Mahathir On Anwar, Islam, Malays In Business And The Press

Chris Wright

Forbes

JUL 28, 2015

These days, feeling that the press is no longer marching to his tune, Mahathir communicates to the world through a blog, Chedet.com – a name taken, he tells me, from a childhood nickname conferred upon him by his sisters.

It is a consistently strident piece of work, as one would expect, with a tag-line: “Blogging to unblock”. In it, until recently beneath the incongruous herald of a pizza delivery ad, he rails against the issues of the day, from Kuala Lumpur traffic to intervention in Syria, from the nature of modern Islam to racial polarization and the endless question of the Malaysian national car. The English language entries alone in the second half of 2014 have taken on deforestation and the logging trade, the nature of state education, monetary handouts and national economics, ISIS, American foreign policy, British jihadists, the bombing of Gaza, Malaysian tourism, Formula One, the privatization of Malaysian Airlines, censorship of the internet, the Jews and the history of Israel, the oil price, the nature of an Islamic state, and Joe Biden (a piece that concludes: “America is a land stolen from the Red Indians through genocide. Americans should really bow their heads down in shame forever”).

They take an ordered, numbered form, not always reaching an obvious conclusion but never short of a boisterous opinion. Thus does Mahathir put his country and faith to rights, shouting not from a rooftop but from a desktop, to the masses of the net. The top-flight Malay establishment tolerates him politely, accepting the voice of a man who is part of much of their history even if no longer directly relevant to its present.

It is to the blog I turn next in our interview, because I want to get his thoughts on freedom of the press, something he long acted against when in power, but which he has sometimes called for since as he has felt himself to be censored after leaving office.

“There is no such thing as absolute freedom of the press, not even in the most advanced countries in the world,” he says. “There are things you just don’t say, because it will destabilise the environment. Malaysia is particularly sensitive: we have three races here and 29 different tribes. If you allow people to say what they like, there will be violence, confrontations, and all that. We need stability.”

Malaysia’s press is not the weakest in the world – it is a little more ribald than neighbouring Singapore, for a start – but it nevertheless became cowed, a process that Mahathir depicts as being intuitive on the media’s part rather than through outright suppression. “The press understands this,” he says of Malaysia’s sensitivity.

“During my time, I didn’t have to tell them: don’t do this, don’t do that. They knew. They shouldn’t go beyond a certain point, and they didn’t.”

 “Of course,” he says, dismissively, “the opposition will always be demanding for more freedom. You give them freedom, they want more.” He raises his hands as if to indicate the lunacy of this demand. “That is normal. For a developed country, maybe liberalism in this area is OK. But for a country that is developing, that has a mixture in the population – divided not just by race but by religion, language, culture and economic performance – it is very difficult. You get yourself more trouble if people are allowed to say just what they like.”

He thinks that freedom of the press has improved, to Malaysia’s detriment. “Now they say we have to be liberal. Look at the situation now. Races are at each other’s throats. What benefit does it do to us? Nothing.”

But Mahathir himself said, in 2006, and apparently straight-faced: “Where is the press freedom?” Surely now he believes he’s being silenced himself, he must feel differently?

“The reason I started the blog was I was actually prevented from meeting people, during my successor’s term,” he says. “I was not allowed to meet people, I was not allowed to talk to people, I couldn’t meet ministers, I couldn’t meet members of my party, and everything about me was blocked. Nothing about me can be in the press, except something that is derogatory. Because of that, I had to make use of the media.

“But I have been responsible in the media. I don’t say things that are not true. I know they are true. People can check.”

We turn to his views on religion. Mahathir has frequently been branded anti-semitic, a description he once wrote on his blog that he was happy to be labelled with, and has said many things that Jews have found deeply offensive. There is nothing to be gained from taking the interview down this path – there’s nothing to expose, it’s all out there in its bare-knuckled indelicacy already – but I am interested in his views on Islam, about which he has been every bit as critical as any other religion.

 It appears a constant source of irritation to him that a religion of over a billion people can somehow manage to be oppressed, and he has said and written that Muslims have only themselves to blame for this. But he has also said some interesting things about the need for a moderate interpretation of Islam.

Asked about this, he talks first about Christianity, and the way it has developed and divided over time, through Lutheranism, Calvinism and so forth. “That happens also in the Muslim religion,” he says, and it is the nastier interpretations that now offend him.

“The teachings of the prophet are that the religion is good for you. It is a way of life,” he says. “Not just a faith. And if you follow the teachings, everything will be fine. What is happening today is not something that is taught by religion. Religion says you can’t kill each other. What are they doing? What are they doing? You can’t fight against each other.”

He talks about the early injunctions of the Prophet that Muslims must learn, and read, even before there were any Islamic texts to look for. He talks about how early members of the faith built knowledge through Hebrew, Christian and Greek writings, building intelligence, coming up with a cogent view of a Muslim civilisation. “Now we have people who tell us you mustn’t read except for about religion. That is not part of the teachings.

“It is the interpretation of the religion that is wrong, not the religion. The religion is right.”

Mahathir believes, as something of an elder statement not only on policy but faith, it is his responsibility to question this. “I have a right to suggest that these wrong interpretations should be eliminated and we go back to the basic teachings from the Quran and the traditions of the prophet. Islam,” he says, “is a moderate religion. All Muslims should be moderate. There is no such thing as an extreme religion, just an extremist kind of interpretation. And if you are extreme, it is against Islam.” Though clearly a devoted and learned Muslim himself, he is firmly against the imposition of many Shariah laws in Malaysia, particularly those he thinks have been invented along the way. “People want to introduce stoning to death? That is not in the Quran. The Quran says that God does not like people who create instability and turmoil in society. You cannot impose Muslim law on non-Muslims in Malaysia. This is what my religion teaches me.”

I ask how the public views him now, and he points to the “millions” of people who access his blog. (This is correct: according to the blog’s own stats, 2.3 million had visited by December 2014.) Also, “lots of people come to see me, asking me to do something, to eliminate what they think is wrong. Any politician will have people who oppose them, I accept that. People will criticise me, and that doesn’t matter. The majority, I think, are not against me.

“I move around, on the ground,” he says. “I’m not like other big shots who never go out. I go to the shops, I go to the markets. People come up, to say hello, to say thankyou.

 “There are no Gallup polls here,” he says, “but I think, by and large, I am still not unpopular.”

We talk about how legacies can change over time, and about the various books that have appeared since our previous interview: his own memoirs, and books by foreign journalists such as Barry Wain and Tom Plate. How does his own legacy look now? “I think because people make a comparison with the current administration, they appreciate more what was done during my time,” he says. “I’m inclined to think that because I have no power, people are less against me than they were when I had power. When you have power, you have to exercise power. And that means some people will be unhappy.” Today, he says, “I more or less reflect their thoughts which they are afraid to voice.”

Such as?

“Their unhappiness with the present government.”

We’re back to that.

One recurring Mahathir subject is the fate of the native Malays. We discussed this last time at length, but I’m interested to see if anything has changed in the meantime. His blog posts reflect a certain hectoring, scolding tone towards his own people, urging them to be better than they are, although he is clearly a deeply proud Malay and a believer in his race’s potential.

“In my years I had the opportunity to observe peoples and countries, I see some countries doing well, others failing, and my analysis of things is that whether you fail or succeed is a function of your value system,” he says. He talks about how the Malays were peasants, fishermen, farmers, not business-minded, always poor; but that the arrival of the Chinese, with a tradition of excellence in business and therefore a rapid accumulation of wealth, brought inequality and the potential for confrontation. “So the idea is to bring them up. Not to bring the Chinese down, but to bring the Malays up. To do this, they must change their culture. They must be more trustworthy, they must make use of their thinking power, plans, strategies, things like that. If they don’t do those things they can’t catch up.”

He says, as he has often said, that his own people just don’t compare with Chinese business nouse. “The reason the Chinese came here is because the Malays are not performing. To perform they have to change. I tell the Malays: if you don’t change, you are going to be the poor in a rich country.”

It was from this idea that affirmative action grew up. “They are not capable of making even slight increases without help,” he says of Malays, in terms of their share in national wealth. “Therefore we provided them with opportunities.”

But did it work? “Of course there are abuses, we have to accept that: even in developed countries there are abuses of power. But there is some success. We need to continue only in certain areas.” Is there more to be done? “We still need to have a leg up for the Malays but not to the same extent as before. Before, we were insisting if you have a business, even a private business, 30% should go to the Malays. We have dropped that.” Rightly so? “Yes. Nobody will want a private business to find some strangers coming in and making a lot of problems.”

This sense of relative equanimity convinces me it’s time to ask the more provocative questions, the ones that I left to last in our previous interview: about Anwar.

Preparing for the interview, I’ve read Mahathir’s 800-page memoirs, and among that vast collection of information and opinion and memory, one sentence stands out to me more than all the others. This is it: “Anwar should have been the Prime Minister of Malaysia today. But if he is not, it is because of his own actions.” The thing is, the preceding section makes it appear that by “his own actions” he doesn’t mean Anwar’s attempts to push Mahathir out as prime minister (a widely repeated view in the west is that the sodomy charges were concocted for this reason). Instead, it appears Mahathir is referring chiefly to Anwar’s alleged homosexuality alone.

I repeat the line, and my understanding of it, to him. How can it be right, I say, that a man’s sexuality – even his alleged sexuality – stops him from being considered as a leader?

At this, he sits back and frowns, and sighs a little, but there’s none of the visible anger of last time.

“Different people have different cultures,” he says. “In the west, what he does is normal, everybody does it, so what? In our society, that is not acceptable. It exposes him to blackmail, you see.”

There is a brief pause at this baffling segue.

“And for a person who is going to lead the country,” he continues, “to have that kind of behaviour is not acceptable. And we see that the people who are under him fear him: he asks for certain things that they would not like but they have to submit, until they cannot submit any more.” (It should be stated at this point that Anwar, who is married, has consistently denied sodomy, which is a crime in Malaysia, and to the best of my knowledge no case against him has ever alleged the use of force or abuse against a sexual partner.) “So in the west this is not a crime. Our perception of what is criminal and what is not differ, but it is our perception in thiscountry that matters to us. We cannot have a person like that with no moral values.” He talks about “a story in America, where a President sleeps with one of his secretaries,” presumably a reference to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. “That is acceptable in America. The institution of marriage and family is now gone. People accept if you want to sleep with anybody, you can. But here the value systems are different.”

Anwar, he acknowledges, was the heir apparent: Mahathir’s deputy and the anointed one to follow him as Prime Minister. “That he would have succeeded me is nothing that I have not said. I knew I had to go. I was prepared to go way back in 1998 after the Commonwealth Games. But because of these things happening, I had to stay back. I am not greedy for power. I wanted to stop earlier.” He ended up staying until 2002. “Then I announced my resignation. Not many dictators,” he adds with characteristic dryness, “announce their resignation. But I did, because I didn’t want to stay on and overstay my welcome. And he would have taken my place, if he is good character.”

He says Anwar was trying to push him out towards the end. “But even that, I didn’t care, because I was going out anyway.”

It has been a slightly rambling response covering a range of territory, and I want to be crystal clear, so I choose the next words carefully. “To be clear,” I say, “if it had not been for his alleged homosexuality, you would have supported him and he would have succeeded you.”

“Oh yes,” says Mahathir.

[Author’s note: I write about banking and finance in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

I interviewed former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in December, having previously also interviewed him some years earlier. Initially the interview was for a chapter for my book No More Worlds to Conquer, focusing on life after a defining moment, and in his case in particular life after power. But with too much material for one book, the relevant chapter was held back to a planned second edition. However, following increased public interest in Mahathir’s views on Najib Razak in recent months following the 1MDB scandal, and the investment case for Malaysia internationally, I am printing the elements of the chapter that cover his views on Najib, Abdullah Badawi and Anwar Ibrahim.]

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Malaysia cabinet reshuffle saps confidence

Nyshka Chandran

CNBC

30th July 2015

The hasty top-level reshuffle by Malaysia’s embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak in the wake of a corruption scandal will do little to encourage foreign investment amid an already tense political backdrop and a sustained currency crisis, analysts warn.

Announced on Tuesday, the Cabinet reshuffle involved the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin after he called on Najib to explain the controversy surrounding a Wall Street Journal (WSJ)report earlier this month that revealed nearly $700 million from quasi-sovereign wealth fund One Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was deposited into the Prime Minister’s personal bank accounts. The accusation is particularly explosive given that 1MDB is in debt to the tune of $11 billion.

The Prime Minister has denied accepting money for personal gain and is reportedly considering a defamation lawsuit against the WSJ.

Tuesday’s reshuffle also saw cabinet posts given to four senior members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) – the group overseeing the 1MDB parliamentary investigation.

“This reshuffle is definitely motivated by politics; it’s obviously an attempt to delay the 1MDB process. The Attorney General is also being replaced and that’s going to create a further bump in the investigation,” Wong Chen, a member of Malaysia’s parliament from an opposition party told CNBC on Wednesday.

Wong expects the conclusions from the 1MDB investigation will likely be delayed for several months as result of the Cabinet changes.

The PM released an official statement on Tuesday in which he briefly explained the motivations behind the reshuffle. He justified his decision to replace his deputy Yassin by stating that “I must have a solid and unified team moving in the same direction,” adding that he hoped the new Cabinet “ensures that the Government has the strength and unity to focus on my development plans.”

“It’s been pretty shocking to watch just how far Najib is willing to go to protect himself,” Adam Jarczyk, Asia Pacific practice leader at Frontier Strategy Group, told CNBC, referring to Tuesday’s move. “Frankly speaking, Najib’s actions have created more problems than they have solved.”

Looking ahead to Malaysia’s general election — due before 2018—parliament member Wong expects an improved performance from opposition parties if the 1MDB scandal goes unresolved.

The hit to confidence

Politics aside, Tuesday’s shake-up does not bode well for Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy either.

“This 1MDB debacle has raised questions about the government’s transparency and its ability to govern effectively, particularly when it comes to its own finances. It’s also been bad for the business environment and executive sentiment on the country,” Jarczyk said.

“While the overall effect of the 1MDB saga is hard to pin down, suffice to say that it is not something that Malaysia needs at this point, given that it already faces a number of substantial economic challenges ahead,” echoed OCBC economist Wellian Wiranto said in a note on Wednesday.

Currency volatility and bad economic news are other factors contributing to bearish calls on Malaysia.

Broad dollar strength and a rout in commodity prices have seen the ringgit tumble to levels not seen since the Asian Financial Crisis, making it the region’s Asia’s worst-performing currency with losses exceeding 9 percent year-to-date.

Commodities account for one-third of total exports, and lower energy prices have contributed to a thinning of the trade surplus. The latter is especially dangerous given the risk of global capital jitters ahead of a potential U.S. interest rate hike, and because foreign ownership of Malaysian government bonds remain lofty at 50 perfect.

“We expect domestic politics and cracking global crude price to sustain Malaysian financial assets as Asia’s underperformers,’ ING remarked in a Wednesday note.

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Malaysia must accede to Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Excellencies, Esteemed Colleagues, dear Friends,

I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to address the distinguished audience at this important meeting, which has great potential to further the participation of the Asia-Pacific region in the Rome Statute system, and in particular to encourage Malaysia and Indonesia to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

As a member of PGA, I would also like to thank the present EU Ambassador His Excellency Luc Vandebon for the support given to PGA by the European Union.

The Asia-Pacific region is clearly the most underrepresented region in the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties. Of the 53 countries of the Asian Group of States, merely 19 are party to the Rome Statute of 17 July 1998 and only one has ratified the Kampala amendments of 11 June 2010.

It is crucial that we, the elected representatives of our nations, take decisive actions to further the universality of the Rome Statute in the Asia-Pacific and by joining a global movement of 123 States Parties to contribute to ensuring that the worst crimes known to humanity are not tolerated and impunity is no longer awarded to the perpetrators of those crimes.

PGA has been actively working through our MPs from the Southeast Asia Region to support ratification and accession processes in a number of countries.

In March 2011, PGA held the Asia-Pacific Consultations on ICC Ratification and Implementation in the Parliament of Malaysia with the participation of the then President of the ICC, Judge Song.

These consultations supported the subsequent ratification processes in the Philippines, the Maldives and Vanuatu, and advanced the process in a number of Pacific Islands.

In this regard I wish to welcome in Kuala Lumpur Honorable Ahmed Mahloof, member of the Parliament of Maldives, and would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his important leadership work leading to ratification of the Rome Statute by Maldives: four  years ago he promised to persuade his Party Members, who at that time had the majority of seats in Parliament, to revert from their negative approach to the ICC Statute, and he did so in less than six months! He set a good example for all of us participating in this seminar.

I also would like to welcome the Honorable Members of the Indonesian House of Representatives and the Senate. We much appreciate the time you have take to travel to Malaysia and we are proud of the existing good relationship between our two great nations.

I would also like to welcome Judge Raul Cano Pangalagan from the Philippines, who has been recently elected and sworn in as a judge at the ICC and we wish him great success in his important upcoming role.

Sadly, Malaysia, just like Indonesia, still remains a non-State Party to the Rome Statute despite the accession process, which was initiated in 2010, and despite the Cabinet decision, in 2011,to ratify the Rome Statute. The formal deposit of the accession is subject to the completion of implementing legislation, the drafting of which remains in the jurisdiction of the Attorney General.

As Parliamentarians, our work is to represent the people of our nation and act in their interest.

Joining the ICC would provide protection to our nation and to the citizens of Malaysia against the gravest violations of the basic human rights known to humankind.

Malaysia would benefit from the common system of international justice and would not be alone if anyone intended to commit such horrendous crimes on our territory. We would no longer stand alone in resisting such violence with the force of law.

Accession to the Rome Statute would be a clear demonstration of Malaysia’s commitment to international justice and the fight against impunity and sustainable peace.

Now it is the time for our great nations, Indonesia and Malaysia, to join these efforts! These are momentous times and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region need to take decisive stand in the world fora.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mr. David Cameron is currently in the region on a trade-and-diplomacy mission focusing on trade deals and deeper counter-terrorism co-operation.

The ICC is also perfectly placed to act as an important tool to fight religious extremism, for example Boko Haram in Nigeria, which is terrorizing populations of a number of countries in the region. Everyone has a right to live in peace and it is our obligation as elected legislators, to provide peace to civilians that we are representing, not only in our own countries, but also across the boarders!

The Asia-Pacific consultations in Kuala Lumpur in March 2011 resulted in the Kuala-Lumpur Action Plan to Promote the Universality of the Rome Statute of the ICC in the Asia-Pacific. It is my deepest hope that we will succeed to conclude this seminar with an Action Plan 2015, which four  years later, would lead to accession by our two great nations, Malaysia and Indonesia, to the Rome Statute.

(Speech at the Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) Parliamentary-South East Asia Sub-Regional Seminar on the International Rule of Law and the Protection of Civilians at Meridien Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on Thursday,30th July 2015 at 4 pm)

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Malaysian cabinet reshuffle: Shrewd move or political gamble for Najib?

Channel News Asia

30th July 2015

Amid sackings, step-downs and new appointments following the 1MDB saga, Channel NewsAsia’s Insight explores the prime minister’s motivation and game plan.

KUALA LUMPUR: In the weeks since the Wall Street Journal reported on the investigation of Malaysia’s troubled state wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), significant cabinet changes have been made by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Amid allegations that US$700 million (RM$2.7 billion) from companies linked with 1MDB was transferred to the prime minister’s account, Mr Najib on Monday sacked his deputy prime minister, Mr Muhyiddin Yassin, following his public remarks on the ongoing investigation.

On Tuesday, Malaysia’s Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail had his tenure terminated with immediate effect, citing health reasons. Mr Patail, who headed the special task force investigating the allegations concerning 1MDB, suffers from a kidney ailment and was set to retire in October.

As electoral reform group, Bersih, demands Mr Najib’s resignation, analysts speaking to Channel NewsAsia’s Insight try to make sense of Najib’s game plan, his motivations, and what is in store for the Malaysian prime minister and his party.

Mr Ibrahim Suffian, Programme Director, Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research (Kuala Lumpur).

FIXING IT, INSIDE AND OUT

Programme Director Ibrahim Suffian, from the Merdeka Center For Opinion Research in Kuala Lumpur, said Najib’s acts address two issues – stemming dissent internally from within the party and tempering an increasingly negative public perception towards him.

A January Merdeka Center poll on public perception of Malaysians towards their prime minister slipped four percentage points to 44 per cent.

“I think the motive of dismissal is ensuring that the PM’s position is not challenged internally,” said Mr Ibrahim.

“So the PM took a decisive step in trying to ensure stability within his own team before he goes out to the political domain, the electorate and the business community to address the challenge.”

But would removing an AG and your Deputy PM be seen as “desperate acts” in the middle of investigations?

Said Mr Ibrahim: “It is not an act of desperation. You are in a crisis. You need to fix your team (and) get your house in order before you go out and meet the challenges. It depends on the perspective one takes in this particular problem. The dismissal of the DPM was a necessary move.”

Dr Ooi Kee Beng, Deputy Director, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

A SACK THAT’S GOING TO HURT?

Dr Ooi Kee Beng, deputy director at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, however, believes Mr Najib’s actions were indeed surprising, and despite his best intentions to protect himself, the moves would have a detrimental effect on his party, given that Mr Muhyiddin is also UMNO’s deputy party president.

“This is going to have repercussions within UMNO itself, and that would lead his opponents within UMNO, (including) retired members within UMNO, to consolidate their criticism of him, just as he is now consolidating his own people within the government,” said Dr Ooi.

And while Mr Najib may be building a team of loyalists around him, the prime minister and his cabinet could lose touch with sections of Malaysian society.

“The danger now is that it would mean that the cabinet would isolate itself even further from Malaysian society, from the Malay community, large segments of it, and perhaps from segments of the party itself,” said Dr Ooi.

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Malaysia’s first family are under the spotlight as David Cameron flies in

As David Cameron arrives to talk trade, Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak’s bank accounts, his wife’s handbags and her son’s Hollywood deals are making the headlines

By Philip Sherwell, Asia Editor

The Telegraph

30 Jul 2015

David Cameron might have hoped that his few final hours in Malaysia at the end of a four-day, four-state whirlwind trade tour of South East Asia would have been the chance to start winding down before heading home.

Instead, he finds himself flying in to a deepening controversy on Thursday as a multi-million dollar scandal engulfs his host Najib Razak, the prime minister of the former British colony.

Nor is it just Mr Najib who is under attack from his foes in Malaysia amid allegations that he ended up with $700 million in his personal accounts from a state investment bank that he founded.

The Malaysian leader’s wife Rosmah Mansor has been derided for her alleged penchant for luxury and free-spending ways – claims that her husband has dismissed as political assaults.

And Riza Aziz, her son from her first marriage and Mr Najib’s step-son, is also a staple in the gossip as well as financial pages.

He has emerged as a major Hollywood film producer with multi-million property deals in Manhattan and Los Angeles since becoming close friends with a Malaysian playboy investor during their education in London.

So who is Najib Razak?

He’s the 61-year-old scion of Malaysian political royalty with UMNO, the Malay nationalist party that has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1957.

His father was the country’s second prime minister and his uncle its third. Mr Najib inherited his late father’s seat as an MP at 23 and later rose through the party ranks as chief minister of his home state and the serving in the Cabinet portfolios of education, defence and finance as well as deputy prime minister.

It is an impressively lifelong dedication to public service that has coincided with his family becoming one of the country’s richest. His personal profile was low until he married his second wife in 1987.

And Rosmah Mansor?

Ms Rosmah has repeatedly been criticised for her love of the good things in life. Earlier this year, she said she was the victim of “wildly exaggerated” allegations, published by the Sydney Morning Herald, describing her the “first lady of shopping” after reports that she had spent $75,000 on a single trip to a designer boutique.

She was also widely assailed for a reported claim that she lamented about having to pay $300 for a house call by hair stylist. And series of photos showing her holding at least nine Birkin handbags – items that normally sell for between $10,000 and $150,000 each – went viral on social media.

And she has denied allegations that she ever intended to buy a diamond ring worth $24 million that was shipped under her name to Malaysia in 2011 but then returned to the US jeweller. Mr Najib also went public to deny that that his wife bought the diamond ring for his Kazakh in-laws or that they had any links to the “Russian mafia”, as a regional media outlet had claimed.

And the Hollywood connection?

Riza Aziz, his British-educated step-son, has emerged in the film business as a major Hollywood player with his production company Red Granite Pictures (most notably with The Wolf Of Wall Street blockbuster).

He has also made the headlines in the US over complex property deals reportedly conducted with Jho Low, a Malaysian financier whom he met while studying at the London School of Economics and who became famous for sharing jeroboams of champagne with the likes of Paris Hilton.

As the New York Times documented, Mr Low began making some very expensive property deals in the United States in 2010. Those deals included acquiring a $24 million apartment in Manhattan that three years later was sold to a shell company controlled by Mr Aziz for a reported $33 million, according to the newspaper.

A similar transaction was playing out on the West Coast, the investigation continued. “Mr Low bought a contemporary mansion in Beverly Hills for $17.5 million, then turned around and sold it, once again to the prime minister’s stepson.”

And what about 1MDB?

That is the state investment fund that Mr Low encouraged Mr Najib to found and oversee. He helped channel Arab investment into a series of deals with the Malaysian government.

And how’s that going?

1MDB has reported debts of $11 billion. And $700 million of its funds allegedly ended up in Mr Najib’s personal accounts, according to a Wall Street Journal

investigation that has been widely reported elsewhere. Mr Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing or making any financial benefit from the operations of 1MDB.

This week, he sacked his deputy prime minister for breaking ground and saying publicly that the scandal was damaging their party He also replaced his attorney-general who was overseeing the investigation into the allegations.

So why does the family seem to be doing so well financially?

Mr Najib’s office, in a statement, told the New York Times that the prime minister does not track how much Mr Aziz earns or how such earnings are reinvested. As for the prime minister himself, the statement said he had “received inheritance”.

It noted that the family’s lifestyle was not unusual for a person of the “prime minister’s position, responsibilities and legacy (of) family assets”.

No allegations of wrongdoing have been confirmed against Mr Najib. But it is not the first time that he has been the subject of intense questions about his finances as political opponents have previously focussed on a long-running bribery inquiry in France involving a submarine order that Mr Najib commissioned while he served as defence minister.

Didn’t Mr Cameron just speak out on corruption during his Asian tour?

He did indeed, during a speech in Singapore on Tuesday delivered just a few hours after Mr Najib purged his government ranks of officials raising questions about the 1MDB scandal.

The British prime minister warned that foreign fraudsters and corrupt officials can no longer “stash dodgy cash” in London’s luxury property market as he announced a major review of ownership rules.

He said that the international community has “looked the other way for far too long” when it comes to corruption“, which he called “one of the greatest enemies of progress in our time.

He continued: “We simply cannot afford to side-step this issue or make excuses for corruption any more. We need to step up and tackle it.”

So will he be “side-stepping” such allegations in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday?

Malaysian opposition MPs have urged the British prime minister to use his visit to press Mr Najib on the allegations, warning that otherwise the trip would appear to be a vote of support for the beleaguered leader. Privately, one senior opposition figure told The Telegraph that the timing of the visit was “nuts” and “boggled the mind”.

But this tour is all about the realpolitik of international trade for Mr Cameron. He is visiting Malaysia to try and drum up British business deals and secure Malaysian co-operation in security measures to combat Islamic radicals. And he knows he won’t get far with that if he embarrasses his host, however embattled he may be.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 31 July 2015, 5:44 am and is filed under
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The troubles of Malaysia’s prime minister continue

Economist

Jul 30th 2015 | SINGAPORE | Asia

Najib Razak sacks five ministers, including his deputy

HOW many lousy weeks comprise an annus horribilis? If current conditions continue, Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, will find out. For months Mr Najib has been buffeted by allegations of corruption at a state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which he set up six years ago. Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported that some $700m from companies associated with 1MDB was paid into what investigators believe are his personal bank accounts. (Mr Najib vigorously denies any wrongdoing.)

On Monday Mr Najib seemed to get a rare bit of good news: Malaysia was bumped up from the bottom to second-to-last of four tiers in America’s Trafficking in Persons report, which ranks governments on their efforts to combat people smuggling. But he did not get to enjoy that news for long. Critics pointed out that, earlier this year, graves were discovered in traffickers’ camps near Malaysia’s border with Thailand, and just this week reports emerged alleging that migrants were forced to work without pay on palm-oil plantations. Some believe that the elevation stemmed not from actual efforts to fight trafficking, but from America’s desire to pass smoothly the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade deal currently being negotiated among a dozen Pacific countries including Malaysia.

On Tuesday Mr Najib sacked five ministers, among them his attorney-general, Abdul Gani Patail, who said he had received documents concerning the prime minister and 1MDB; and his deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin, who had made comments critical of how the government had handled the 1MDB scandal. On Wednesday night a video surfaced that appeared to show Mr Muhyiddin telling several guests at his home that Mr Najib admitted that 2.6 billion ringgit ($683m) was paid into his personal account.

Among those Mr Najib promoted to the cabinet was Nur Jazlan Mohamed, who had been chairing a parliamentary committee looking into the 1MDB allegations. He will resign from that post, which will cause the committee to suspend its investigation until October. That may give Mr Najib time, but that is all he has. The support of his own party, which has ruled Malaysia since independence, is shaky, and would be shakier still if a viable replacement could be found.

On Wednesday evening, a fire broke out at Malaysia’s police headquarters. The Twitter jokes practically wrote themselves. Malaysia’s police chief tweeted that nothing important was lost. “Stop the rumours”, he urged. Easier said than done.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 31 July 2015, 5:29 am and is filed under
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Ruling party leaders are dangerously disconnected from the grass roots.

Wall Street Journal

July 29, 2015

OPINION

The scandal engulfing Malaysian politics isn’t getting any easier for Prime Minister Najib Razak. On Sunday Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin broke ranks with his boss and urged him to answer questions swirling around state-owned investment fund 1MDB. On Tuesday the Prime Minister sacked Mr. Muhyiddin and also replaced the Attorney General leading an investigation into the fund.

The firestorm began July 3, when the Journal reported that Malaysian-government investigators found evidence that nearly $700 million linked to 1MDB transited through Prime Minister Najib’s personal accounts. Those documents can now be viewed on WSJ.com. The origin and ultimate destination of the money is not clear.

Mr. Najib’s office denied that the report was true and called it “political sabotage.” But that is not enough for Mr. Muhyiddin. On Sunday he warned that grass-roots support for the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) is evaporating because its leaders aren’t offering a public explanation for what happened with 1MDB. “We cannot explain properly because even we don’t know the real facts, so who is going to tell us the real facts, it should be the Prime Minister, true or not,” the Star newspaper quoted him saying.

Mr. Muhyiddin remains Deputy President of UMNO, but that could change when the ruling party’s Supreme Council is scheduled to meet on Friday. Mr. Najib’s support among the top ranks appears secure, so he may push his former heir apparent out of the leadership.

That is unlikely to be the end of the power struggle. Mr. Muhyiddin seems to have taken the pulse of the party’s base and calculated that Mr. Najib’s days are numbered. After the cabinet reshuffle, he urged his supporters to remain loyal to the party, which may signal that he is prepared to wait rather than try to depose Mr. Najib in an internal putsch or move to the opposition.

If the 1MDB scandal does bring down Mr. Najib, Mr. Muhyiddin’s public break puts him in a better position to step in as a reformer. But his career up to this point has been typical of an UMNO party boss: He found the right mentors to move up the patronage ladder and in turn gained the loyalty of those he brought up with him. That makes him an unlikely figure to clean house thoroughly.

Meanwhile, Malaysians are busy handicapping Mr. Muhyiddin’s chances of deposing the Prime Minister in the coming weeks. Many speculate that he overestimated the effect that the scandal will have on Malaysian politics. He said Sunday that UMNO would lose a general election if it were held today, but this government still has three years before it must call a poll.

It is also possible that Mr. Muhyiddin has underestimated the backlash building against UMNO’s leaders. Already the party’s support is precarious; in the 2013 election the ruling coalition won a majority of seats but lost the popular vote. 1MDB’s mismanagement of $11 billion in borrowed funds on Mr. Najib’s watch exposes the rot built up over six decades of one-party rule.

Mr. Najib’s brother Nazir Razak mused last year that their father, also a Prime Minister, maintained a modest lifestyle. The understated barb was not lost on Malaysians, who are all too aware of the wealth their leaders amassed in recent decades.

If Mr. Muhyiddin sits back and waits for the leadership of an unreformed UMNO to fall into his lap, he may be disappointed. It’s hard to escape the feeling that Malaysia is approaching a tipping point when its citizens demand a change in the institutions that have held back the country’s political and economic development.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 31 July 2015, 10:42 am and is filed under
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Is former AG Gani Patail a free man, and if so, why he could not appear in public to explain truth or otherwise of alleged draft corruption charge sheet against Najib?

The newly-minted Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali has dismissed the purported draft of a corruption charge sheet against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak published on whistleblower website Sarawak Report as  false.

When the new Attorney-General could not say a simple “Yes” or “No” whether Gani, who had served as Attorney-General for nearly 13 years and was only about two months away from Oct. 6 when he is reaches 60 years and mandatory retirement, was  summarily sacked as AG on Tuesday on July 28, 2015, Apandi is telling all Malaysians that he is capable of varnishing the truth, quibbling and equivocating instead of telling “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”!

Under these circumstances, Apandi’s denial must be taken with a pinch of salt until and unless he could produce the former AG, Gani Patail, to publicly explain the circumstances and the truth or otherwise of the draft corruption charge sheet against Najib.

The Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Ali Hamsa said on Tuesday that Gani’s service as the Attorney-General had  been terminated effective July 27 due to health reasons, but he would continue to serve as Judicial and Legal Service Officer until his mandatory retirement on Oct 6 this year.

So what is the problem of Apandi appearing with Gani for the former Attorney-General to explain the truth or otherwise of the draft corruption charge sheet against the Prime Minister – unless Gani is not prepared to appear in public  to make such a statement or Gani is no more a free man to make such a public appearance.

Whatever the position, the Malaysian public is entitled to “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” about the position of the country’s Attorney-General for nearly 13 years, and  his whereabouts after his sacking as Attorney-General, in particular whether Gani is still head of the multi-agency Special Task Force investigating the 1MDB and Wall Street Journal allegations, or whether Apandi has taken over Gani’s position in the Special Task Force or whether the Special Task Force has died a premature death.

I stand by my statement yesterday that Apandi’s denial about the alleged draft corruption charge against the Prime Minister lacks conviction and credibility.

Let Gani appear in the public to explain whether there is any basis in the  Sarawak Report exclusive  about the purported charge sheet against the Prime Minister for corruption as Gani is still in the legal and judicial service.

Surely,  Gani has not disappeared into thin air since his sudden, summary and shocking sacking as Attorney-General on Tuesday morning, after he answered press phone query to express his  surprise  and ignorance at the termination of his tenure.

Surely, Malaysia has not become a modern-day Stalinist Kremlin where a person could suddenly become a non-person and  disappear into the Gulag archipelago?

The ball is in Apandi’s court.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 August 2015, 12:18 pm and is filed under
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Paul Low – where were you when the table was turned,  the hunters become the hunted as the Special Task Force probing 1MDB  was displaced by  a Police Probe on 1MDB Special Task Force?

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low has vowed to protect the officers of the multi-agency Special Task Force investigating 1MDB, coming  from the four key agencies of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), the Royal Malaysian Police and the Attorney-General’s Chamber (AGC).

He said he had been brought into the federal cabinet specifically to promote good governance and to strengthen transparency and accountability in the government, and in line with this mandate, he assured  the public that he would  continue to stand firm in protecting these institutions and their respective officers, and will see to it that they are allowed to conduct the investigations until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.

Tragically, Paul Low  was completely impotent when the key officials and  the multi-agencies of the Special Task Force investigating 1MDB  came under assault, with the most important officer, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail himself sacked suddenly and summarily, while key institutions like the AGC, MACC and BNM were humbled and intimidated, with  the arrest of a former MACC adviser and an officer  from AGC by the police today.

Where was Paul Low after making the vow to protect Special Task Force officers?

Was Paul Low consulted, was he aware that Gani Patail was to be summarily sacked and replaced by Federal Court judge Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali, and what did he do to stop such wanton disregard of the principles of good governance ?

Was Pau Low aware of the two arrests today, a former MACC adviser and an officer from AGC and the widespread rumour in the country alleging a fictitious international plot to criminalise Najib Razak and topple the elected government of Malaysia, reaching into the very sanctum of the government, namely the key institutions of BNM, MACC and AGC?

What did Paul Low do when the table was turned and the hunters became the hunted as the Special Task Force probing 1MDB was displaced by  a Police Probe on 1MDB Special Task Force?

Having made his vow to protect the key institutions comprising the Special Task Force on the 1MDB, and their top-most officials, what  has Paul Low done to counter and debunk the ludicrous version that the international conspiracy to “criminalise” Najib and topple the elected Prime Minister of Malaysia had won support from the very sanctum of government in Putrajaya  covering AGC, MACC and BNM and warranting a crackdown on the institutions and key officials?

Let Paul Low speak up, loud and clear, of his position today as Minister specifically tasked on governance, integrity and human rights.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 August 2015, 3:00 pm and is filed under
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The never-ending fight for the facts

Boo Su-Lyn

Malay Mail Online

Friday July 31, 2015

JULY 31 ― When I applied for a job as a journalist, my boss told me that journalism was about reporting the “facts”, not the “truth.”

I didn’t really understand him then. Wasn’t it the same?

But I’ve come to realise that “truth” has its own shade of meaning, a play on passion and emotions, while “facts” are unemotional, leaning neither right nor left. You, the reader, are free to make your own judgment. But with the “truth”, it sometimes comes with the writer’s own judgments.

When we journalists uncover facts ― whether it’s about how the boom in tudung brands shows the trend of conservative Islam in Malaysia, or how public funds are diverted into the pockets of powerful people ― it’s so that people can decide what to do now that they’re better informed.

If Malaysians aren’t comfortable with how religion is encroaching into governance and public policies in a secular country, they can speak up. If they’re perfectly fine with even a seven-month-old baby wearing a headscarf, that’s up to the people.

It’s difficult, too, to care about “boring” things like Parliamentary Select Committees (people’s eyes glaze over after the first five syllables), or to realise the enormous wrong in allowing government institutions to be used so frequently by political parties until the Prime Minister’s Office brazenly equates itself to Umno.

We’ve become so inured to the institutional wrongs committed in Malaysia that we don’t call it out anymore. And hearing about a few million ringgit being stolen here or misappropriated there in the many everyday acts of corruption fails to shock us into action. Such sums are too “small” to be concerned about; we only care about that RM42 billion.

Journalists can’t force people to act. We merely inform. You can choose to ignore such information and say it doesn’t affect you, without realising that giving in to inertia, to the system, can affect your personal life ― the way you dress, who you marry or have sex with, or even the price of a flat white at your favourite hipster café.

Or you keep fighting.

But you can only keep fighting for your rights as Malaysian citizens if you are empowered with knowledge.

When the government suspended the printing permits of The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily, it wasn’t just an attack on one media organisation, or even on the media industry as a whole ― it was an attack on the people.

It was an attack on Malaysians’ right to obtain information about the government they elected.

It was an attack on people’s ability to make informed decisions about public policies concerning their hard-earned tax ringgit.

What infuriates me more than anything else is the government’s audacious act in suppressing information that Malaysians need in order to decide what kind of governance they want.

How dare they presume to do that, when it is the people who put them in power and entrusted them with the huge responsibility of using our tax monies efficiently to run the country?

A journalist’s job is a thankless one ― no one likes to talk to us and it requires tenacity to get the information we want.

But I do it anyway because it’s my duty to inform my readers about what’s going on in Malaysia, so that they can demand better policies or speak out against what is not right.

The government should learn to embrace the age of information and realise that they cannot keep the people cooped up in a dark cave anymore. People are hungry for knowledge.

If we truly want to become a developed country in just less than five years, Malaysia must allow press freedom to flourish. We must have a Freedom of Information Act and repeal the Official Secrets Act.

With transparency comes accountability. And it is accountability that will cut corruption and force the government to implement the best policies for the people.

If this article (and countless other pieces) can’t convince the government that we journalists are serious about our freedom, then perhaps we need the public, whose interest is the very reason for our existence, to back us in a physical show of support.

Come and join us in a show of solidarity at The Edge’s office this afternoon. And also at the #AtTheEdge rally in Kuala Lumpur on August 8 #808. I hope to see all of you there.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 August 2015, 6:57 am and is filed under
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Tony Pua’s Impian Malaysia

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 August 2015, 12:43 pm and is filed under
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Will there be some 20 UMNO MPs and 20 BN MPs from Sabah and Sarawak prepared to join with some 80 MPs from DAP, PKR and Gerakan Harapan Baru to form a new coalition government with a new Prime Minister with new policies to save Malaysia from becoming a failed state?

It is becoming a popular refrain from top government circles in the past few days alleging that there is an international conspiracy plotting the toppling of a serving Prime Minister by “criminalizing” him, as if  the Najib government is preparing the ground for a new dragnet of arrests, using Section 124 of the Penal Code on the new-fangled crime of “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy” which can send a person convicted for the offence to jail for up to 20 years.

The latest person to join in this government chorus is none other than the new Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali who, in his fourth day as the top law officer of the government early this morning, dismissed the purported draft of a corruption charge sheet against the  Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak by former Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, published on whistleblower website Sarawak Report, as false.

Apandi went on to declare that the alleged draft corruption  charge against Najib point to “a conspiracy to topple a serving prime minister by criminalising him” and warning “stern action against the perpetrators” as “the full force of the law will be applied without exception on any that are found guilty”.

In fact, more than a dozen names have been circulated in the social media in the past few days of persons from the press, Parliament, the “special task force” on the 1MDB which is a multi-agency constituted by Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, the Royal Malaysian Police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers alleging that they are going to be picked up in the crackdown on these plotters of the international conspiracy to “criminalise” Datuk Seri Najib Razak and to topple the elected Prime Minister of Malaysia – and it really surprises me that the Inspector-General of Police who have been issuing all sorts of warnings to various quarters in the social media seems to be blissfully unaware of such sites and their activities.

This is why in the past two days, I had specifically asked whether Malaysia is on the brink of a “new Dark Age” and another round of attacks on the independence, integrity and professionalism of the national institutions which had suffered and had not fully recovered from the earlier round of attacks on the national institutions in the country.

The allegation that there is an international plot to topple the elected Prime Minister of Malaysia by violent or unconstitutional means  is most far-fetched and ludicrous and exists only in the wild imaginations of those who want to concoct it to hatch a plot to remove Najib’s critics in the Prime Minister’s many scandals, and in particular the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal.

If truth be told, there is not only no such international plot and conspiracy to topple the elected Prime Minister by violent or unconstitutional means, we in DAP, PKR and the Gerakan Harapan Baru would prefer to have Najib lead UMNO/Barisan Nasional into the 14th General Election.

This is strictly from party political point of view, for Najib would be the weakest Prime Minister the UMNO/BN coalition could offer, with the volume of  political and financial scandals he is chalking up under his premiership, all of which overshadowed  by  the mammoth and monstrous RM42 billion 1MDB scandal – with 1MDB indisputably standing for “1Malaysia Disaster Bhd” or “1Malaysia Malapetaka Bhd”!

I cannot to speak about PAS as I have just read the Prime Minister singing praises for the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang for his understanding and sympathy for Najib over the 1MDB scandal!

In fact, if there is a vote of no confidence in Najib as Prime Minister in Parliament, I would not be surprised if Hadi and his MPs would not vote in support of any such motion.

From the purely selfish party political viewpoint, DAP, PKR and the Gerakan Harapan Baru MPs would be quite happy to see Najib continue as PM and lead the UMNO/BN coalition in the 14th General Election, and lead to UMNO/BN coalition to defeat and the opposition benches – a prospect predicted by none other than former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has been sacked as Deputy Prime Minister not only because he articulated grass-roots concerns about the 1MDB scandal but his fear that UMNO would lose if general elections are held now.

My old parliamentary pal, the former MP for Sri Gading who is now Johore State Assembly Speaker, Tan Sri Mohamad Aziz had publicly warned that  the sacking of Muhyiddin as Deputy Prime Minister and Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal as Minister for Rural and Regional Development would destroy UMNO.

He asked whether it was wrong for an Umno deputy president to talk about an issue that has been worrying the rakyat, posing the very pertinent question:

“What is more important – 1MDB or the survival of Umno?”

The time has come for all Malaysians, including UMNO leaders, activists and members  to go beyond the canvas and issues raise by Mohamad Aziz, and ask the bigger question:

“What is more important – survival of UMNO or survival of the nation?”

Before I came to the dinner, I read of UMNO Youth and Puteri leaders in Johore who have quit their posts in protest over Muhyiddin’s sacking, who felt that the top UMNO leadership has deviated from the original struggles of the old leaders and that “those who speak the truth would be removed, and those who fight for the people would be fired”.

Clearly, they have given their answers to the key question of the time: “What is more important – survival of UMNO or survival of the nation?”

While Najib  would be the best choice for DAP, PKR and GHB to lead UMNO/BN in the 14th General Election, as it would likely be most  advantageous to us politically if there is no change of UMNO/BN leadership, this is not good for Malaysia as a whole as the nation is hurtling towards a failed state in Year 2020 and not a fully developed nation.

The 1MDB debacle raised questions about the government’s transparency and its ability to govern effectively, particularly when it comes to its own finances.

It is also  bad for the investment climate and business  environment in the country.

Malaysia is  facing a number of substantial economic challenges , the ringgit tumbling to levels not seen since the Asian Financial Crisis, making it the  Asia’s worst-performing currency as well as  a rout in commodity prices particularly lower energy prices.

Will it  be in Malaysia’s best interests if Malaysia’s crisis of confidence is  resolved before the 14th General Election in another two years’ time.

Is this possible?

This will depend on whether there are some 20 UMNO MPs and 20 BN MPs from Sabah and Sarawak who are prepared to join with some 80 MPs from DAP, PKR and Gerakan Harapan Baru to form a new coalition government with a new Prime Minister with new policies so save Malaysia from becoming a failed state.

DAP has 38 MPs, PKR 29, assuming GHB can muster 10 MPs, a new coalition with more than half of the 222 MPs could be formed if there are some 20 patriotic and like-minded UMNO MPs and 20 BN MPs from Sabah and Sarawak who agree that the top national priority is to save Malaysia from becoming a failed state because of rampant corruption, socio-economic injustices and the collapse of good governance.

This is not a national or international conspiracy to topple the elected Prime Minister by violent or unconstitutional means, but a patriotic endeavor using democratic and constitutional means to save Malaysia from becoming a failed state – to allow Malaysia to become a country of “endless possibilities” to leverage on the wealth and diversity of Malaysia’s human talents and natural resources to become a truly great nation.

The question is whether such numbers of MPs could be cobbled together with a new coalition, a new Prime Minister and new policies to save Malaysia from becoming a failed state.

(Speech at the DAP Sungai Petani anniversary dinner held at Dewan Beng Siew,  Sungai Petani, Kedah on Friday, 31st July 2015 at 10 pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 August 2015, 9:28 am and is filed under
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Najib’s desperate shuffle for survival

By Bridget Welsh

Malaysiakini

Jul 31, 2015

COMMENT
 Najib Razak’s cabinet reshuffle was an expected step in the repertoire of many measures that the prime minister has used to stay in office.

In this manoeuvre, he has removed the immediate leadership threats among the Umno hierarchy, closed down the two avenues of negotiation involving the 1MDB scandal, and purportedly strengthened the ‘strongman’ dimensions of his leadership.

Many argue this Mahathirian move has secured Najib’s position by neutralising challengers. I disagree. In fact, Najib’s measures of late reveal weakness – not strength – and are likely to deepen his leadership crisis.

With the reshuffle, Najib has forged new alliances among the various factions in Umno. In the Umno party elections of 2013, Najib made a strategic alliance with Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s appointees and the former premier’s son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin to secure dominance over internal party opposition seen from the Mahathir Mohamad camp.

Najib managed to position considerable loyalists as division chiefs in the party contests, but did not fully secure control over the Supreme Council or have a majority of division chief loyalists on his own, relying heavily on allies to shore up his position.

Najib’s post-2013 approach to manage Umno was to fuel patronage to division chiefs, and to rely on a broad consensus cabinet that would include diverse representations from factions within the party. Among those included in cabinet were prominent Umno leaders not seen to be directly tied to Najib, current and former deputy prime ministers, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Muhyiddin Yassin respectively. Najib chose to keep his potential challengers close.

As the crisis with Najib’s leadership of Umno evolved, with its roots in the 2013 party polls, Najib took steps ranging from meetings to promised contracts to stay in control. He followed in Mahathir’s footsteps using the executive position to his advantage. His apparent aim was to neutralise threats to his power, to secure his position aka Mahathir-style as a long-term leader.

While he did not act decisively to put in his own loyalists, he was simultaneously unsettling the balance among Umno warlords and creating dissatisfaction among Umno elites, particularly with Mahathir. The dissatisfaction was fueled by displacement of actors in the Umno political economy, concerns that Najib sold out the party for himself and, most importantly, perceptions he was undermining the electoral position of Umno.

Four important shifts

This was an insecure position, even before the recent scandals and revelations rocked his administration. The 1MDB corruption and embezzlement scandal reverberated strongly within some Umno circles because it represented the fears of many within the party.

The excessive amounts involved, the funding mechanism outside of the party and perceived to be concentrating on Najib rather than the party as a whole angered many within Umno, especially those against Najib’s leadership. On top of that, the 1MDB scandal has seriously undermined Malaysia’s credibility among investors, as it involves banks and deals across the region, and has had a negative impact on the economy as seen in the fall in value of the ringgit.

Two dominant views inside Umno have emerged. The Najib critics believe the premier should explain and account for the funds, and potentially leave his post. Others take the view that 1MDB may be the vehicle that can sink the entire Umno ship and thus, there is a need to rally around the leader. For all in Umno, the shared mode is political survival and protection of their positions, with differences in how this can be achieved.

Najib’s cabinet reshuffle reveals four important shifts among Umno leaders in the past few weeks.

First, Zahid, previously seen to be more independent, has now allied with Najib. How strong and trustworthy this alliance is yet to be seen. In the short term, however, this alliance with the middle camp gives Najib more numbers among party divisions.

Second, Abdullah’s loyalists have been strengthened in cabinet with the entry of people such as Reezal Merican Naina Merican and the consolidation of the position of Abdullah’s son-in-law Khairy Jamuluddin.

Third, potential critics in position of prominence such as Nur Jazlan Mohamed, formerly from the Public Accounts Committee, have been brought into Najib’s fold, with the aim of dividing the camp of potential Najib dissidents. A similar splitting dynamic has happened with the entrants from Sabah such as Salleh Said Keruak.

Finally, clear and open Umno critics, including a potential challenger to Najib, Muhyiddin Yassin (photo), have been purged from their leadership positions. Najib now seemingly has the majority of numbers at leadership levels, for now.

This move is being portrayed as savvy and effective – sweetened by the fact that the investigations over the 1MDB have been punted down the road.

Political ramifications

Change is one of the consistencies in Malaysian politics. As Newton taught us, every action has a reaction. Najib’s cabinet reshuffle will have political ramifications. By unsettling the consensus cabinet post-2013, Najib has opened up a political Pandora’s box for Umno.

The day of removing a DPM without political consequences in Malaysia has long gone. To do so without finesse will provoke sympathy for the former deputy among Umno’s grassroots. Muyhiddin’s public standing will also increase, and this will evoke further reactions to discredit him from Najib loyalists.

Differences in Umno over 1MDB have been confirmed with Muyhiddin’s sacking and a leaked video of a private meeting between the former DPM and Mahathir’s son Mukhriz and a few other party leaders. Divisions inside Umno are real. The louder the calls of ‘one team’ and ‘unity,’ the greater the discord and division.

The reality is that Najib dissidents are not going away, despite the steps to purge them. It is a matter of time before they react. One important question is where they will go. As the recent PAS history shows, purging opponents deepens splits within parties. This is especially the case if there is no place for those unhappy with the leadership within the party. Najib’s action will push those unhappy in the party to potentially seek alternatives. Malaysia’s Malay political landscape will continue to transform.

Najib also now faces the task of winning over his new allies in Umno. The cabinet reshuffle shows that loyalties are indeed fluid within the party. Infighting and jockeying for position and economic advantage remain alive and well.

The question of whether Najib can trust and work with his new appointees will be important. Will the use of patronage and position be enough to maintain their support? What will be the price of staying in power? Will it offset another challenger?

Some would argue that Najib’s placement of the publicly unpopular Zahid is a measure to offset calls for his replacement. Yet, Zahid’s elevation gives him a higher political platform for his own ambitions and to strengthen his own political base, and this will create its own uncertainties inside Umno and for Najib. Zahid comes to the deputy position with considerable grassroots support. The premier’s fight for political security continues.

Rising public discontent

While conditions inside Umno remain fractious, the situation outside of the party is even more unsettling for Najib. Malaysia’s leader is still facing a legitimacy crisis with declining domestic support. Public views of the economy remain negative, especially over the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) and rising inflation.

Ironically, the cabinet reshuffle has created more doubts about Najib’s leadership. The public is asking why he removed his critics and attempted to neutralise the investigations on 1MDB. Concerns are being raised about Najib’s governance in the public at large as Najib’s popularity is at a record low. Attention remains focused on fighting for political survival rather than governing for Malaysians.

Najib’s choice of new deputy does not enhance the premier’s ability to win back public support – at least not yet. While Zahid is highly popular in Umno, he does not have high standing outside the party, especially in the business community.

Not only is Zahid’s public standing lower than that of Muhyiddin’s, his leadership as home minister has not engendered public confidence. Zahid is seen to represent the hardline position of the party politically and economically, as an opponent to reform.

The message being sent is that Najib’s leadership is moving further toward a hardline trajectory, a direction that is at odds with the majority of Malaysians. The hardliners have a misperception that the electorate is ignorant, forgetful, and forgiving, rather than aware, patient, and searching for leaders they can respect. History shows that crackdowns, arrests, and threats backfire, and are at best temporary measures that fail to address the underlying demands for a better Malaysia.

Meaningful public concerns that require public accountability have not been addressed. This failure to address the core issues involved in the 1MDB crisis and electoral vote-buying will only deepen Najib’s leadership crisis. It will also spark greater public action, as the legal avenues to address the 1MDB investigation have been closed down.

Social movement Bersih 2.0 has already called for another public rally and other organisations have also asked for greater public accountability. The level of public outrage is increasing. With open calls for Najib’s resignation and the contestations over the 1MDB scandal as well as Najib’s leadership, the issue has moved outside of Umno circles into the society at large.

Najib’s shuffle for survival was just that – a small easy move. In the face of consistent Umno party divisions, persistent insecurities, and rising public discontent, the larger forces challenging Najib’s political legitimacy are very much affecting the country’s political instability and will continue to do so.

BRIDGET WELSH is a Senior Research Associate of the Center for East Asian Democracy at National Taiwan University, an Associate Fellow of The Habibie Center, and a University Fellow of Charles Darwin University.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 2 August 2015, 5:02 am and is filed under
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Save Najib, Save UMNO or Save Malaysia?

It has been a roller-coaster month which Malaysians had not have the misfortune to  experience before.

It began with the explosive  Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report alleging that government investigators had discovered US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) deposited into Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts in AmBank in March 2013 just before the 13th General Election, which  Najib had not denied but repeatedly declared  he had never taken funds for personal gain, to a major  and ongoing purge and crackdown of key institutions started with the sacking of the Deputy Prime Minister and  the Attorney-General and followed by the overawing and intimidation of the Cabinet, Parliament, the Press and the multi-agency Special Task Force investigating 1MDB comprising Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Royal Malaysian Police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).

In one month, the country went from the “high” of the Prime Minister assuring the nation that no stone would be left unturned to get to the bottom  not only of the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal but the WSJ report of RM2.6 billion deposited into the Prime Minister’s personal bank accounts, (and Najib was so confident that he publicly declared that all investigations will clear him), to the “low” of the “hunters being hunted”, allegations  that the sacked Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail was in the final stage of drafting corruption charges against Najib  himself, and the Special Task Force investigating 1MDB virtually  accused of being involved in an international conspiracy to topple the elected Prime Minister of Malaysia.

How does one separate fact from fiction, truth from lies.

Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M)  hit the nail on the head when on Thursday (30th July) its president Akhbar Satar pronounced the 1MDB probes “dead” – whether the multi-agency Special Task Force, the Public Accounts Committee or even by the Auditor-General.

This sombre prediction was driven home by the trio of arrests, namely  a MACC deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Sazilee Abdul Khairi who had been handling the 1MDB probe,  MACC’s former advisory board member Tan Sri Rashpal Singh and the Attorney-General’s Chambers finance and anti-money laundering secretariat member Jessica Gurmeet Kaur.

Where else in the world apart from a failed state in  a third-world country does investigators into major corruption scandal commissioned by the Prime Minister himself end up being arrested and being accused of  trying to topple the elected Prime Minister by committing the new-fangled offence of “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy”?

Where else in the world apart from a failed state in a third-world country does the Police closes its eyes to the existence of  a website spinning the theory of an international conspiracy to topple the elected Prime Minister  over the 1MDB scandal and demanding the most dire actions to be taken agains the alleged “conspirators”, even listing the names of 13 such conspirators, two of whom had  been nabbed by the police?

The five so-called independent oversight panels of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has issued a statement warning that there should be no interference or pressure on the MACC or the special task force investigating 1MDB.

This interference and pressure have happened.  What heroic action is forthcoming from the five oversight MACC panels to protect the integrity and professionalism of the MACC?

Former Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has urged the newly-appointed Cabinet to “act fast” in solving the 1MDB issue as the eyes of the public are on them following the Cabinet reshuffle.

The pronouncements of the reshuffled Cabinet, in particular the 1MDB “trio”  of Ministers who are clearly assigned the task to launch an  offensive on the 1MBD issue, does not inspire confidence that the reshuffled Najib government would “act fast” to resolve the 1MDB issue, but would only “act fast” to launch a purge and crackdown of 1MDB critics, whether in UMNO, Parliament or country.

The dilemma and challenge facing all Malaysians, whether in UMNO or outside, is the stark and brutal one: Save Najib, Save UMNO or Save Malaysia?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 2 August 2015, 8:44 am and is filed under
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Although Najib has succeeded in frightening off Mahathir in not talking about 1MDB scandal, there are still enough  patriotic and public-spirited Malaysians who still insist on their rights to demand proper accountability and not to be fobbed off by Najib’s delaying tactics

I fully agree with former Cabinet Minister and Kedah Mentri Besar, Tan Sri Sanusi Junid that Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s  reshuffled Cabinet is unashamedly a 1MDB Cabinet, imbued with the “Charge of the Light Brigade” spirit of “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs  not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die, Into the Valley of Death” to give blind support and loyalty to Najib on the 1MDB scandal.

We can already see a trio of Najib’s Cabinet Ministers, two of whom are  newly brought into Najib’s Cabinet, who have taken the position as Najib’s vanguard to resort to all means, whether fair or foul, to shield and cocoon Najib from demands of accountability, transparency and good governance principles on the 1MDB scandal.

Although Najib has succeeded in frightening off former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir, from further  talking about the 1MDB scandal, it is fortunate that there are still enough patriotic and public-spirited Malaysians who refuse to bow down to Najib’s strong-armed tactics and are still insisting on their rights to demand proper accountability on the 1MDB scandal and not to be fobbed off by Najib’s various delaying tactics, including:

•	Crippling the multi-agency “Special Task Force” investigating the 1MDB scandal, turning the table where those hunting for those guilty of crimes in the 1MDB scandal have become the “hunted”, accused of an international conspiracy to “criminalise” the Prime Minister and topple the elected government of Malaysia, starting with the sacking of the Attorney-General of nearly 13 years, Tan Sri Gani Patail and  the arrest and investigation  of key officers in the Special Task Force; and

•	Paralysing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which is scheduled to resume hearings into the 1MDB scandal from tomorrow onwards, by removing the PAC Chairman  and three members by the simple expedient of elevating to Ministerial or Deputy Ministerial positions in the Cabinet reshuffle  and undermining the principle of sovereignty of Parliament and the doctrine of separations of powers by sabotage of its continued hearings on the 1MDB scandal  by at least 12 weeks.

Former Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhiyddin Yassin has vowed that he would not shut up on the 1MDB issue, as it is the concern of the people.

As Muhyiddin said it at the Kluang Umno division annual general meeting yesterday, “I said I won’t keep quiet. As UMNO deputy president why should I? I need to speak up.”

The question is whether there are enough UMNO leaders and members, as well as Malaysians, who will stand up to insist on their right to know the truth about the 1MDB scandal from the Prime Minister now, or whether Najib has succeeded in sealing the lips of  the three million UMNO members, enveloping them with the spirit of the “Charge of the Light Brigade”.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 3 August 2015, 3:11 pm and is filed under
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I agree with new Minister in PM’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs Azalina Othman for an emergency Parliament sitting but with the agenda to appoint new PAC chairman as well as to  decide on future of “Special Task Force on 1MDB”

I agree with the new Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Azalina Othman Said for an emergency Parliament sitting but with the agenda to appoint the new Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman as well as to decide on the future of the “Special Task Force on 1MDB”.

I am very surprised that Shahidan Kassim has been so summarily removed as the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs after  being assigned the portfolio for less than 27 months, without the basic courtesy of an announcement of the  change of portfolio by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak but by Azalina herself in Kota Tinggi, Johor on Saturday.

Does this tantamount to a verdict that Shahidan had failed as the Minister in charge of parliamentary affairs and if so, why is he retained as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department?

Does Shahidan know before Azalina’s announcement that he had lost charge of parliamentary affairs, or is this a “coup” by Azalina considering that she has very powerful forces backing her as a new Cabinet Minister?

This is a most shabby treatment for a UMNO loyalist like Shahidan but we are apparently in for very shabby times, considering the shabby and humiliating manner in which Tan Sri Gani Patail had been sacked as Attorney-General, although he had served as the No. 1 top legal officer of the government for nearly 13 years and was only two months short of mandatory retirement to reach the age of 60, as well the shabby treatment meted out to key officers of the “Special Task Force investigating 1MDB” – with the hunters of 1MDB crimes becoming the hunted themselves.

In fact, Gani may be  the  first person to become a non-person like in Stalinist Soviet Union, as if disappearing into Malaysia’s Gulag Archipelago, without anyone knowing whether the former Attorney-General is now a free person, and why he had not appeared to personally clarify on the issue whether he was making final drafts to charge the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, for corruption before he was suddenly, summarily and shockingly sacked.

Coming back to Azalina, has she  also  usurped the portfolios of another Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nancy Shukri?

As if worried that her Ministerial responsibilities  have not been noticed, Azalina yesterday called for an emergency Parliament sitting to amend cyber laws governing Internet and media usage such as the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.

This is in support of the Prime Minister’s speeches on the UMNO national roadshow yesterday that if slander on social media is allowed to fester, it would alter the thinking paradigm of the people and create a state of “trial by social media”.

Najib had asked whether it was not “weird” that in the “trial by social media”, members of the administration will be declared guilty before trial but when it comes to the opposition, it is all considered defamation, not considered as the truth.

Najib cannot be more wrong as both leaders of government and opposition had been victims of abuses of social media.

I can talk with authority as I had long been a victim of the Umno/Barisan Nasional social media, falsely accused as being anti-Malay, anti-Islam, chauvinist, communist and even as the plotter responsible for the May 13 riots in 1969 leading processions in the streets of Kuala Lumpur and hurling anti-Malay abuses, when all these accusations are lies and baseless, as for instance, the fact that I was not even in Kuala Lumpur but was in Sabah when the May 13 riots in 1969 broke out.

Did Najib and his Ministers take any action against these vile and vicious falsehoods perpetrated  by UMNO/BN  social media  against me all these years as well as against  the DAP and all other Opposition leaders?

I agree that there must be laws to deal with these lies, falsehoods, incitement of  racial and religious extremism, hatred and intolerance on the social media, and progressive MPs in DAP, PKR and Gerakan Harapan Baru are prepared to co-operate with the Umno/BN government to legislate laws to deal with such social media abuses.

Such legislative actions to deal with social media abuses, must be fair and comprehensive, and not be selective as targetted only at social media abuses against Umno/BN personalities while allowing free rein to social media abuses against Opposition leaders.

The  right step to be taken would be for the emergency Parliament to set up a non-partisan Parliamentary Select Committee to study the issue and recommend legislative changes that should be made to existing laws.

There is also an equally compelling case for an emergency Parliament before Merdeka Day on August 31 to  appoint the new PAC chairman as well as to decide on future of “Special Task Force on 1MDB”.

There are efforts to stop the PAC from continuing with its hearings on the 1MDB scandal later this week because of the Cabinet reshuffle last Tuesday, which has resulted in the vacancy of PAC Chairman and three PAC members because of their Ministerial or Deputy Ministerial elevations.

The Parliamentary Standing Orders are very clear that the remaining PAC, headed by the PAC Vice Chairman, Dr. Tan Seng Giaw, is duty bound to continue with its 1MDB hearings and it is no business even of the Parliament Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Mulia Amin to interfere and frustrate the PAC from its 1MDB hearings

Is the Speaker going to order that the PAC under Vice Chairman and the PAC members be locked out of Parliament to frustrate them from holding their PAC hearings on 1MDB?

If so, the Parliament Speaker will be making the Malaysian Parliament the laughing stock of Commonwealth Parliaments and the world!

One solution for such an impasse, which is the handiwork of the Prime Minister and the Executive, is to hold an emergency Parliament to appoint the new PAC Chairman and to fill the three other vacancies caused by the reshuffle, without in any manner interfering with PAC hearings on 1MDB which had been scheduled very much earlier.

Furthermore, the emergency Parliament would also be able to focus on the one single issue which had brought the higher reaches of the entire government machinery of Malaysia to a halt – the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal, and in particular the future of the “Special Task Force on 1MDB”, now that the hunters for the 1MDB crimes have suddenly themselves become the hunted.

Let Najib come to Parliament to inform MPs and the nation to give  a full and frank account about the 1MDB scandal – in particular to say a simple Yes or No to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report a month ago that US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) had been deposited into Najib’s personal accounts in AmBank in March 2013 just before the 13th General Election, where the monies came from and where to whom they have gone to.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 3 August 2015, 8:36 am and is filed under
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Labi Gone, Next Labu!

M. Bakri Musa

www.bakrimusa.com

Remember Labu and Labi, the two bumbling idiots in P. Ramlee’s 1962 comedy movie of the same title?

     Today we have a political version of that duo. With the latest cabinet reshuffle, Labi is gone. Next should be Labu, aka Najib Razak. The leadership of Malaysia is too important to be entrusted to these jokers.

     In a twist of irony, this latest exercise eases the process. By firing his deputy, Najib has set an important precedent – decoupling cabinet positions from party leadership. It has been the tradition, and only that as it is unsupported by the constitution, that leaders of the ruling party should also lead the country.

     By having someone other than the party’s deputy leader be the Deputy Prime Minister, that sets the stage whereby the Prime Minister too could be someone other than the party’s President. That is the only silver lining to this latest reshuffle. That excepted, Najib’s new cabinet remains a yawner. The elusive “wow” factor still eludes him.

     In picking his new ministers Najib is taken in by the glint of pebbles, confusing that for the sparkle of diamonds, or in kampong expression, pasir berkilau disangkakan intan. No surprise there as Najib himself is a pebble. He values loyalty over smarts, pebbles over diamonds. Expect Malaysia to be continually grinded down.

     One new minister gushed that she knew of her appointment through the radio! Obviously Najib had not vetted her. Even a housewife is more careful in picking her kangkung.

     The new appointees were so eager that they were oblivious of the darkening clouds hovering over their leader, desperate as they are for personal advancement. May they be struck by the same lightning and be drenched in the downpour. Spare Malaysia their personal ethics and pebble-stone quality.

     By “promoting” four members of the parliamentary committee investigating 1MDB, Najib tried to sidetrack and emasculate that committee. I would have thought that completing a crucial national investigation would be the committee’s highest priority and patriotic mission, as its chairman had earlier professed and promised. As I said, these characters are pebbles, not diamonds.

     If Najib thinks that he would stymie the investigation, he is mistaken. Already the deputy chairman has vowed to continue. Now the committee has more opposition members, including its vice-chairman. Najib may rue his “brilliance!”

Muhyiddin No Hero

Muhyiddin’s protestation over 1MDB was neither forceful nor strategic in content, setting, or timing, despite the hullabaloo it triggered. His mild and belated attempt at being a Hang Jebat after over six years as a compliant sidekick a la Hang Tuah was awkward. It was, to borrow his phrase, “lebih daripada meluat” (beyond nauseating).

     Beyond nauseating because it was self-serving. Consider the content. “I told him [Najib] to let go of his post in 1MDB, but he didn’t want to listen!” protested poor Muhyiddin. Imagine had he said, “I could not get an unequivocal denial from the Prime Minister! On the contrary he admitted to having that account!”

    In Muhyiddin’s retelling, he is “the first minister to take a stand on 1MDB.” He bragged about being vocal in cabinet and UMNO Supreme Council meetings. Then he complained that he and his cabinet and Supreme Council members had been kept in the dark.

     You cannot have it both ways. A cabinet as well as Supreme Council colleague rebuked Muhyiddin, noting that he had chaired some of those meetings.

     The setting too was inappropriate. Muhyiddin should have picked a more influential audience as in a formal press conference preferably with foreign correspondents present, not his party’s divisional meeting. He could have then answered the inevitable questions.

     As for the timing, imagine if Muhyiddin had also submitted his resignation. His stock would have soared. By letting himself to be sacked, Muhyiddin’s subsequent ranting was seen more as the whining of an ex-wife about her former husband. Worse, it made Najib look strong. Now that took some doing!

     Muhyiddin did better in his later press conference. Although it was somewhat chaotic, nonetheless he exuded great confidence, a portrait not of a man who had been fired rather one who had had a great burden lifted off his broad shoulders. One wonders what is that great burden!

     He would have appeared more in command had he dispensed with the prop of his wife beside him and the throngs of hangers-on behind. You do not have to major in theater to appreciate these subtleties of effective stage presentation.

     Going by Muhyiddin’s account, it was Najib who was weak. Muhyiddin had to prod Najib as he could not utter the words to fire Muhyiddin to his face. Najib merely nodded. There was no “you are fired” Donald Trump-style. If Najib could not handle his deputy one-on-one, I wonder how he would fare with world leaders.

      Muhyiddin should have given his press conference first instead of that speech at the divisional meeting. The latter was more a sly maneuver to “suck up” to Mahathir.

Mahathir was instrumental in Najib and Abdullah becoming Prime Ministers. Muhyiddin was trying to ingratiate himself to Mahathir in the hope of becoming his third dud pick.

     Malaysians should not let that happen. Yes, Mahathir successfully undid his first mistake and is now desperate to undo his second, with no sign of success in sight. If Mahathir again prevails, Malaysians should be grateful but not let him have this third pick. Malaysia has had enough of his mistakes.

     Muhyiddin is no hero. This is the Minister of Education who claimed that our schools and universities are the best. He could not be more wrong if he thinks the current outpouring of support he gets in the social media is an endorsement of his performance. Those are more expressions of citizens’ disgust with Najib, a variation of the enemy-of-your-enemy-is-my-friend dynamics.

Getting Labu Out

With Labi out, getting rid of Labu should now be easier. With 1MDB short of cash, bribing and influencing potential rebellious politicians would be that much more difficult. Nonetheless there are still other tools of persuasion, as Najib demonstrated with his latest cabinet reshuffle.

     Those too, like cash, are finite. There are just not enough cabinet slots or lucrative GLC directorships to accommodate all UMNO MPs and the many more avaricious local warlords, not counting those MPs from Barisan’s other component parties. Those from Sarawak and Sabah are “fixed deposits” only if their “inducements” keep flowing.

     Muhyiddin is from Johore, where UMNO began. Without inducements it would be difficult for him to keep his supporters there and elsewhere in tow. He is also no Tenkgu Razaleigh or Anwar Ibrahim. The chance of another Semangat 46 or Keadilan emerging to challenge UMNO and Najib is slim.

     Muhyiddin’s firing, cabinet reshuffle, “promotions” of parliamentary investigating committee members, “retirement” of Attorney-General Gani Patail, and the spectacular arrests of supposed “leakers” are all deliberate distractions. There would be no “leakers” had no crime been committed. They are arresting the good guys while the bad ones are running free.

     The central question remains. Did Najib Razak siphon funds into his personal account?

     Having failed in their attempts at denials, Najib’s pebble boys and girls are desperate for novel spins, the latest being “political donations” and “trust accounts.” I shudder to think that foreigners are buying our elections. What would these pebble-brains think of next? Najib had a royal flush in Vegas?

      Ignore these new distractions. The greatest challenge remains to get the truth on 1MDB out and the culprits brought to justice. That should be the duty and priority, ahead of personal interests and loyalty to individuals or party.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 3 August 2015, 2:28 am and is filed under
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