Najib’s Nixon Moment

M. Bakri Musa

www.bakrimusa.com)

28th July 2015

The Special Task Force and Parliamentary Committee investigating 1MDB (Najib Administration’s business entity) are missing the crux of the matter. They are distracted by and consumed with extraneous and irrelevant issues, either through incompetence or on purpose, as being directed to do so.

     The consequence is that what was initially a problem of corporate cash-flow squeeze has now degenerated into a full-blown scandal engulfing not only Najib’s leadership but also the national governance. The only redeeming feature is that for once a national crisis does not parallel the country’s volatile racial divide, despite attempts by many to make it so.

     Torrent of ink has been expended on that tattooed Swiss national now in a Thai jail, the suspension of The Edge, the threatened lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and the blocking of the Sarawak Report website. These are but distracting sideshows. Even veteran and hard-nosed observers and commentators are taken in by these distractions.

The central and very simple issue is this: Did Prime Minister Najib divert funds from 1MDB to his private account as alleged by WSJ and others?

The issue is simple because it requires only a brief “Yes” or “No” response.

If the answer is “Yes,” then all else pales in comparison.

If the answer is “No,” then we could proceed to such secondary issues as how much debt 1MDB has incurred, the extent of the government’s exposure, and whether the company could service its loans or even generate any revenue, as well as the related question of who leaked confidential bank and other sensitive financial information.

     Thus all, whether pro or anti Najib, should be asking him to answer that simple central question whether public funds were diverted to Najib’s account. That is the Malaysian Nixonian equivalent of “What did the president know and when did he know it?” of the infamous Watergate scandal of the 1970s.

     Queries that do not confront this central issue serve only to distract matters. Likewise the commentaries; they succeed only in exposing the biases and political leanings of their writers. We all can be spared of that, as well as the obvious sucking-up gestures by Najib’s flatterers.

    If Najib chooses to remain silent, then the parliamentary committee and special task force must focus their investigations to answering that basic question. They do not need the cooperation of the Monetary Authority of Singapore to do that. Nor do they have to travel to Thailand and interview that tattooed character, or subpoena that moon-faced chubby fellow who is so taken in with Paris Hilton.

     Arresting low-level employees like the company dispatcher would only divert resources and distract the staff. Instead there should be laser-like focus on ascertaining the central truth. All other matters as who leaked the incriminating information are secondary.

     This allegation of illegal diversion of public funds is made not by some kucing kurap anti-government blogger or a disgruntled UMNO operative deprived of his lucrative government contracts but by WSJ. The only way to rebut the damning allegation is to show that the documents laid out were false by producing your own evidence to the contrary.

     Alternatively, sue the publication. When the Financial Times alleged impropriety on the part of Tengku Razaleigh regarding the Bank Bumiputra fiasco of yore, he sued. And won; the rare occasion when that influential publication was humbled!

     If Najib were to sue WSJ, the ensuing depositions would uncover the truth. Lawsuits however, are expensive and protracted. All these hullabaloos would go away and confidence restored fast if Najib were to answer with a simple “No” to the central question, and if his answer were indeed the truth and could be substantiated as such. Then he can sue WSJ and everyone else.

     Tengku Razaleigh called upon those Malaysians who know the truth on this matter to come forward. There are only a few who are so privileged. They owe it to their fellow citizens to do so. As he so wisely put it, “Not telling the truth is not an option.”

Malaysia however should not be held hostage to their honesty and integrity, or lack of either. We all must do our part to make sure that the truth be exposed.

     I am heartened by the reactions of our corporate leaders. Nazir Razak and Tony Fernandes, both widely admired and highly accomplished, have condemned the suspension of The Edge. They have done more; they praised the paper!

     I applaud Nazir for another reason. What he did was another not-so-subtle rebuke to his oldest brother. He did it earlier as when he and his other brothers (minus Najib of course) reminded everyone that their father died leaving only a modest estate. In our culture, Nazir’s action took great courage. He did it in the finest Jebat tradition of fidelity to principle and country, over kin and leaders.

     We need others to do likewise. The Bar Council has taken an exemplary lead; likewise the Raja Muda of Johore and a former Mufti of Perlis. When exposing a crime is treated as a crime, the former Mufti reminded us, then we are ruled by criminals. The young prince upbraided politicians who are more loyal to their party than their fellow citizens.

     This 1MDB scandal threatens to not only bring down Najib but also damage Malaysia’s credibility, much like Nixon’s Watergate was to him and to America. It took the courage of Nixon’s closest allies in his own Republican Party to convince him to do the honorable thing. As a result, America was spared an unnecessary crisis, and a generous nation later forgave Nixon. With that, his monumental legacies, as with his engagement with China, remain intact.

     Najib does not have any positive legacy despite his over six years as Prime Minister, longer than Nixon was as President. Nonetheless Najib could still save his skin if he were to do the honorable thing – tell the truth.

     If he does not, then it is up to those closest to him to do the honorable thing – tell him the truth. The chance of that happening however, is remote as UMNO is bereft of courageous individuals who could see beyond their party (and its lucrative patronage) and tell it straight to Najib’s face.

     Deputy Prime Minister Muhyyiddin’s belated protest is too little, too late. It is also self-serving. Now if he were to resign in protest, that would mean something. Meanwhile as a member of Najib’s cabinet, he and the other ministers are collectively responsible and should be held jointly accountable.

     The only person who could force Najib would be Barisan’s Sarawak leaders, in particular Chief Minister Adenan Satem. His support is critical to Najib. Thus far Adenan is satisfied with squeezing the maximum out of Najib in his hour of crisis to benefit Sarawak. In the long term however, Adenan should remember that Sarawak, like the rest of the country, would progress only if the central government is competent and honest. An inept, corrupt and distracted central government would be detrimental to all, Sarawak included.

     It is time for Najib to do or made to do a Nixon. If Najib were to do it voluntarily then he could control the timing and to some extent, subsequent developments. Specifically he could choose his successor. Nothing in the constitution mandates that his current Deputy be the one.

     If he were to pick Tengku Razaleigh, a man of proven leadership and impeccable integrity, not only would that meet widespread approval including within Parliament, he would have secured for himself a significant legacy. He would also better his nemesis, Tun Mahathir, in one respect. The Tun chose two duds as his successors and in the process wasted a precious decade for Malaysia.

     Najib’s personal fate does not interest me. He could suffer a Marcos for all I care, but if Malaysia were to degenerate into another Philippines because of Najib, then those who remain silent or don’t take a stand now must bear some responsibility. How would they answer their grandchildren’s lament?

     May God bless those many brave and righteous Malaysians who have done and continue to do their part, and at great risks. I salute them! We must remain focused on the central issue: Did Najib embezzle those funds?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 28 July 2015, 7:56 am and is filed under
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Tak mengapa jadi ‘Mugabe’, asalkan terus berkuasa

Amin Iskandar

The Malaysian Insider

26 July 2015

Tiada berita lebih besar di Malaysia minggu ini selain penggantungan permit penerbitan akhbar mingguan The Edge dan harian The Edge Financial Daily.

Mana tidaknya, petanda sesebuah pemerintah atau kerajaan itu menuju kediktatoran adalah menekan media atau menutup surat khabar, sesuatu yang pernah dilakukan diktator-diktator “ulung” Asia Tenggara seperti bekas Presiden Indonesia, Suharto.

Ironinya, jika dahulu majalah Tempo “dikerjakan” Suharto kerana laporan tentang skandal pembelian kapal perang, akhbar The Edge kini digantung kerana menyiarkan laporan tentang syarikat sarat hutang 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Alasan digunakan Suharto pada ketika itu untuk menutup Tempo dan beberapa akhbar lain yang melaporkan skandal “anak emasnya” B. J. Habibie sama seperti digunakan Kementerian Dalam Negeri (KDN) iaitu memudaratkan ketenteraman awam!

Pada masa sama, “ikan-ikan bilis” berkait dengan 1MDB satu persatu didakwa di mahkamah.

Mungkin juga semua ini hanyalah kebetulan akan tetapi menghairankan “jerung besar” seperti Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak yang didakwa The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) menerima RM2.67 bilion wang 1MDB dalam akaun peribadinya tidak pula berdepan apa-apa siasatan atau tindakan.

Akan tetapi semuanya sudah dijangka dan diramalkan seorang penganalisis politik antarabangsa yang sangat faham tentang Malaysia.

Katanya Najib sudah pasti akan melepasi siasatan pasukan petugas khas berhubung 1MDB kerana semua agensi terlibat berada di bawah kuasanya.

Jadi Mugabe

Minggu lalu ketika rakyat Malaysia sibuk merayakan Syawal, penulis sempat minum kopi dengan 2 aktivis politik veteran tanah air yang terlibat secara langsung dalam isu-isu besar negara sejak 1970an.

Seorang mengatakan usia pemerintahan Najib akan berakhir tidak lama lagi ekoran skandal-skandal melanda dirinya dan perlawanan dari dalam Umno yang sudahpun bermula.

Katanya tidak mungkin Najib mampu menahan serangan dari dalam Umno dan bekas Perdana Menteri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad yang berlaku secara bertali arus.

Seorang lagi pula percaya Najib akan kekal berkuasa dan sanggup melakukan apa sahaja untuk terus berkuasa.

Katanya, tidak mustahil Najib akan “mentransformasikan” dirinya menjadi seperti Robert Mugabe di Zimbabwe dan tidak mempedulikan lagi komuniti antarabangsa kerana tidak mungkin beliau akan dilepaskan daripada skandal 1MDB sekalipun bersetuju untuk bersara.

Hari ini terbukti Najib menuju “Mugabe” apabila kerajaan pimpinannya menggantung akhbar kerana melaporkan skandal 1MDB.

Tidak tahulah bagaimana Najib yang sebelum ini dipuji Presiden Amerika Syarikat Barack Obama sebagai seorang “reformis” mahu menjawab isu penggantungan akhbar The Edge dalam lawatan Perdana Menteri Britian David Cameron ke Malaysia minggu depan.

Sepatutnya, negara demokrasi seperti Britian tidak akan senang dengan berita penindasan terhadap media. Cuma selalunya demi kepentingan “perniagaan”, mereka mungkin buat-buat tidak tahu.

Mungkin juga rakyat Malaysia yang cintakan demokrasi perlu memikirkan cara untuk “menyampaikan” mesej ini kepada Cameron.

Sebelum Malaysia jadi Zimbabwe, sesuatu perlu dilakukan. Kalau “nasi dah jadi bubur”, susahlah… – 26 Julai, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 28 July 2015, 6:30 am and is filed under
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If PAC probe into 1MDB grinds to a halt, it will be best  proof that the overriding objective of the  Cabinet reshuffle yesterday was to block, frustrate, sabotage or drag out  investigations into biggest financial scandal in nation’s history

Any attempt to halt the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigations into the 1MDB scandal will be the best proof that the overriding objective of the Cabinet reshuffle, which saw the sacking of the Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minister  and the Minister for Rural and Regional Development (one UMNO Deputy President and the other  UMNO Vice President) for asking questions about 1MDB which all thinking Malaysians are asking, is to block, frustrate, sabotage  or drag out investigations into the biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history.

I am surprised at Datuk Nur Jazlan’s acceptance of the appointment as Deputy Home Minister, for it was only ten days ago that he said publicly that he would rather finish his task as PAC Chairman in the PAC investigations on 1MDB first before accepting any Cabinet appointment.

He even said that this was the first time the chair of the PAC is held by a chartered professional accountant and he wanted to use his experience in politics, accountancy and corporations to steer the PAC especially in the 1MDB issue.

I do not know what made Nur Jazlan change his mind and renege on his public undertaking, especially as he was only offered a Deputy Ministership  and not a full Ministerial appointment, but he is guilty of conflict-of-interest when he said yesterday that the PAC probe into the 1MDB is now on hold until the next Parliamentary meeting which is not scheduled to meet until Oct. 19.

1MDB’s current and former chief executives like Arul Kanda, Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, Mohd Hazem Abdul Rahman , former directors including Mohd Bakke Salleh and Azlan Mohd Zainol as well as the real “mover and shaker” of 1MDB, tycoon Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, have been called by PAC to testify in the next few weeks.

Is the scuttling of the current schedule of  PAC investigations into 1MDB for at least another three months  with these 1MDB personages called up to testify the price of Nur Jazlan’s appointment as Deputy Minister (as well as the appointment of the three other UMNO/BN members as Minister or Deputy Minister)?

It would not be right if this were so, and I believe Nur Jazlan and the other three UMNO/BN members of PAC who had been appointed Minister or Deputy Minister in yesterday’s Cabinet reshuffle still know what is right and wrong!

For this reason, it is downright wrong for Nur Jazlan to announce that PAC investigations  on 1MDB are now  on hold and that the PAC hearings next week are postponed.

As PAC Chairman, Nur Jazlan fully appreciated the doctrine of separation of powers among the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary and the importance of ensuring that there is no interference or trespass by one on the other.

Why is his first act following his appointment as Deputy Home Minister to undermine this  important distinction between the Executive and the Legislature by unilaterally and arbitrarily announcing that PAC hearings on 1MDB are on hold?

If this is not Nur Jazlan’s intention, then he should make amends.

Under Parliamentary Standing Orders,, the present PAC have sufficient membership to continue its investigations into 1MDB, despite losing Nur Jazlan as PAC Chairman and three UMNO/BN MPs, Datuk Seri Reezal Merican Naina Merican (Umno – Kepala Batas),  Datuk Mas Ermieyati Samsudin (Umno – Masjid Tanah) and Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau (Upko- Tuaran) in the Cabinet reshuffle.

Although the PAC has no Chairman until a new appointment by Parliament, PAC has a Vice Chairman in the person of Dr. Tan Seng Giaw (DAP MP for Kepong) who was appointed by Parliament and sufficient working numbers to continue with its investigations into the 1MDB scandal.

Parliamentary Standing Orders 77(2) provides that the PAC shall consist of a Chairman and Vice Chairman to be appointed by Parliament, and not less than six and not more than 12 members to be appointed by the Committee of Selection.

With three MPs comprising the quorum for the PAC, there is no reason why the PAC should halt its investigations on 1MDB, as there are still  nine members in  the PAC, viz. with Seng Giaw as PAC Vice  Chairman taking over from Nur Jazlan as Acting PAC Chairman, together with  four MPs from  Umno/BN,  two from PKR, and one each from DAP and PAS.

Any halt and discontinuance of PAC hearings and investigations into 1MDB will not only confirm that the overriding objective of the Cabinet reshuffle yesterday was to frustrate and sabotage investigations into 1MDB, the PAC would be guilty of grave national disservice in not continuing with its investigations into 1MDB to uphold the principles of accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance as the bedrock foundations of Malaysian parliamentary democracy.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 29 July 2015, 8:17 am and is filed under
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Najib Razak is hardening Malaysia’s democratic political arteries

by Greg Earl

Australian Financial Review

29 July 2015

Malaysia was once the beacon of modernity in post-colonial south-east Asia, but it is now increasingly at the front line of an unnerving decline in government stability across the region, with Thailand under persistent military rule, Myanmar winding back an open election and Indonesia turning distinctly economic nationalist.

And, after sacking his independent-minded deputy on Tuesday, Prime Minister Najib Razak is looking a lot like Monty Python’s Black Knight as he refuses to acknowledge that his country is facing big questions over its ability to deal with corruption scandals.

He’s now sacked the man who might have replaced him, removed the minister overseeing an investigation getting too close to home, closed the country’s most innovative newspaper and is threatening to sue The Wall Street Journal just when US officials are doing their best to keep Malaysia inside the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade zone. And that’s not counting dismissing the relentless campaign by former strongman Mahathir Mohamad to tear down all his successors.

But reshuffling his ministry on Tuesday to neuter potential rivals and a corruption investigation, Najib scarcely even conceded a flesh wound.

The sacking of deputy Muhyiddin Yassin means he has now managed to survive three near-death experiences since coming to power in 2009 with the promise that, as the son of a respected former prime minister, he had the personal capital to be able to introduce much-needed economic and political reforms.

But as he has fended off United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) conservatives who thought he had gone soft, then charismatic opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim at the close 2013 election, and now a deputy prepared to say scandals need a proper investigation, he is only demonstrating how Malaysia’s democratic arteries are hardening.

GOVERNMENT ‘ALL MESSED UP’

It is little appreciated that Najib’s UMNO-led coalition government is the longest-serving regularly elected government in the world, having run the country since independence in the late 1950s.

This stability once made Malaysia a favoured destination for foreign investment, but that is coming under scrutiny amid the latest political turmoil this week because of questions about whether it will be able to qualify to join the TPP trade group being discussed in Hawaii.

The United States helped Malaysia out of a dilemma over people-trafficking charges on Monday, but other analysts question whether Najib will be able to accept TPP restrictions on state-owned enterprises and government preference schemes amid the domestic political turmoil.

“The government is in a very weak position and all messed up,” says Wan Saiful Wan Jan of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs think-tank.

“Najib is in office under a modernisation agenda and the TPP is part of that agenda. But if he goes, the party and the society will be less open to modernisation. And most people think he has lost his moral authority to be PM.”

Malaysia dropping out of the TPP wouldn’t be terminal and might even strengthen the rule-making, but it would raise an awkward question about the US pivot to Asia, because only Japan, Singapore, Vietnam and tiny Brunei would be left in the group.

It would also raise some questions about Malaysia’s ability to play a leading role in the region’s own common market – the ASEAN Economic Community – which is due to be launched at the end of this year.

US$700M CORRUPTION SCANDAL

The main corruption allegation facing Najib over how US$700 million allegedly turned up in his bank accounts linked to state-owned company 1MDB perfectly draws together the intersecting political and economic questions facing the country this week.

1MDB is the sort of opaque SOE that the TPP group is promising to rein in to create a regional free market with clear operating rules that go well beyond trade.

It is also now the most egregious example of the Malaysian entities that have grown off the back of the Malay preferences established under Najib’s father, which the Prime Minister once said needed to be reformed to make the country more competitive.

And, perhaps not surprisingly, the money was accumulating before the 2013 election, when Najib faced the greatest ever challenge to UMNO’s hegemony and only just managed to cling to office, winning the most seats but not the most votes.

It is hard not to think six decades is too long for one party to be in power.

AFP

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 29 July 2015, 5:36 pm and is filed under
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The elephant in the room

Khairie Hisyam Aliman

Malay Mail Online

July 27, 2015

JULY 27 — On Sunday, Barisan Nasional strategic communications director Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan published a 26-point comment on his Facebook page on the suspension of The Edge and the scandal around 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

In that posting Datuk Abdul Rahman, also the federal housing minister, makes a long argument for the suspension and other things. You can read it here.

But the heart of the current scandal remains simple.

As BN’s strategic communications director Datuk Abdul Rahman would surely be strategically well aware of the best and most strategic question to strategically answer in order to strategically kill most of the speculation going around on the current scandal, which has evolved beyond just 1MDB.

Did RM2.6 billion in money, not units, make its way to personal bank accounts belonging to the prime minister as alleged by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)?

Yes?

No?

That’s all we need to know first and foremost. We don’t need yet to hear about what the money was or was not used for, if the transfer happened. Nor do we need yet to hear about whether there was personal gain involved, if the transfer happened. Just yes or no for starters.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the prime minister to know the answer with absolute certainty. Hell, even I would notice and be alarmed if RM2,600 were to mysteriously show up in my bank account, what more billions of ringgit from overseas?

So the minister can strategically ask the prime minister, who can strategically send a one-word SMS to answer the question. And then the minister can strategically and immediately relay the answer to anxiously waiting Malaysians.

If the alleged transfer never happened, the WSJ would come grovelling for forgiveness I’m sure. And I’m sure Malaysians would then rally behind the prime minister in droves against such a malicious lie, if indeed a lie it was. Maybe we can even then sue the financial newspaper for RM42 billion in damages, which resolves 1MDB’s debt conundrum immediately.

It’s a good thing Twitter and Facebook allows immediate responses these days, isn’t it?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 29 July 2015, 5:04 pm and is filed under
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The Speech That Got Deputy Prime Minister Sacked

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 29 July 2015, 3:52 pm and is filed under
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Why are the lawyers in Cabinet silent about Gani’s sacking as Attorney-General when it is patently unconstitutional and an affront’s to Malaysia’s commitment to uphold the rule of law

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin accepts that it is the Prime Minister’s prerogative to sack the Deputy Prime Minister and  to remove any Minister from the Cabinet.

It is for the court of public opinion and history  to judge whether the Prime Minister had made a colossal political blunder or had made a brilliant political move.

But has the Prime Minister the prerogative to sack the Attorney-General, the highest legal officer of the land, on his whims and fancies without regard to due process?

The answer must be a firm “No”, for  Article 145(6)  of the Malaysian Constitution makes it very clear that the Attorney-General “shall not be removed from office, except on the like grounds and in the like manner as a judge of the Federal Court” and Article 125(3) lays down the procedure for the removal of a Federal Court judge, which requires the equivalent of a judicial tribunal to adjudicate his removal whether on the ground of breach of the code of ethics or of inability, from infirmity of body or mind or any other cause, properly to discharge the functions of his office.

The immediate and instant sacking of Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail as Attorney-General, in the manner of the announcement yesterday morning  by the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Dr. Ali Hamsa without Gani even knowing about it beforehand is clearly unconstitutional and an affront to a country which upholds constitutionalism and the rule of law.

It is a very separate matter whether Gani wants to fight and challenge the unconstitutional manner in which he had been sacked as Attorney-General, as Gani’s acceptance (for whatever reasons) of the unconstitutional manner of his sacking as Attorney-General cannot make his termination lawful and constitutional.

Hamsa said yesterday that the Yang di Pertuan Agong had consented to the termination of Gani’s tenure  as Attorney-General due to health reasons with immediate effect; if so, why was Gani totally unaware of such an important sequel  of events?

Was the Yang di Pertuan Agong misled by the Prime Minister  as Gani himself did not apply for termination of his tenure, as his retirement was only some two months away on 6th October?

What were the compelling reasons requiring the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to resort to the unconstitutional shot-gun termination of Gani’s tenure as Attorney-General although Gani would have retired on Oct. 6?

What were the circumstances requiring the use of  Gani’s known health problem to hastily and summarily terminate Gani’s tenure as  Attorney-General although Gani had not sought early retirement for health reasons, so that a new Attorney-General could be installed in a matter of a few hours?

The new Attorney-General  Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali had admitted that he was only informed of his new appointment as Attorney-General on Sunday night which caused him to hastily submit his resignation as Federal Court judge.

This is the first time in Malaysian history that an Attorney-General had been sacked, completely in violation of constitutional provisions.

Gani may now have reasons not to challenge the constitutionality of his sacking as Attorney-General, but as a matter of principle, the Bar Council should consider whether such unconstitutional sacking of Attorney-General should be allowed to stand unchallenged.

Was the summary and unconstitutional sacking of Gani as Attorney-

General related to the sacking of Muhyiddin and Shafie Apdal for their demand for accountability on the 1MDB scandal?

Veteran newsman A Kadir Jasin has questioned whether Gani’s removal  was because he was on the verge of filing charges in the 1MDB case in connection with the multi-agency “special task force” investigations into  Wall Street Journal report on claims that RM2.6 billion was deposited into Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s private bank accounts.

Only Gani answer Kadir Jasin’s question. Can Malaysians expect a sincere and truthful answer from Gani – or is Gani going to take the secret with him into retirement?

All the lawyers in Cabinet also owe the country an explanation why they had been so cowardly silent about Gani’s sacking as Attorney-General when  it is patently unconstitutional and an affront’s to Malaysia’s commitment to uphold the rule of law

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 29 July 2015, 12:50 pm and is filed under
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Why sacking Muhyiddin riskier than sacking Anwar Ibrahim

– Shahrul Yusof

The Malaysian Insider

28 July 2015

I remember it was in early September 1998, when TV3 broke the news about then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad sacking his deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

It was during my summer holiday and I was back home with my family. Immediately after that I rang my friend Yazid in the UK and told him about the news.

Surprised he certainly was, and immediately conveyed the message to my other friends who were in England, and within a few days news reached everyone in the mosque there.

Six hours ago, I woke up at 6am in Manchester and grabbed my phone and to my surprise, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was out.

My Facebook timeline flashing with news after news about the sacking. Here in the UK, at the same time, Malaysian’s were already in chapter 4 of the chronological discussions, and it was less than an hour after Najib’s press statement.

News travel fast, rumours discussed every minute, the luxury of time and secrets are not with Najib. It was with Dr Mahathir.

When Anwar was sacked, it was not such a big scandal that Dr Mahathir could not handle. Apart from the currency issue that he blamed on Soros, he was allright.

He just built twin towers, KLIA and Putrajaya, which was nothing to few Malaysians but many believed and remember that period as being the glory days.

Whereas now Najib is at his low, scandal after scandal, evidence updated every hour. You don’t need Harakah, all you need is to type the name Najib on google search. Thousands of news reports are there waiting to be digested.

He has yet to come out with monuments of his own, both the MRT and the Tun Razak Exchange are still under construction.

The night Anwar was sacked, my dad said to me. “Look at it now my son, Umno is in trouble, maybe Dr Mahathir needs to step down”.

That was it. That was the only retaliation I heard from a Malaysian citizen I knew that night, before I went to sleep.

Two minutes ago I was reading the comment section on a Facebook posting by Najib about the sacking. More than 5,000 comments were made, 99.9% of it asking him to step down.

I cannot really compare the retaliation on the day after, because tomorrow is yet to come, and I cannot wait.

When you go into a fight, you bring your fighters with you. That’s what gangsters do.

Dr Mahathir has fighters behind him, many of them, and more than Najib’s men, who are artificial and pretentious, to be precise.

But what is scarier for Najib is his latest second man, the hopeful Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Do you remember him, the younger Zahid? The Zahid we knew in 1998.

I will always remember the TV news showing him being a staunch supporter of Anwar back then and taken into custody. He was known to be aligned with Anwar inside Umno yet he turned 180-degrees just a few months after Anwar was sacked and jailed.

He can either be a “true opportunist with no loyalty” or “Anwar’s secret agent in Putrajaya”. Both are disturbing probabilities for Najib.

As of now, seven hours after the sacking, I am still here reading the busy timeline on my Facebook. – July 28, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 29 July 2015, 6:16 pm and is filed under
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5 Reasons Why Obama Should Steer Clear of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak

Charlie Campbell

Time

July 28, 2015

Washington is having serious trouble finding dependable allies in Southeast Asia

The U.S.’s “rebalancing” toward Asia has two main pillars: being a counterweight to China and securing a free-trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If Washington is to succeed on both fronts, it needs as many friends in the region as it can win. The U.S.’s newest ally is Malaysia, this year’s chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Nation, collectively a growing market, and, on the surface, a modern, democratic, Muslim country. In April 2014 U.S. President Barack Obama paid an official visit to Malaysia, the first sitting President to do so in decades, and, later in the year, played golf with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak when both were on holiday in Honolulu. This November, Kuala Lumpur will host the next East Asia Summit and Obama is due to attend.

But recently, all the news coming out of Malaysia is negative. After becoming embroiled in a corruption scandal, Najib on Tuesday sacked his deputy and Malaysia’s attorney general in an apparent purge of critics. British Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a domestic backlash for pushing forward with a visit to Kuala Lumpur this week despite the snowballing controversy. Here are five reasons why Obama might want to break from Cameron by giving Najib a wide berth.

1. 1MDB
— A Wall Street Journal report has alleged that Najib’s personal bank accounts received nearly $700 million in March 2013 from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a government-owned development fund. Najib has protested his innocence and threatened legal action against the Journal. “I am not a thief,” Najib told Malaysian media on July 5. “I am not a traitor and will not betray Malaysians.” The police, the local anticorruption agency, the attorney general’s office and the central bank are investigating the allegations. On July 8, the police raided 1MDB’s office in Kuala Lumpur and took away documents. Even before the latest news, 1MDB was an embarrassment for Najib, who chaired the fund’s advisory board as debts of $11.6 billion were accrued. Such are the suspicions of malfeasance that former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who ran the country from 1981 to 2003 and has long been considered Najib’s mentor, has repeatedly called for his protégé’s resignation over 1MDB’s alleged mishandling.

2. Anwar Ibrahim
— Najib’s main political rival is once again in prison for a sodomy conviction. Human Rights Watch deemed his five-year sentence handed down Feb. 10 to be “politically motivated proceedings under an abusive and archaic law.” This is the second time Anwar has been jailed for sodomy.

3.Hudud
— Stoning for adultery and amputation for theft are not the kind of punishments meted out by the progressive state that Malaysia purports to be. Yet Najib’s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) is supporting attempts to introduce hudud Islamic law in the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party’s (PAS) heartland state of Kelantan, where nightclubs are forbidden and men and women are designated separate public benches. Why is UMNO supportive of recognizing hudud under federal law? Largely because PAS is part of a three-party Pakatan Rakyat coalition that is UNMO’s chief challenger. The other partners — Anwar’s Keadilan, or People’s Justice Party, supported by middle-class, urban Malays, and the Chinese Malaysian–backed Democratic Action Party (DAP) — are strongly against hudud. Many analysts accuse UMNO of cynically fostering a radical Islamic bent to widen rifts in its political opponents.

4. Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa
— In 2002, when Najib was Defense Minister, a $1.25 billion contract was signed to purchase two Scorpène submarines from French firm DCNS. Altantuyaa was a Mongolian woman who, knowing French, facilitated negotiations as a translator, and then allegedly attempted to blackmail Abdul Razak Baginda, one of Najib’s aides with whom she was also having an affair, for $500,000 over “commission” payments he had allegedly received. Two policemen posted to Najib’s bodyguard detail were convicted of murdering Altantuyaa on Oct. 18, 2006. Najib denies any involvement.

5. Prevention of Terrorism Act
 — Najib campaigned on scrapping the controversial Internal Security Act (ISA) but then immediately replaced it with the equally sweeping Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, or SOSMA. The POTA includes practically the same powers as ISA, including two-year detention without trial, and was dubbed a “legal zombie arising from the grave of the abusive [ISA]” by Human Rights Watch. Najib also vowed to repeal the similarly maligned Sedition Act but reneged after his election in 2013. In fact, in April his government extended the maximum jail term under the Sedition Act from three to 20 years.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 30 July 2015, 6:19 am and is filed under
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Can the prime minister survive?

– Greg Lopez

The Malaysian Insider

30 July 2015

The president of Umno is always the prime minister of Malaysia. It is Umno who decides who becomes the prime minister. Leadership crisis in Umno always has serious implications to national leadership and Malaysia.

The leadership crisis within Umno occurs almost every decade. The outcomes of these leadership crises are balanced as the context is important in determining the survival of the incumbent.

The first leadership crisis happened almost as soon as Umno was established.

Leaders from Umno’s Islamic Department left in 1951 to form the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party of Tanah Melayu, now known as the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party or PAS.

Then, this group argued for the centralisation of Islamic affairs, something that the then leaders of Umno were not prepared to do. The incumbent was not challenged directly and survived.

The second leadership crisis was the resignation of Dato Onn Jaafar (father of Malaysia’s third prime minister and grandfather to Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, a potential future prime minister), the prime mover behind the formation of Umno and its first president.

He resigned as president when his attempts to promote greater inter-racial cooperation to gain independence from the British were opposed by certain key leaders in Umno.

Tunku Abdul Rahman stepped in and led Umno to greater heights albeit with the principle of Umno as first among equals. The incumbent was not challenged directly but chose to resign.

The third leadership crisis was the “palace coup” within Umno. A poor showing by Umno in the 1969 general election led to a pogrom against Malaysian Chinese as segments of the Malay community vented their anger at the Chinese minority in selected locations.

The numbers are disputed but at least some 6,000 Chinese homes and business were destroyed and 184 were killed. Tun Abdul Razak (the father of the current prime minister) took over as prime minister replacing the liberal Tunku Abdul Rahman.

A new “more assertive” Malay leadership group replaced the old “more accommodating” one. This “new leadership” included Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Tun Musa Hitam and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, launched the New Economic Policy (NEP) – an extensive affirmative action policy which covered all aspects of the Malaysian economy and society – aimed at reducing socioeconomic disparity between the ethnic Chinese minority and the Malay majority on the Peninsula as well as the indigenous communities of Sabah and Sarawak collectively termed Bumiputera (“sons of the soil”). The incumbent was forcefully removed.

The fourth leadership crisis came about when a rival faction – led by Razaleigh and Musa – almost succeeded in toppling then incumbent president of Umno and prime minister, Dr Mahathir in the 1988 party elections.

Dr Mahathir then purged the leadership of the government and party of his challengers which included more than half the Cabinet members (including Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia’s fifth prime minister. Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin sided with Dr Mahathir).

In the post-election tussle, the High Court declared Umno an “unlawful society” following irregularities in the party elections that Dr Mahathir had just won narrowly. Dr Mahathir then founded a new party called Umno Baru (New Umno) with all the institutional resources of the old Umno.

The purged members would form a new political party called Semangat 46 in 1989.  In 1990, at the 8th general election, for the first time in Malaysian history, two formal opposition coalitions would be formed to take on the BN.

Members of Semangat 46 disbanded in 1996 to return to Umno. But the idea of opposition parties collaborating with dissidents from the ruling party and receiving strong support from the electorate was now a reality. The incumbent was challenged directly and survived.

In 1998, Dr Mahathir had his deputy, and heir apparent Anwar put on trial for sodomy and corruption creating the fifth leadership crisis. This action, together with other social, economic and political development would polarise Malaysian society further between supporters of Umno and supporters of Anwar.

It would also give birth to the Reformasi movement that would catalyse the engagement of large swaths of Malaysians in politics for the first time.  Although short lived, once again, opposition parties would collaborate through Barisan Alternatif.

This collaboration between civil society, opposition parties, dissidents from Umno and ordinary Malaysians would lay the groundwork for Umno’s greatest challenge a decade later. The incumbent pre-empted a direct challenge and survived.

Dr Mahathir resigned on October 31, 2003. There were growing signs that Umno – let alone vast segments of Malays and Malaysians – were not happy with Dr Mahathir. He accepted this signal and paved the way for his deputy, Abdullah to take took over, thus averting a leadership crisis and revitalising Umno’s fortunes. The incumbent averted a direct challenge by resigning.

Abdullah performed well in the 2004 general election. Umno alone had 109 out of 219 parliamentary, just one seat shy of being able to govern in their own right.

Abdullah’s popularity and Umno’s and the ruling coalition’s might did not go towards greater societal outcomes, as perceived by Malaysians. Instead corruption at the highest levels, rising religious and racial tensions, and other issues (such as crime, rising cost of living, etc.) began to erode Badawi’s support from the electorate.

Also, after the 2004 elections, Anwar’s conviction for sodomy was surprisingly overturned in attempts to mend fences. However, upon his release from prison, Anwar launched a political campaign that saw the opposition coalition registering its best ever performance.

At one point, he claimed that he had the numbers to form government in 2008. After Abdullah’s dismal showing at GE12, he accepted the signals coming from Umno and society. The incumbent averted a direct challenge by resigning.

At GE13 in 2013, Anwar’s coalition secured the majority popular votes but was unable to secure government due to systemic gerrymandering and what now appears to be widespread fraud.

Umno’s current and sixth major leadership crisis – where prime minister Najib has sacked deputy prime minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin – is likely to be its last.

A key issue appears to be the inability of Najib to “listen, hear, read or see” the signals.

Despite spending more than RM58 billion (US$15 billion), with the support of an electoral system designed to keep the ruling party in power against an opposition that various administrations have hounded since independence, and against an opposition leader that Umno had sought to destroy for more than decade, 51% of the electorate voted against Najib. He was unable to listen, hear, read or see this signal coming from the people.

More importantly, he is also unable to listen, hear, read or see the signals coming from within Umno. This could be fatal. Powerful segments within Umno are genuinely concerned that Prime Minister Najib is condemning Umno to oblivion.

The alleged scandals linked to the current Umno president and Malaysia’s current prime minister are simply too many and too large to ignore. That may be the primary reason why the prime minister is unwilling to go.

The opposition, the people, or segments of Umno are no match for the office of the Malaysian prime minister. The Prime Minister’s Office is simply too powerful for any one group to challenge on its own. However, when united, it is a different story altogether.

The doors within Umno also appear to be closing down for a direct challenge against the incumbent. This means the challenge will be taken outside the Umno general assembly. This could be potentially disastrous for Malaysia.

What will the incumbent do?

Watch this space. The best is yet to come. – Forbes.com, July 30, 2015.

* Greg Lopez is research fellow at Executive Education Centre, Murdoch University, Perth.

–

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 30 July 2015, 11:08 pm and is filed under
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Is Apandi as the new Attorney-General going to be Najib’s hatchet man to usher a new dark age subjecting national institutions to a second wave of attacks or will he be sentinel to ensure an “enlightened and democratic” Malaysia

The first statement of the new Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali is to justify the removal of his predecessor Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail as constitutional and according to law.

Apandi said his predecessor’s rank is not reduced in any way.  Are we having two Attorney-Generals in Malaysia – Apandi with all the powers and perks of the office, and Gani, enjoying all the perks but not the powers of Attorney-General?

Apandi said Article 145(6) of the Federal Constitution requiring the setting up of a tribunal for the dismissal of the Attorney-General in the like manner for the removal of a Federal Court judge does not apply, relying fully on Article 145(5) that states that the Attorney-General holds office at the pleasure of the Yang di Pertuan Agong.

I will leave it to the lawyers to address nettlesome question whether Gani’s sudden and summary sacking as Attorney-General on Monday is constitutional or not.

However, in  an era when the Government knows best is over, which Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak  had fully acknowledged when he became Prime Minister more than six years ago, Malaysians are entitled to a full explanation why Gani had been treated so shabbily and humiliatingly that he had been sacked  suddenly and summarily after serving for nearly 13 years as AG and will retire in two months’ time  on Oct. 6 when he celebrates his 60th birthday.

Gani would not have been taken by surprise by his termination as Attorney-General on Monday if he had applied for early retirement.

Wasn’t he entitled to the basic courtesy of being informed that his tenure as Attorney-General was being terminated, if “health problems” were the real reasons for the termination?

Was Gani suffering from such  serious “disability” or “incapacity” as a result of his “health problem” to cause him to under-perform or become an ineffective Attorney-General, that Gani had to be removed immediately, suddenly and summarily as Attorney-General, without extending any basic courtesy or decency to Gani, as happened on Monday?

But this does not tally with reality, for Malaysians and the world must find it odd and most  extraordinary that in recent weeks, Gani seemed to be at the peak of his public life, in full command and control of his intellectual and mental prowess and resources as head  of the four-agency “Special Task Force” on the 1MDB scandal and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report alleging that RM2.6 billion had been deposited into Najib’s personal bank accounts in March 2013 just before the 13th General Election.

In fact, despite the cloud of public suspicion and distrust that  the  “special task force” comprising Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Royal Malaysian Police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers – as they are agencies which are junior and subordinate to the Prime Minister  who is finally the subject of the investigations – could carry out any independent and professional investigations, Gani and the “special task force” were beginning to produce some results with the freezing of bank accounts and arrest of various personalities involved.

Is it because Gani, as head of the “special task force” into the 1MDB and WSJ allegations was getting “hyper-active” rather than any “disability” or

“incapacity” which warranted the humiliating episode on Monday where the Prime Minister could not wait for another two months for Gani to retire mandatorily on reaching his 60th birthday, sacking him suddenly and summarily by replacing him with 65-year-old Apandi.

Veteran newsman A Kadir Jasin has questioned whether Gani’s removal was because he was on the verge of filing charges in the 1MDB case in connection with the multi-agency “special task force” investigations into Wall Street Journal report on claims that RM2.6 billion was deposited into Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s private bank accounts.

Can Apandi allow Gani to answer this question or will Apandi himself answer it?

Apandi has created AG history in more than one sense, including being the oldest AG to be appointed, as all his predecessors were at the prime of their careers whether Gani, Ainum Mohd Saaid, Mohtar Abdullah, Abu Talib Othman, Hamzah Abu Samah or Abdul Kadir Yusuf.

It is very sad and tragic to see the pathethic condition where the first law officer of the land, who should be in the forefront to protect the basic constitutional rights of all citizens, himself become a victim of injustice, and incapable of himself standing up for justice for himself.

Will Apandi, as the new Attorney-General, stand up and fight for justice for his predecessor, Tan Sri Gani Patail?

In fact, I want to ask  Apandi as the new Attorney-General whether he is going to be Najib’s hatchet man to usher a new dark age subjecting national institutions to a second wave of attacks or whether will he be the nation’s sentinel to ensure an “enlightened and democratic” Malaysia?

Firstly, let him state whether he would charge and prosecute the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak for corruption or any offence in the land if investigations unearth adequate evidence for such prosecution .

Former Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has said in a leaked video that the Prime Minister had admitted that RM2.6 billion had been deposited into his private bank accounts.

Would Apandi as Attorney-General ensure that there would be fullest follow-up in investigations into the issue of the RM2.6 billion deposited into Najib’s personal private accounts in AmBank before the 13th General Election, and also where the monies came from and where they went to, whether the monies were used for the 13th General Elections, and the political parties, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and candidates who had received funding from Najib’s personal accounts?

In this connection, what is the position of the multi-agency “Special Task Force” on the 1MDB and WSJ allegations, whether Gani is allowed to continue to head the “Special Task Force” or whether he has taken off this assignment as he is suffering from grave “disability” and “incapacity” because of his health problems; and if so, who  is now the head of this “Special Task Force”?

Is the “Special Task Force” still in existence as it seemed to have  suddenly gone into hibernation.

I have been intrigued by Malaysiakini report yesterday that the five independent oversight panels of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in a joint statement said there should be no interference or pressure on the special task force investigating 1MBD.

It said: “The task force must be given the widest possible latitude to conduct the investigation without fear or favour.

“In this matter, we strongly feel it is highly pertinent to ensure the integrity of MACC as an independent anti-corruption commission is maintained and not compromised.”

Will all the members of five MACC oversight panels collectively resign in protest if there is any interference or pressure with such independent investigations into the 1MDB, as in the arrest of officers from anyone of the four agencies constituting the “special task force”?

The authorities must be aware that in the past few days, rumours mills have been working overtime to cast a pall in the country, that the sacking of the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin and Rural and Regional Development Minister, Datuk Shafie Apdal was just earnest for a “hurricane” in Malaysia, equivalent to Ops Lallang 15 and the powers-that-be are on the verge of a crackdown against a so-called ring of 13 conspirators in an international plot to “criminalise” Najib Razak and topple the elected Prime Minister of Malaysia.

This so-called “Ring of 13 Conspirators” have been named, as people who will be charged under Section 124 of the Penal Code on offences related to “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy” which could send persons convicted to up to 20 years in jail.

Among the “13 Conspirators” named involved top personnel from three of the four agencies constituting the Special Task Force – four from Bank Negara, three from MACC, one from the Task Force, two from the world of journalism and a Member of Parliament.

Section 124 of the Penal Code was enacted by Parliament in 2012 to deal with terrorism and but it seems to have become a favourite weapon to deal with whistleblowers.

This is why I asked whether  Apandi as the new Attorney-General is going to be Najib’s hatchet man to usher a new dark age subjecting national institutions to a second wave of attacks or will he be sentinel to ensure an “enlightened and democratic” Malaysia.

We are in very dangerous times.

(Media Conference Statement in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, 30th July 2015)

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 30 July 2015, 4:46 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s mess is Mahathir-made

Dan Slater

East Asia Forum

29 July 2015

At least embattled Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is right about one thing. The current mess in Malaysian politics is the making of his greatest nemesis, Mahathir Mohamad, who led the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1981–2003. What Najib fails to fathom is that Mahathir has not produced this mess by criticising his leadership, but by paving Najib’s path to power in the fashion he did during his decades in office. Mahathir may believe that he can end the crisis by bringing Najib down. But history should judge Mahathir himself as the author of a long national decline that has culminated in this latest crisis.

To be sure, Najib’s fingerprints are all over the current mess. The proximate source of the crisis has been the collapse of Najib’s pet sovereign-investment company, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). This has caused Malaysia’s stock market and currency, the ringgit, to plummet in turn. All this has transpired amid credible allegations that the prime minister siphoned an eye-popping US$700 million into his personal bank account.

But this road toward ruin commenced with Mahathir, not Najib.

 It is vital to realise that Mahathir rose to power in blessed circumstances. Malaysia’s economy had been growing healthily for decades, thanks to the prudent economic management of a highly capable bureaucracy. Governance and tax collection were effective, and debts were few. Natural resource wealth, including oil, was professionally stewarded. A decade of muscular redistribution to the country’s ethnic Malay majority had restored social stability after the race riots of 1969. Incoming foreign investment was copious and about to mushroom even further. Mahathir commanded one of the most cohesive ruling parties (the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO) and coalitions (the Barisan Nasional, or BN) in the world. The regime was authoritarian, but not intensely repressive or disliked in comparative terms. In short, Mahathir was holding a winning hand when he became prime minister in 1981.

Then came the debt. Obsessed with following in the footsteps of Asia’s technological leaders, Mahathir began borrowing heavily to fund his ‘Look East’, state-led heavy-industrialisation program. Privatisation was part of his growth package, but the beneficiaries were businessmen of loyalty more than talent. When the global economy went into recession in the mid-1980s, patronage started drying up. UMNO split, largely in reaction to Mahathir’s strong-armed style of rule. Mahathir’s two most talented rivals, Tengku Razaleigh and Musa Hitam, bolted from UMNO despite their deep personal ties to the party, mostly to get away from Mahathir himself. Mahathir responded by launching a police operation under the pretext of racial tensions, imprisoning and intimidating political rivals, and cementing his autocratic control.

Hence by the late 1980s, all of the defining features of Malaysia’s current crisis under Najib’s leadership were already evident under Mahathir. The regime was increasingly repressive. The office of prime minister was becoming a haven of autocracy. Ethnic tensions had been reopened to political manipulation. The economy was worrisomely indebted. UMNO was shedding some of its most capable leaders. This was the beginning of Malaysia’s sad national decline, under Mahathir’s watch and at his own hand.

Fast-forward a decade and all of these syndromes would recur in even nastier forms. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–98 punished Malaysia for the unsustainable dollar-denominated debts it had accumulated under Mahathir’s single-minded push for breakneck growth. Mahathir blamed everybody but himself for the crash. He sacked and imprisoned his popular and gifted deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, largely for his temerity in suggesting that Malaysia needed deeper reforms to regain economic health.

Mahathir didn’t pull Malaysia out of its crisis with economic reform or adjustment, but with more and more borrowing and spending. This was possible because Malaysia was still sitting on the fiscal reserves it had been amassing for half a century, since the British colonial period. Mahathir grandiosely claimed that his imposition of capital controls had saved the economy. But capital flight had basically run its course by the time controls were implemented. Mahathir imposed them to facilitate political repression as much as economic recovery. The spectre of anti-Chinese riots in neighbouring Indonesia was then callously manipulated to keep ethnic Chinese voters in the BN fold in the 1999 elections.

Hence even before the turn of the millennium, Malaysia was hurtling down the very trajectory of decline we are witnessing in the current crisis. Like Mahathir, Najib assumed autocratic control over the economy and embarked on reckless borrowing and investment schemes, especially 1MDB. Like Mahathir, Najib unleashed a torrent of repression under antiquated security laws to protect his own position amid rising criticism from civil society and from within UMNO. Like Mahathir, Najib has recklessly played the ethnic and religious card as his position has weakened. And in consummate Mahathir style, Najib has now even sacked his deputy, Muyhiddin Yassin, for questioning Najib’s repression of the media in response to the 1MDB scandal. In sum, Mahathir has nobody to blame more than himself as he watches Najib drive Malaysia even further into the ground.

Neither Najib nor any of his current plausible replacements appear capable of reversing Malaysia’s decades-long decline. Herein lies perhaps Mahathir’s worst legacy of all. By forcing the three most capable politicians beside himself out of UMNO during their prime, Mahathir ensured that only relative lightweights would command leading positions in Malaysia’s most powerful political institution. If Malaysia is to exit this crisis on a path to restored health rather than steeper decline, the political and economic reforms first demanded in the reformasi movement of the late 1990s will finally need to put in place: either by a new generation of leadership within UMNO, or by Malaysia’s repressed but resilient political opposition.

Dan Slater is associate professor in political science at the University of Chicago.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 30 July 2015, 6:32 am and is filed under
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My hopes for Gerakan Harapan Baru

Rama Ramanathan

The Malaysian Insider

30 July 2015

Disgruntled members of PAS, Malaysia’s sole Islamic political party, are working to form a new political party. There has been some debate over whether the word “Islamic” or the word “Muslim” should be in the name of the new party.

The debate is academic, since the two words will not be permitted by the Registrar of Societies. Indeed, some years ago Malaysia’s Malay political party, Umno, agitated to remove the word “Islam” from the name of PAS (“Parti se Islam Malaysia”) and to forbid the use of the words Islam or Muslim in the name of any political party in Malaysia.

Umno has made no effort to include an Islamic element in its name. Umno is aggressively race-based, presenting itself as defender of the Malay race. Nevertheless Umno does claim it is a party of Muslims. The claim is legitimate since Malays are required by the Federal Constitution to profess the religion of Islam.

Most consider PAS to be Islamist and Umno to be racist. Some consider PAS to be Arab-obsessed and Umno to be Malay-obsessed. A few consider both PAS and Umno to be hypocritical because both are political parties and these few think all politicians will sell their own mothers in order to get a better car.

In the last decade, thanks mainly to the role played by opposition politicians in revealing corruption in the government, many Malaysians have come to see that not all politicians are focused on self-enrichment. Few would disagree that many Malaysians held Tok Guru Nik Aziz, the spiritual head of PAS who died recently, in high esteem.

Until the Ulama-faction captured the reins of PAS this year, many considered PAS politicians relatively “clean”. Doubts arose when the disgruntled losers cited moral failures of the triumphant Ulama amongst their reason for forming a new party.

When I compare Islam in Malaysia with Islam in the rest of the world, I am struck by how Islam’s mouthpieces in Malaysia show themselves to be ignorant of the challenges faced by Muslim minorities in countries as diverse as Australia, China and Zululand.

The goal of state-sponsored Islam and PAS-sponsored Islam in Malaysia appears more aligned to repression of the population a la Saudi Arabia than to social justice and mercy which many Muslim interpreters say is the major focus of the Quran.

It has been claimed that GHB will be “different from PAS” because it will not have a shura council (clerics who make final determinations in matters of faith and practice), and membership will be open to non-Muslims. If that is true, what’s Islamic about GHB?

What makes it different from PKR?

GHB reminds me of Hilary Clinton when she ran against Obama for the Democratic party’s nomination for president in 2007. She never deviated from this rule: “never confirm your opinion on anything until you’re sure it’s what the polls say the majority want to hear.”

Two months after the “progressives” were routed by the ulama in PAS, it appears to me the progressives have done no more than put up an attractive name: New Hope Movement (GHB, Gerakan Harapan Baru).

Despite the excitement over GHB expressed by several analysts for whom I have great respect, I have to say GHB so far is not much different from 1Malaysia. It sounds good, but what does it mean? Show me the manifesto. I’ll end by pitching in what I hope for.

What I hope for in a new “progressive Islamic” political party is not “cleaner” individuals pushing the same manifesto as PAS – a manifesto in which an Islamic State is thought not to exist if Hudud punishments including amputation and stoning are not on the law books.

What I hope for in a new “progressive Islamic” political party is acceptance that maqasid, the principles of justice, can be expressed in civil laws administered by non-Muslim judges and lawyers.

What I hope for in a new “progressive Islamic” political party is acceptance that Islam is so rich that it can be expressed in many different ways – and that those who repeat the Syahada are Muslims whether they don the garb of Ahmadiyya or Dervishes or Syiah.

What I hope for in a new “progressive Islamic” political party is acceptance that the testimony of a non-Muslim is given the same weight as that of a Muslim, and that the testimony of a woman is given the same weight as that of a man.

What I hope for in a new “progressive Islamic” political party is acceptance of the basic structure of the 1957 Federal Constitution, wherein Islam is the ceremonial religion – especially in light of the 1963 Sabah and Sarawak agreements.

If the proponents of GHB want to be taken seriously, they have to explicitly state what makes them different from PKR, PAS and Umno. – July 30, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 30 July 2015, 11:17 pm and is filed under
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Ransacking Malaysia: the Najib Corruption Dossier

by BINOY KAMPMARK

CounterPunch

JULY 28, 2015

He is, like many of his colleagues in the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), a stubborn barnacle. The Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has struggled cleaning up the mess that ensued after revelations that he has been effectively ransacking the Malaysian state during his time in office. Pity a country with natural resources, and government policies that pride connections over industry; sleeping partners over industrious ones.

The so-called 1MBD revelations have done much to tarnish, and possibly sink Najib in the kleptocratic maelstrom. The 1Malaysia Development Bhd, Fund or 1MDB, has been riddled with rotten apples, and there always was a looming question as to whether one of them came from the PM’s office. Najib, for one, founded the body while heading its board of advisors. During the course of his stewardship, the government investment fund accumulated a weighty $11 billion in debt. Promised ventures have not taken place: the failure to develop the Tun Razak Exchange project, and the lack of promised contributions from partners.

After some investigative digging on the part of the Sarawak Report and Wall Street Journal, a link was supposedly established between Najib’s personal accounts held at AmPrivate Banking in Kuala Lumpur and the 1MDB money trail. Amounts totalling $US681,999,976 (RM2.6 billion in local currency) was wired from the Singapore branch of the Swiss Falcon private bank owned by Abu Dhabi fund Aabar into the AMBank account on March 2013 ahead of the General election. Such is the nature of “strategic partnerships”.

Then came the amount of RM42 million stemming from the notorious SRC International Sdn Bhd, another company with links to 1MDB. The money also happened it find itself in Najib’s accounts and came from unaccounted funds provided by the public pension fund KWAP.

The exposure has produced more than a flutter in Malaysian politics. Malaysiakini mocked the prime minister’s reaction to questions on the scandal as he left an open house gathering with former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi: “Okay lah.”[1]

For the Malaysia Chronicle, Nawawi Mohamad would suggest that Malaysia was “now in real danger” because Najib had been “cornered like a wounded beast”.[2] Indeed, the publication seems to be mournful, casting a thought back to the potential of a person who might well have been “the best prime minister Malaysia ever had.” And hence the point. If corruption is to be done, it should not be a tax expenses claim that produces a moral convulsion, but a traditional ransacking of the treasury with the aid of bankers. This model has after all prevailed in Malaysia for decades.

The obvious response by the government is to strangle the lines of communication and exposure. Stamp on whistleblowers, badger the media outlets that dare print those details, and, if possible, shut down whistleblower sites and prosecute the disclosers. Last week saw Malaysian authorities blocked the UK Sarawak Report website for carrying “unsubstantiated content” that would “disrupt peace and order, and in the bigger picture could destabilise the nation and the economy.”[3]

Authorities have also gone further in seeking to target Clare Rewcastle-Brown. The Malaysian Home Ministry has made more than faint mutterings that it would like to seek Britain’s cooperation in extraditing the editor of the Sarawak Report, provided that a prima facie case is established.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi resorted to the great excuse that states have used with impunity, from war crimes to mass theft. The difference with other minds on the world stage of impunity is that they have expressed that position far more competently. “As the concept of sovereignty is respected by all, I’m sure the British does [sic] not give its blessings to its citizens interfering in the affairs of other countries.”

He obviously hasn’t been reading the news. As the Sarawak Report contended, the publication had committed no offence recognised under UK or Malaysian law. “Otherwise homosexuals could have been dragged from the streets of London and sent over to KL in droves.”[4]

The bone of contention is not that the 1MDB documents were untrue, but that they had been published with “ill intentions”. Equating a meddling intrusion into Malaysian politics with a criminal assault, the minister could only tell reporters that, “There was already a working relationship between the Malaysian police and Scotland Yard.”

Rewcastle-Brown is confident that the British government will hold firm on this. Najib, she argued, “had better articulate a reason. ‘Truths annoying to the Malaysian prime minister’ do not cut muster with British law.”[5]

Even in Malaysia, where the cornering and muzzling of press outlets and publications has been a matter of course for those disclosing uncomfortable facts, political dissent can be noted. The former International Trade and Industry Minister, Tan Sri Rafidah Rafidah Azziz, was far from impressed. “We ban some publications. It does not solve anything, really. If at all, its making more people upset.”[6]

Najib will, for all of this, duck and weave within a system that was, in a sense, perfected by the strong man of Malaysian politics, Mahathir bin Mohammed. Even as Mahathir distances himself from his former protégé, having withdrawn support for his leadership, his mark on Malaysian kleptocracy remains.

Notes.

[1] http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/306215

[2] http://malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=559761:najib-cornered-like-a-wounded-beast-malaysia-in-real-danger&Itemid=2#axzz3gyl8xrqK

[3] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-21/malaysia-blocks-uk-based-whistleblower-website-after-allegation/6638350

[4] http://www.sarawakreport.org/

[5] http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/annoying-najib-not-good-enough-reason-to-extradite-me-says-sarawak-report-f

[6] http://malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=560212:will-you-shut-down-the-internet-next-rafidah-flays-najib-tells-him-to-come-clean-on-1mdb&Itemid=2#axzz3gyl8xrqK

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email:
[email protected]

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 30 July 2015, 6:43 am and is filed under
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David Cameron challenges Malaysian PM Najib Razak on corruption

By Matthew Holehouse, Kuala Lumpur

The Telegraph

30 Jul 2015

The Prime Minister urged Mr Razak to clean up his government and challenged the treatment of Anwar Ibrahim, the country’s opposition leader in jail

David Cameron has confronted Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, over the deepening corruption scandal that threatens to bring down his government.

Allegations that $700 million (£450 million) in state development funds ended up in Mr Najib’s personal bank accounts overshadowed a visit by the Prime Minister designed to build trade ties.

During a long, one-to-one meeting, Mr Cameron on Thursday urged Mr Najib to clean up his government.

In a pointed move, he then met with civil society leaders, including journalists, the G25 group of campaigners and lawyers, who are campaigning for greater democracy and a free press.

Mr Cameron also challenged Mr Najib over the treatment of Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader in jail on sodomy charges.

Sir Kim Darroch, Mr Cameron’s national security adviser, met with Mr Anwar’s daughter who is playing a leading role in the opposition movement.

They discussed building a free press and her father’s treatment.

The encounters followed demands from some opposition figures that Mr Cameron cancel the visit, during which he courted investors to fund the so-called Northern Powerhouse infrastructure projects in Britain.

The Prime Minister said: “It is right to go ahead with the visit, but nothing should be off the table. We should talk about these issues including the specific ones now,” he said.

“We always have discussions with civil society figures, anti-corruption campaigners, opposition leaders and all the rest and that will happen on this visit too.

“I don’t think it helps not traveling to a country and turning away. It is better to go and talk about these things.”

UK officials stressed the visit was to build relationships between “peoples”, not leaders.

After the one-to-one meeting, Mr Cameron is understood to have repeated the message to a wider gathering of Malaysian government figures in front of Mr Najib.

In an address in Singapore on Tuesday, Mr Cameron denounced corruption as the “enemy of progress” that held back growth and fuelled al-Qaeda and migration.

“We have a strong relationship and that enables us to talk difficult issues. I want to raise some of the issues I raised in my speech earlier in the week, such as ethics in business and fighting corruption,” he is understood to have said.

“We should be working together for an open society and open economy.”

Mr Najib is facing growing calls to resign over the allegations, which he denies. He this week fired attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, who was investigating the scandal, and Muhyiddin Yassin, who had criticised him over the affair.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 31 July 2015, 10:20 am and is filed under
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David Cameron presses Malaysian PM on corruption claims

Patrick Wintour Political editor in Kuala Lumpur

Guardian

Thursday 30 July 2015

Najib Razak asked by Cameron about imprisonments of political opponents and allegations he misused $700m of government money

David Cameron has pressed the Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak over claims he has imprisoned his political opponents and taken government money for personal gain, at a private meeting between the two men in Kuala Lumpur.

In a meeting at Najib’s residence, Cameron also urged his Malaysian counterpart to accept the importance of a free press, the need for ethics in business, and the fight against corruption. He stressed the importance of an open economy and open society.

Cameron has made the fight against corruption a key theme of his four-day trade mission to south-east Asia, and the British prime minister had arrived in Malaysia in the week in which corruption claims prompted Najib to sack both the attorney general, who had been investigating him, and his own deputy, who had been a prominent critic.

Najib has faced allegations that he received about $700m (£448m) in government money.

Leaked confidential documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal allegedly show how the money, from state investment fund 1MDB, went into his personal accounts.

Najib, who has claimed the attacks against him are politically motivated, has not disputed the existence of the accounts or the receipt of the funds but has insisted he never used government funds for personal gain.

British officials said the controversies were raised by Cameron, including the conditions in which Najib’s political opponent, Anwar Ibrahim, is being kept in prison. Anwar has been sentenced to five years on dubious charges of sodomy.

Cameron sent his national security adviser, Sir Kim Darroch, to meet Anwar’s daughter to discuss the prison sentence, and the state of the political opposition.

Cameron’s call for the Malaysian political class to fight corruption came as he pitched the country’s financiers the chance to invest in £17bn worth of UK infrastructure projects ranging from a Leeds orbital road route, Slough town centre and prime residential properties along the Thames.

He said he wants London to become the global capital of Islamic finance.

Cameron launched a pitch book to Malaysian investors at a lavish reception entitled Battersea and Beyond in the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

He said: “Look around London and you will see how Islamic finance has transformed the skyline, from the Shard to Chelsea Barracks. With the exciting plans for the Battersea development, that trend is set to continue.

“But our ambitions in this industry go far beyond our capital city, as you will see from the carefully selected projects in this brochure. It gives you a taste of the many opportunities that we think would be attractive to investors using either Islamic or conventional finance – and it is the first brochure of its kind from any G7 or EU country”.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 31 July 2015, 10:28 am and is filed under
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Is the sacking of AG and DPM a  multiple attack on the national institutions including  the Press, Parliament, the 1MDB “special task force” comprising AGC, BNM, MACC and Police to save Najib from the 1MDB scandal?

The past 72 hours have deepened the mystery and national foreboding about   the sacking of the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Othman, the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and the Minister for Rural and Regional Development, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal.

The  question that is looming ever larger is  whether the sackings represented a prelude to a multiple attack on the national institutions including the press, Parliament, the 1MDB “special task force” comprising the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency and the Royal Malaysian Police to save the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak from the 1MDB scandal.

The latest political hurricane started with the totally unacceptable reason for the sudden and summary sacking on Tuesday  of Gani as Attorney-General who had served as the first legal officer of the Crown for 13 years and  two months short of retirement on reaching 60 years old, on the ridiculous ground of “health reasons”.

While Gani’s “kidney problem” is not an official secret and is widely known, it has not incapacitated him from carrying out his duties as Attorney-General.

In fact, in recent weeks, Gani was never more in  command of his powers and resources as head of the multi-agency Special Task Force into the 1MDB scandal, suspending banking accounts and starting the arrest of several persons connected to the 1MDB scandal.

New Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali has said that Gani’s termination as Attorney-General was in line with the Federal Constitution and that his rank was not reduced in any way.

Malaysians do not appreciate euphemisms from the new Attorney-General or from the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Ali Hamsa who was clearly less than truthful when he said on Tuesday morning that Gani’s termination as Attorney-General effectively July 27 was due to health reasons, as the “health” here clearly refers to Gani’s “political health” and not “physical health” whether of the kidney or other variety.

Malaysia has now a world-renowned Prime Minister who could not say a simple  “Yes” or “No” to the simple question whether US$700 million or RM2.6 billion was deposited into his personal bank accounts in AmBank in March 2013 just before the dissolution of Parliament and the holding of the 13th General Election, and answer  the subsequent questions where the monies came from and where and  to whom the monies have gone to for the 13th General Election campaigning; whether the Ministers and Deputy Ministers including the newly-appointed ones had received funding from Najib’s personal accounts and whether they will collectively and individually make such a public declaration?

Is Malaysia to produce an Attorney-General who is similarly afflicted with the malady and the inability to say a simple “Yes” or “No” to the question whether his predecessor, Gani Patail, had been sacked as Attorney-General although the Prime Minister had charitably retained him as a judicial and legal service officer until he undergoes mandatory retirement on Oct. 6, 2015?

If the new Attorney-General cannot be honest about whether Gani Patail had been sacked as Attorney-General after serving nearly 13 years as AG and only two months before his mandatory retirement at the age of 60, can Malaysians have any trust in Apandi’s statements, assurances or undertakings or those made by his officers in the Attorney-General’s Chambers so long as Apandi is Attorney-General?

The position has been aggravated with the Sarawak Report publication of a draft of the charge sheet purportedly done by former Attorney-General, Gani Patail against the prime minister and another person.

Sarawak Report  said the charge sheet against Najib, in the final draft stages,  had led to Gani’s sacking on Monday although his contract as A-G was until October.

The site said that Gani was abruptly removed when he was “on the brink” of filing corruption charges against the prime minister. ”

Sarawak Report said the charge sheet against Najib was under Section 17 (a) of the MACC Act and an alternate charge under Section 409 of the Penal Code. The first charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

When contacted last night about Sarawak Report’s exclusive article, Apandi declined to comment on the ground that he did not know anything about the report.

Late last night, the Attorney-General’s Chambers head of prosecution division Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah tweeted a denial regarding the charge sheet.

This morning, Apandi has launched into an offensive firing with both barrels, dismissing the purported draft as “false”, alleging that it pointed in the direction of a plot to topple the prime minister and warned of stern action against the perpetrators.

Apandi said: “These alleged charge papers therefore indicate there is a conspiracy to topple a serving prime minister by criminalising him, and that the methods include doctoring (documents) and criminal leakage.

“This plot represents a threat to Malaysia’s democracy and I will direct for all possible actions to be taken to investigate the matter.

“The full force of the law will be applied without exception on any that are found guilty.”

It would appear that there is a lengthening list of people who could  be hauled in a dragnet against a so-called ring of conspirators in an international plot to “criminalise” Najib and to topple the elected Prime Minister, and  who could be charged under Section 124 of the Penal Code for “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy” which could send persons convicted of the charge for up to 20 years in jail.

But the denial by Apandi and the AG’s Chambers are grossly inadequate.

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?

Malaysians have a right to see and hear from the previous Attorney-General Gani whether he was in the final drafting stage to charge the Prime Minister for corruption when he was suddenly and summarily sacked as Attorney-General.

All patriotlic Malaysians are concerned that the country appears to be hurtling headlong towards the precipice of a failed state, which will signal a new dark age for Malaysia.

DAP calls for reason, good sense and patriotism to prevail to prevent the descent of a new dark age – and I will like to direct this call specifically to the new Attorney-General Apandi Ali.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 31 July 2015, 11:00 am and is filed under
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