pakatan Harapan.

After a week of propaganda contortions and gymnastics, UMNO leaders and propagandists decided that it was more prudent and safer to return to the original propaganda theme that the DAP leaders had always been the dominant leaders in Pakatan Harapan.

This was why the Wanita UMNO Chief, Tan Sri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil came to Gelang Patah  with the pronouncement that Tun  Dr. Mahathir’s appointment as chairman of Pakatan Harapan  was a mere “drama” staged by DAP “to obscure the Malay voters’ eyes from seeing truth”.

Shahrizat said: “If we look at it carefully, the real de facto leader for Pakatan Harapan is Lim Kit Siang (DAP).

“He is there, hiding at the back, because he knew they are desperate for Malay votes, so he selected the ‘puppets’ to give them the impression that there are Malay leaders in the Opposition pact.

“The truth is DAP will be the one who is calling the shots, so Malaysians must be cautious. If they choose the opposition, it means that they choose DAP to lead the country.”

I am not surprised that Shahrizat has uttered such rubbish, but I forgive her as she has to earn her keeps as she is being paid ministerial remuneration allegedly as special adviser to the Prime Minister on women affairs. But what a waste of public funds!

I want to give Najib  and his propagandists  a piece of free advice, that they should be consistent and credible or  their propaganda campaign of lies, fake news and false information will come to nought like MCA complaining about losing 85 per cent of Chinese voters in the 13th General Election.

In the run-up to the 13th General Election, MCA propaganda invested heavily on demonizing the DAP with lies, fake news and false information that DAP leaders have  sold out the interests and rights of the Chinese to PAS extremists who want an Islamic State and hudud laws on public caning and amputation of limbs.

The MCA paid a heavy price in the 13th General Election because the MCA propaganda attack of lies, fake news and false information against DAP leaders lack credibility and consistency  – when compared to the record of DAP leaders down the decades in standing up for the rights and interests of all Malaysians, whether it be my political incarceration or Guan Eng’s imprisonment, disqualification as Member of Parliament and civil disenfranchisement for five years, including standing for elective office, because of defending the honour of an underaged Malay girl.

As a result, MCA has been reduced to a 7/11 political party (winning only seven parliamentary and eleven state assembly seats).

If MCA leaders and propagandists continue with their baseless demonization of DAP, based on lies, fake news and false information, instead of getting back the support of some 35% of Chinese voters in the 14th General Election as MCA leaders now claim, MCA may end up as a ¾ (tiga suku) political party, with three parliamentary and four state assembly seats in the 14th General Election.

If Najib and UMNO are to follow in the footsteps of their MCA counterparts, demonization Mahathir with lies, fake news and false information, UMNO may end up like MCA in the 13th General Election and complain that Mahathir has secured the electoral support of 85 per cent of the Malay voters as the UMNO propaganda attacks lack credibility and consistency.

As the result of the ridiculous propaganda campaign against  the leaders of the four Pakatan Harapan parties of DAP, PKR, Amanah and Pribumi Bersatu, Najib has now to face his own  demons, admit that neither he nor the UMNO/BN coalition are   invincible in the next general election because of three formidable challenges:

•       Loss of support of the majority of Malays in the country.

•       Loss of support  of the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants in the country.

•       Loss of  the support of the highest percentage of UMNO members (at present, 3.5 million UMNO members) by any UMNO President in UMNO history.

Can Najib overcome these three problems that no UMNO President had to face and overcome in the past?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 23 July 2017, 10:30 am and is filed under
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Tahniah Dato’ Seri A. Samad Said, sasterawan rakyat bersenjata pena dan puisi

Saya ingin mengambil kesempatan ini untuk mengucapkan tahniah kepada Sasterawan Negara Dato’ Seri A. Samad Said di atas penganugerahan Darjah Gemilang Pangkuan Negeri oleh TYT Tun Dato’ Seri Utama Dr Haji Abdul Rahman Haji Abbas, Yang di-Pertua Negeri Pulau Pinang.

Penganugerahan ini adalah satu simbol pengiktirafan kepada beliau, atas khidmat bakti yang telah dicurahkan dalam dunia kesusasteraan dan budaya di tanah air, selain untuk sumbangan yang tidak ternilai harganya kepada lapangan aktivisme dan politik negara.

Pak Samad, seperti panggilannya di kalangan kita semua, adalah manifestasi ‘puisi jadi senjata’ di tengah-tengah medan politik Malaysia yang kini sedang berada di perbatasan pilihanraya paling penting dalam sejarah negara. Pak Samad adalah panglima rakyat, dengan bersenjatakan pena dan kata-kata, memujuk hati nurani kita semua agar mengusung perubahan dan mencapai impian kita sebagai rakyat Malaysia yang cintakan negara.

Hasil-hasil karya Pak Samad tidak pernah gagal membawa tema dan suara rakyat marhaen ke khalayak umum. Novel ‘Salina’ contohnya menjadi cerminan kesempitan hidup rakyat pasca perang dunia kedua, dan bagaimana rakyat marhaen ditindas.

Sajak-sajak Pak Samad setelah terjun ke lapangan aktivisme lebih-lebih lagi menggambarkan perasaannya yang menyala-nyala. Sajaknya yang dibaca bersempena Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat, beberapa bulan sebelum pilihanraya umum ke-13 sangat mengesankan. Dan sehingga kini pun masih terus meniup bara semangat kita semua.

“Rumput di kaki, awan di kepala, gah iringi murba,

seramainya, sederapnya, setulusnya, kita bersama

menjulang panji negara, bangga dicium angin jati

di tengah gelora kita sebangsa dan sejiwa murni.

Di atas padang sejarah pantang kita mungkiri janji

setiap tapak dan langkah mengisi rindu demokrasi.”

– Di Atas Padang Sejarah, Januari 2013

Menuju bulan Ogos, saya kira bait-bait puisi Pak Samad ini perlu kita tekuni kembali. Bagaimana Pak Samad meluahkan cita-citanya untuk negara dengan apa yang disebutnya sebagai rindu kepada demokrasi.

Kerinduan beliau kepada demokrasi itu mungkin antara faktor kenapa beliau akhirnya memilih untuk menyertai DAP. Setelah puluhan tahun buah fikirnya hanya terhad di helaian kertas dan buku, Pak Samad memilih DAP sebagai wadah untuk menzahirkan erti dan makna setiap huruf dan kata yang pernah ditulisnya, sebagai satu pelaksanaan dan bukan sekadar kata-kata.

“Saya mengikuti perkembangan politik dalam tanah air. Saya putuskan menyertai DAP kerana parti ini ialah parti siasah yang ada landasan yang jelas dan anggota parti yang bersungguh-sungguh.

“Apa guna tulisan sahaja, lebih baik sertai parti politik.” Itu kata Pak Samad ketika ditemubual media selepas mengisytiharkan diri masuk DAP. Ketika itu kami di Gua Musang, Kelantan, melihat kerja-kerja membangunkan kembali kawasan-kawasan yang teruk dilanda banjir.

Pak Samad masuk DAP dengan tujuan jelas untuk menyebarkan mesej impian Malaysia, di mana rakyat seluruh negara boleh hidup saling bertoleransi, aman makmur dan harmoni, tanpa penindasan kuasawan dan pemodal yang merompak kekayaan negara demi memenuhi hajat dan kemahuan diri sendiri.

Dalam keadaan itu pun masih ramai yang bimbang untuk menukar kerajaan dalam pilihanraya akan datang kerana katanya takut Melayu hilang kuasa. Ketika kekayaan negara dirompak dan perompaknya bebas merdeka tidak runsing diambil tindakan, ramai lagi yang memberi tumpuan kepada politik perkauman.

Apa kata Pak Samad terhadap ketakutan ini?

“Kata-kata bahawa orang Melayu dan Islam kini sedang terancam sukar masuk otak saya. Sejak merdeka, Perdana Menteri semuanya Melayu, Timbalan Perdana Menteri semuanya Melayu, Menteri Dalam Negeri semuanya Melayu, malah Menteri Besar kebanyakannya Melayu.”

Pada pilihanraya umum yang akan datang, kita menjangkakan sebuah gelombang tsunami di kalangan pengundi Melayu akan memecahkan kubu-kubu UMNO, terutamanya setelah Pakatan HARAPAN berjaya mengemukakan struktur organisasi dan lambang yang disepakati. Kita sudah boleh melihat bagaimana Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak kini berada dalam keadaan panik dan tidak mampu menjamin sokongan penjawat awam dan demikian ramai orang Melayu yang sudah celik, mungkin kerana membaca dan bersetuju dengan pemikiran Pak Samad.

Keadaan panik Najib Razak ini menyebabkan beliau mengerah bala tentera sibernya untuk terus menghasilkan kisah-kisah fitnah, fiksyen dan pembohongan bertalu-talu terhadap pimpinan HARAPAN.

Tetapi kami ada Pak Samad, yang akan terus setia mengungkapkan kebenaran dengan senjata pena dan katanya. Mana mungkin pembohongan dan fitnah akan dapat menewaskan kebenaran. Tahniah sekali lagi buat Pak Samad, sasterawan rakyat bersenjata pena dan puisi.

(Kenyataan media pada hari Sabtu 22 Julai 2017 di George Town, Pulau Pinang)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 23 July 2017, 8:33 am and is filed under
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Najib’s ‘Global Movement of Moderates’ is a failure

Athena Angel

24th July 2017

The Malaysian Insight

SEVEN years after its creation, Najib’s Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) has been spectacularly unsuccessful— being neither global, a movement nor moderate.

At the Najib-sponsored GMM Foundation’s www.gmomf.org, there are also no mission or vision statements, no quantitative or qualitative targets to reach, no quarterly or annual progress reports, and no financial reports to show how GMM is spending Malaysian taxpayers’ money.

It attempted to start a journal with the purpose to “encourage and stimulate serious thinking about aspects of moderation in public policy and related issues of current public interest,” but is still stuck on Volume 1, Number 1, 2014. The foundation’s last newsletter was also published in 2012.

Instead, GMM’s primary purpose seems to be the financing of its CEO Mat Isa to rub shoulders with high-level international dignitaries, shake hands, deliver a couple of half-hearted speeches, sign some non-committal memoranda of understanding where nothing and not much else happens.

The research section of the GMM website is hilarious. To date, it still hasn’t conducted any research in any of the areas that it has delineated, and instead carries a couple of vague statements about a half-dozen areas of research.

There is nothing global here.

There was a 2012 conference with about 500 attendees and a couple of “engagements” in Thailand, Jordan, France, Japan, and a handful of other countries (not exactly hotbeds of extremism), but what is missing is the difficult work of engaging in dialogue with hardliners, radicals, and fundamentalists. Because it’s all too easy to preach to the choir.

After seven years of operation and probably millions of dollars spent, the foundation seems to have meaningfully collaborated with representatives from less than 50 out of the world’s 193 countries, and not even enough of the conservative Middle Eastern ones that should be priorities.

There is no movement here. There is no mass social organising of everyday people in the service of interreligious dialogue, de-radicalisation, peace-building, or social inclusion.

Sure, there is a list of “programmes,” consisting of “conferences, distinguished lectures, roundtable discussions and stakeholder engagement programmes” (whatever that means), but there is no policy influence. Neither is there any moderating influence on other countries’ more conservative people.

The GMM website also has a series of awkward-looking “courtesy call” photos of Mat Isa’s meet-and- greets with a number of foreign ambassadors and VIPs. However, these photo-ops only seem to directly benefit other countries’ elites— who are peripheral actors not even involved in the conflicts in regard. Worse, these photos are not accompanied by even the briefest of explanations of what was discussed, nor the policy outcomes.

All the GMM seems to do is publish a couple of obligatory press releases every time a terrorist attack occurs, showcase a fatuous, grandstanding “Langkawi Declaration” which has yet to be implemented by anybody, and organide a few conferences where nothing happens.

There is no moderation here, either.

Under Najib’s watch, Malaysia has backslidden further into extremism and ethno-religious tensions.

In fact, neither Mat Isa nor Najib are role models for moderation. In all of the policy arenas that the foundation claims to influence— “peaceful coexistence, democracy and the rule of law, international finance and the economy, education, and conflict resolution”— the government of Malaysia has been no exemplar in bridge-building.

Malaysia is one of the most divided societies in the world. Indeed, 22% of Malaysians do not have any friends from ethnic groups other than their own. Of those who do, 60% rarely or never take meals with their friends from other ethnic backgrounds, according to the Merdeka Centre’s Ethnic Relations Perceptions Poll. Roughly two thirds of young Malaysians’ close friends are primarily from the same ethnic group or religion as them, as the Centre for Public Policy Studies’ Minda Muda study found.

In addition, 60% of Malays see themselves as being Muslim first, and only 27% of Malays identify as Malaysians first, calling their patriotism (and Najib’s vaunted “1Malaysia” concept) into question.

As the Atlantic Monthly reports in an article titled Fatwas Galore, “In Malaysia, councils outlaw everything from dog-petting to yoga.”

Malaysia is also still at risk for terrorism, and for creating terrorists. Malaysia still has over six times the rate of Muslim citizens leaving to join Islamic State as Indonesia has, 62.4% of Malaysians regard Osama bin Laden as a freedom fighter, and polls also show a higher percentage of Malaysians than Indonesians are sympathetic to IS and suicide bombings.

As the government of the United Kingdom’s travel website warns tourists about Malaysia: “Terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Malaysia. Attacks could happen anywhere, including in places visited by foreigners. Be vigilant, monitor local media and follow the advice of the local authorities.”

As if the idea of Asia’s most extreme prime ministers lecturing others about moderation isn’t laughable enough, Najib also attended the opening of the hypocritical Centre for Combating Extremist Ideology in Kuala Lumpur, funded by Saudi Arabia, the largest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, including the September 11 attacks, which killed over 3,000 people in New York alone. The mental gymnastics required to establish vanity projects like this and the GMM are incomprehensible.

A number of key leaders have also resigned from the GMM since 2015, perhaps not wanting to be associated with its failures. At present, Wong Chun Wai, former ambassador Redzuan Kushairi, CEO Saifuddin Abdullah, and others have all resigned. As AsiaOne reported, the new CEO is former PAS deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa, “whose appointment has met with some criticism…His criticisms of the G25 comprising eminent retired Malay civil servants and personalities, who are seen as moderation advocates, had not helped him to improve his image.”

Najib’s egotistical “Global Movement of Moderates” can continue to sign a couple more forgettable MoU with other like-minded elites who are disconnected from conflicts on the ground, publish another simplistic newsletter that nobody downloads, translate Najib’s hypocritical speeches to yet another language, and organise another “distinguished lecture” or self-congratulatory conference in Putrajaya about moderation — all while rising extremist violence and intolerance intensifies in Malaysia and overseas.

Or, it can meaningfully build substantive multifaith bridges through grassroots outreach to both extremists, moderates and liberals alike, promote social inclusion by mainstreaming tolerance into both Malaysia’s education system and National Service programme, do the challenging but necessary work of promoting Jewish-Muslim relations to create international peace (Malaysia is one of the most anti-Semitic countries on Earth), weaken the radicalising effects of fundamentalist Saudi Wahabbism on Malaysian youth through teaching reforms, and finally, reduce fundamentalism by learning from more moderate, inclusive governments like Tunisia, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

Only then can a true “Global Movement of Moderates” even begin to form.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 24 July 2017, 10:56 pm and is filed under
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Pakatan Harapan would have to  achieve two political tsunamis in the 14GE to save Malaysia and to start the country’s  journey as a normal democratic country

It was one week of political turmoil for UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers but one week of awakened new  hope, confidence and expectation for Malaysians who want political change to save Malaysia from sliding down the trajectory of a failed and a rogue state.

UMNO/BN political leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers never expected that the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council meeting on July 14 would achieve the impossible, not only deciding on the new Pakatan Harapan structure, logo and leadership line-up but in effect announcing the Mahathir-Anwar reconciliation after almost two decades of political enmity.

This caused consternation among UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers who had hewn to the propaganda script of lies, fake news and false information about DAP leaders being the puppet-masters pulling the leaders of other Pakatan Harapan leaders, like Mohamad Sabu, Rafizi Ramli, Nurul Izzah, Wan Azizah, Anwar Ibrahim, Muhyiddin Yassin and Dr. Mahathir Mohamdd  on the puppet strings, doing the DAP leaders’ every beck and call.

This was why the Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak reacted to the new political scenario post-Pakatan Harapan announcement by trying to champion the DAP,  demanding to know the reason for  the absence of the DAP leaders among the top three Pakatan Harapan leaders and  whether the DAP had been sidelined and marginalized.

But after a week of confusion, chaos and consternation about  the UMNO/BN propaganda script that should be used against the DAP and Pakatan Harapan, the UMNO/BN “masters”  reverted to the old propaganda script, as illustrated by the speech of the Wanita UMNO Chief, Tan Sri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil in  Gelang Patah   that Tun  Dr. Mahathir’s appointment as chairman of Pakatan Harapan was a mere “drama” staged by DAP “to obscure the Malay voters’ eyes from seeing truth” and that “Lim Kit Siang is hiding at the back” but the “real de facto leader for Pakatan Harapan”.

I will not be surprised if some of the UMNO/BN leaders like Shahrizat might even believe the lies and nonsense  that they utter, but to Malaysians as a whole, the Pakatan Harapan decision and announcement on July 14 brought new hope and confidence that political change in Putrajaya in the 14th General Election is within reach and back on the national agenda.

The last four years were dark and disappointing times for most Malaysians. They had hoped for political change in Putrajaya and a new Federal Government  in the 13th General Election, but although the majority of voters voted for a new government, they were defeated by an undemocratic and unfair electoral system which gave Najib 60 per cent of the parliamentary seats although he only won a minority of 47% of the popular votes cast.

As a result, Najib became Malaysia’s first minority Prime Minister.

Najib blamed his electoral setbacks in the 13th General Election on a Chinese tsunami.  He cannot be more wrong.

It was an urban tsunami, and not a mere Chinese tsunami, because those who voted for political change were not just Chinese voters in the urban areas, but Indian and Malay voters as well.

The last four years brought one bad news and disappointment after another for those who had rooted for political change in the 13th general election, particularly  the disintegration of Pakatan Rakyat with the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang now transformed as the  greatest defender for Najib and even his 1MDB scandal, which catapulted Malaysia overnight into a global kleptocracy.

The future for political change in the 14th General Election appeared to be completely futile and hopeless, until the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council meeting on July 14  announcing  a new Pakatan Harapan structure, logo and leadership line-up, which awakened new hopes and confidence in the bosoms of patriotic Malaysians who want to save Malaysia from the trajectory of a failed and rogue state in the 14th General Election.

However, if the 14th General Election is to achieve what the 13th General Election failed to do, to change the occupants of Putrajaya and instal a new Pakatan Harapan Federal Government, Pakatan Harapan must achieve two political tsunamis  in the 14GE for Malaysia to become a normal democratic country.

We must re-energise and re-inspire the many  who had helped to create the political tsunami in the 13th General Election but who have lost hope that the electoral process is capable of producing any political change – to get them back into the hustings and the political campaigns to ensure that they have the stamina and perseverance to replicate  in the 14th General Election the urban tsunami that was achieved in the 13th General Election.

But there must also be another tsunami – a rural tsunami to match the urban tsunami.

We can feel the beginning of a new political awakening among the Malays in the rural areas and Felda settlements, which had hitherto been inaccessible to other political parties previously, whether DAP, PKR, Amanah  or even PAS.

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and the Parti Pribumi Bersatu has altered the political landscape, breaking open the Malay hinterland which had hitherto been sealed and locked up  by UMNO to allow in the ideas for change, justice  and progress.

An urban tsunami without a rural tsunami will not effect political change in Putrajaya.  A rural tsunami, without an urban tsunami, because of loss of hope and confidence in the ability of the electoral process to effect political change, would be equally fruitless and futile

If in the 14GE, there could both be an urban tsunami as well as a rural tsunami, which will mean a Malay tsunami in the rural hinterland, then Malayia is embarked on political change in Putrajaya and a new Pakatan Harapan Federal Government to start the country’s journey as a normal democracy.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 24 July 2017, 8:52 am and is filed under
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Pribumi Bersatu is more Malaysian than UMNO, as former wants Malays to unite and work with other citizens as Malaysians, while the latter wants Malaysians to remain Malays, Chinese and Indians and is even trying to polarize the next elections as a battle between the Malays and Chinese

Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia Chairman Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s statement yesterday that his party cannot offer the DAP to use its logo as Bersatu must remain a Malay party if the DAP is de-registered which would render the party’s parliamentary and state assembly candidates unable to use the Rocket logo is being exploited by many quarters against the DAP.

Mahathir defended his stance as necessary in order to appeal to the Malay electorate.

He argued that Harapan’s past approach under its predecessor Pakatan Rakyat in 2013 failed to gain sufficient Malay support.

He said: “Whether we like it or not, the Malays are still very communal, which was why they are supporting Umno.

“If they see a multi-racial party, they will not support it. They (Pakatan Rakyat) got a lot of support from the Chinese but little Malay support and without it, you can’t win.”

Mahathir said Bersatu as a Malay party can replace Umno but it will not turn into an Umno itself.

He added that changing the Malay mindset will not happen “overnight” and will take a long time.

I may not fully agree with Mahathir but I can understand his standpoint.

Pribumi Bersatu is definitely more Malaysian than  UMNO, as the former wants Malays to unite and work with other citizens as Malaysians, while the latter wants Malaysians to remain as Malays, Chinese and Indians and is even trying to polarize the next elections by mischievously and malevolently portraying the forthcoming 14th General Election as a battle between the Malays and Chinese.

The Pakatan Harapan parties of DAP, PKR, AMANAH and Bersatu do not want the next general elections to be a race war and to be a battle between the Malays and Chinese, but for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, to take one big stride forward – to unite as Malaysians to purge the country of the infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy and save the country from the trajectory of a failed and a rogue state.

Pakatan Harapan is asking voters to unite as patriotic Malaysians to save Malaysia from being a global kleptocracy, a failed and a rogue state.

In contrast, UMNO/BN wants Malays to unite against the Chinese by falsely portraying the 14GE as a battle between Malays and the Chinese.

I want to ask the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and other political parties in Barisan Nasional why they allow UMNO carry out such an irresponsible propaganda campaign which, if successful, will cause grave disunity and division in multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural Malaysia.

Have the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and other political parties in Barisan Nasional absolutely no say whatsoever about the BN coalition’s propaganda agenda for the 14th GE?

MCA leaders are claiming that Chinese voters are swinging back to the MCA, and  they estimate that some 35 per cent of Chinese voters will vote for MCA candidates, after losing support of 85 per cent of the Chinese voters in the 13th General Election.

MCA leaders should stop building castles in the air, believing if they continue to support UMNO’s racialist campaign to portray the 14th General Election as a battle between the Chinese and Malays, they will get 35 per cent support of Chinese voters.

I have grave doubts.  Unless MCA leaders are prepared to show that they have political principles, and put the interest of the community and the nation above MCA party interests, they could do even worse than the last general election.

The MCA paid a heavy price in the 13th General Election because the MCA propaganda attack of lies, fake news and false information against DAP leaders lack credibility and consistency  – when compared to the record of DAP leaders down the decades in standing up for the rights and interests of all Malaysians, whether it be my political incarceration or Guan Eng’s imprisonment, disqualification as Member of Parliament and civil disenfranchisement for five years, including standing for elective office, because of defending the honour of an underaged Malay girl.

As a result, MCA was  reduced to a 7/11 political party (winning only seven parliamentary and eleven state assembly seats).

If MCA leaders and propagandists continue with their baseless demonization of DAP, based on lies, fake news and false information, instead of getting back the support of some 35% of Chinese voters in the 14th General Election, MCA may end up as a ¾ (tiga suku) political party, with three parliamentary and four state assembly seats in the 14th General Election.

I challenge UMNO/BN leaders to stop their propaganda campaign of lies, fake news and false information against the DAP and Pakatan Harapan, and to conduct a clean election campaign for the 14GE.

[
Speech at DAP Raub Kopitiam dialogue in Kampong Sungai Klau on Sunday, 23rd July 2017 at 5 pm
]

                This entry was posted on Monday, 24 July 2017, 1:50 pm and is filed under
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MCA can be reduced from a 7/11 party into a ¾ (tiga suku) party in the 14GE if it continues to allow UMNO President to play footsie with Hadi on the RUU355 bill

MCA can be reduced from a 7/11 party (winning only seven parliamentary and 11 state assembly seats) in the 13GE into a ¾ (tiga suku)  political party  winning only three parliamentary and four state assembly seats in the 14GE if it continues to allow the UMNO President to play footsie with PAS President, Datuk Seri Awang Hadi on the RUU355 Bill.

Malaysians have been watching the stance of the MCA Ministers and Members of Parliament on  Hadi’s RUU355 Bill for the past year, and whatever the MCA protestations and public postures, the undeniable fact is that MCA is part of the Barisan Nasional government coalition that has allowed Hadi’s RUU355 Bill, which goes against the very basis of the Merdeka Constitution 1957 and Malaysia Agreement 1963, to get thus  far in Parliament.

In fact, without the consent and approval of the Barisan Nasional government and coalition, Hadi’s RUU355 Bill would not appear as the 10th item in the Parliamentary Order Paper when Dewan Rakyat reconvened yesterday.

The question is whether MCA Ministers and MPs will continue to shut their eyes, ears and mouths when the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Najib Razak  continues the playing a  long-running “footsie” with Hadi, allowing RUU355 Bill to  take priority over all government business and  presented to the House but no debate, then  amended but postponed to the present meeting without general debate or voting?

Already, Najib has garnered considerable political benefit from “playing footsie” with Hadi, for the PAS President has not only taken PAS out of Pakatan Rakyat and aligned to UMNO on a variety of issues, Hadi  has personally become the greatest defender and champion of Najib as Prime Minister of Malaysia and Najib’s 1MDB scandal and kleptocracy.

The voices in PAS questioning the monstrous and heinous international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal do not belong to mainstream Hadi leadership viewpoint, and are allowed to dilute and mislead public opinion that PAS under Hadi’s leadership has become a champion of Najib’s kleptocracy.

But is this what the MCA Ministers and MPs want?

Malaysians and the world are waiting for an answer in the current meeting  of Parliament.

(Media Statement in Parliament on Tuesday, 25th July 2017)

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 25 July 2017, 9:10 am and is filed under
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Today calls for celebration: I have become the most powerful person in Malaysia but how come I do not know about it?

Today calls for celebration. I have become the most powerful person in Malaysia, but how come I do not know about it?

I am honoured that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, had used the international conference on 13th Invest Malaysia Kuala Lumpur (IMKL) to  announce that I am the most powerful person in Malaysia  who could do what even the Prime Minister himself could not do – to make two former Deputy Prime Ministers, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and the longest-serving former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, as my stooges and puppets to do my every beck and call, although I am “hiding” at the back to “dupe the Malays”.

What immediately come to mind is whether the Malays are so easy to “dupe” after some six decades of UMNO government in Malaysia, and if so, whether it is an indictment and confession of the failure of UMNO government and policies that after 60 years of UMNO rule, it is so easy to “dupe” Malays in the country, “hiding” in the back?

I stand to be corrected, but I think in the worst of times during Mahathir’s premiership of Malaysia for 22 years, when he was under the worst-possible pressures, he never resorted to any international conference, whether inside or outside the country, to “cry baby” about the Malaysian Opposition, and what is worse, tell downright lies, fake news and false information about the Malaysian Opposition leaders.

Does Najib really believe the lies he said in his keynote address at the 13th Invest Malaysia Conference today that Mahathir, Anwar and Muhyiddin have become my stooges and puppets – that I am controlling the puppet strings hiding behind Mahathir’s back?

When did Mahathir, Anwar and Muhyiddin become my stooges and puppets?

In Anwar’s case, was it before and after he was imprisoned in Sungai Buloh Prison in February 2015?

In Muhyiddin’s case, was it before or after he was sacked as Deputy Prime Minister in July 2015 for refusing to blindly accept Najib’s version of the 1MDB scandal?

What about Mahathir – when did Mahathir become my stooge and puppet? Why should a 92-year-old Mahathir, who had been Prime Minister for over one third of Malaysia’s 60-year history, suddenly become Lim Kit Siang’s stooge and puppet?

I was astonished that Najib and his UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers have decided on the script to demonise me as “dictator of dictators” not only in DAP but also in Pakatan Harapan, with Mohamaed Sabu, Rafizi Ramli, Azmin Ali, Nurul Izzah, Wan Azizah, Anwar Ibrahim, Muhyiddin Yassin and Mahathir as my stooges and puppets to carry out my alleged anti-Malay and anti-Islam agenda, but I am completely nonplussed and floored when Najib himself personally launched such a ridiculous attack on me – even at an international conference like the 13th Invest Malaysia Conference today.

I have enough respect for Najib to know that he does not believe in the lies he had told about me and Pakatan Harapan.

But what makes Najib think that national and international investors and opinion would believe in the lies which Najib doled out this morning?

The biggest problem with Najib is that he is the first Malaysian Prime Minister in 60 years who has zero credibility, both at home and internationally.

He launched the 1Malaysia concept and slogan, which have now been completely abandoned and forgotten, as Najib and UMNO/BN leaders are the most guilty parties inciting racial and religious polarization and animosities, even falsely portraying the forthcoming 14th General Elections as a battle between the Malays and Chinese – which is not only untrue but also as if the Indians, Kadazans and Ibans do not exist in the country.

Najib initiated the Global Movement of Moderates to ask moderates of all religions and in the world to unite, but as I said during parliamentary question time this morning, there is an excellent article in The Malaysian Insight yesterday powerfully dissecting Najib’s GMM initiative, concluding that GMM failed on all three scores, as after seven years, it is not global, not a movement and nothing to do with “moderates”.

Najib launched the National Transformation Programme, which he succeed beyond expectations, transforming Malaysia overnight into a global kleptocracy – which no Malaysian, regardless of race, religion or region, wanted.

The single biggest event  in the first day of the reconvened Parliament yesterday was the parliamentary scandal where questions of over 30 MPs on the 1MDB scandal were rejected on baseless and indefensible grounds.

I was one of them. I asked the Prime Minister “
menyatakan samada kerajaan Barisan Nasional akan sudi menerima balik wang dan barang kemas yang bernilai berbilion-bilion ringgit yang disita oleh Jabatan Keadilan (Department of Justice) Amerika Syarikat dari mereka yang bersalah dalam pengubahan wang haram tabung 1MDB
”.

This question was rejected on two grounds, firstly under Standing Orders 23(1)(c) barring questions which are misleading, offensive or frivolous and secondly under S.O. 23(1)(h) barring questions seeking “an expression of opinion, the solution of an abstract legal case or the answer to a hypothetical proposition”.

Any reading of the Parliamentary Standing Orders with common sense and reason will know that these two provisions do not apply to bar my question.

As I said in my protest in Parliament yesterday over the blanket ban on scores of questions submitted by 30 MPs on the 1MDB scandal, my question is particularly relevant as American actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr had handed over their multi-million US dollar gifts from 1MDB kingpin Jho Low to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), following the third series of US DOJ kleptocracy suits to forfeit US$1.7 billion of 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland which had been stolen from some US$4.5 billion 1MDB funds money-laundered through American banks.

But the most important event in Parliament yesterday was totally blacked out by UMNO/BN mainstream media, whether New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Star, or given a distorted report by Utusan Malaysia, giving the impression that everything was fine with the Najib government in Parliament yesterday.

Clearly, Najib’s speech at the 13th Invest Malaysia Conference today is proof that he is still rattled by the Pakatan Harapan success on 14th July to announce the PH structure, logo and new leadership line-up.

Najib’s greatest enemy does not come from DAP or Pakatan Harapan but he himself, simply because he has zero credibility – and that applies to his Ministers as well.

This is why Najib faces three challenges in the 14GE, something which no Prime Minister or UMNO President had to face in past general elections:

Loss of support of the majority of Malays in the country.

Loss of support of the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants in the country.

Loss of the support of the highest percentage of UMNO members (at present, 3.5 million UMNO members) by any UMNO President in UMNO history.

Can Najib overcome these three challenes just by telling lies, fake news and false information about DAP and Pakatan Harapan leaders at international conferences?

[
Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 3.30 pm
]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 25 July 2017, 5:33 pm and is filed under
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Setting up integrity unit in GLCs and government business meaningless “PR” exercises unless Prime Minister and entire Cabinet have the political will to set example of zero tolerance for corruption starting with a RCI into 1MDB scandal

The setting up of an integrity unit in all government-linked companies and ministry-owned business entities to curb graft announced by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the 13th Invest Malaysia Kuala Lumpur conference yesterday will only end up as meaningless “PR” exercises unless the Prime Minister and the entire Cabinet have the political will to be examples of zero tolerance of corruption.

This political will to ensure “zero tolerance for corruption” should start from the very top from the Prime Minister downwards, and should begin with comprehensive investigations and satisfactory accounting of the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal, which had transformed Malaysia overnight into a global kleptocracy. Let a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 1MDB scandal be established.

The Prime Minister should know better than anyone that Malaysian leaders have lost the moral high ground, whether at home or in the international arena, to talk about ethics, morality, integrity and good governance so long as Malaysia is tarred and tainted with the odious appellation of a global kleptocracy and the Malaysian government is unable to do anything to clear or cleanse Malaysia of such infamy and ignominy.

The demoralizing and debilitating effect of having lost the moral high ground is even evident in Parliament, during the exchanges in the Dewan Rakyat on Monday over the parliamentary scandal where questions by over 30 MPs on the 1MDB scandal were rejected by the Speaker, as Barisan Nasional Ministers and MPs were unable to hold their heads high when I asked them what they are doing to clear or cleanse Malaysia of such an odious appellation a global kleptocracy, which means that they are Ministers and MPs from a kleptocratic government of 4Ps – Pencuri, Perompak, Penyamun dan Penyangak

It must be regarded as a great shame to be regarded as the  Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Ministers, MPs, Attorney-General, judges and high officers of a Malaysian kleptocracy and Malaysian citizens, regardless of race, religion or region are entitled to know why the Prime Minister and his administration is not doing anything, or is unable to do anything, to clear or cleanse of Malaysia of such an odious appellation?

What is the use of talking about integrity units in GLCs and government businesses, when the elephant in the room is Malaysia being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy?

What is even more shocking is that the 1MDB scandal is virtually a banned and prohibited subject in Parliament, with questions on 1MDB scandal by over 30 MPs rejected by the Speaker on the most indefensible and ridiculous grounds.

Parliament should be the first arena for Malaysia to clear or cleanse Malaysia of the infamy or ignominy of a global kleptocracy, but when the 1MDB scandal is virtually banned or prohibited in parliamentary proceedings, we are in fact denying the country an opportunity to clear or cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy.

In his keynote address to some 2,000 international and local investors at the 13th Invest Malaysia yesterday, Najib claimed that the government had acknowledged there were lapses in 1MDB’s governance, and he had personally given instructions for a rationalisation of the company’s operations.

This is one example why Najib has zero credibility. The 1MDB scandal is not just about “lapses in 1MDB governance” but a monstrous kleptocratic crime on an international level, which made Malaysia into a global kleptocracy overnight.

For a start, Najib should come to Parliament to give a full accounting for the 1MDB scandal and explain how his government proposes to clear or cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy.

All the Pakatan Harapan MPs will fully co-operate and  support the government campaign, whether in Malaysia or internationally, to clear or cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy.

For a start, there must be a full and no-holds-barred parliamentary debate on the 1MDB scandal.

With the latest international developments of the 1MDB scandal in the past 18 months, especially the three series of kleptocratic suits by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to confiscate US$1.7 billion of 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland misappropriated from  1MDB funds money-laundered through American banks, the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali, must explain how he could justify his announcement in January 2016 that there were no criminal offences or corruption involved in the 1MDB scandal, and in particular that the RM2.6 billion transferred into Najib’s personal bank accounts was a gift from the royal family in Saudi Arabia, when the money trail of this amount was clearly revealed to be otherwise in the US DOJ legal suits!

Who was Apandi’s right-hand man in the AG’s Chambers when he made such a shocking announcement in a media conference in January 2016? None other than the present Chief Commissioner of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Datuk Dzulkifli Ahmad, before his appointment as MACC head. A statement from Dzulkifli on what the MACC had done on the 1MBD scandal which has made Malaysia into a global kleptocracy would also be in order.

Former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had accused Apandi Ali of being a liar for withholding the 1MDB report prepared by his predecessor, the sacked A-G, Abdul Gani Patail.

Dr Mahathir said Apandi still held the post because he was protected by Prime Minister Najib Razak, and vice-versa.

Mahathir said he would not have challenged Apandi to swear on the Quran if he  did not know the content of the reports.

Mahathir said: “We know, and God knows more. If he (Apandi) is brave, then swear on the Quran.”

Najib and Apandi cannot keep their silence or all the talk about integrity units for GLCs and government business in his 13th Malaysia Invest keynote address are just utter bunkum.

[
Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Wednesday, 26th July 2017
]

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 July 2017, 4:12 pm and is filed under
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