COMMENT
2 Jul 2016
When it comes to cover-ups Prime Minister Najib Razak holds world acrobatic status.
Of course, as all
Malaysians know, he has had plenty of practice during a long political
career packed with scandals, which would have (rightfully) destroyed
most politicians.
But, Najib also possesses
an ‘it’ factor, a hereditary sense of entitlement in a deferential
society that has let him get away with ‘blue murder’ all his political
life, along with an inherited sports car equivalent, in terms of the
powers accumulated by his leadership portfolio.
What other ‘democratic’
politician walks into the top leadership job, which is combined with the
finance portfolio and chairmanship of a political party that has
inserted its tentacles around every lever of power in the country? On
top of that this political party has asserted a race-bias advantage that
must be almost unique in the modern world – economic advantages
established for Malays only, which have rapidly been hijacked by a
self-selecting group of elite Malays, who run BN and the government.
As his by now largely
aghast fellow elite have observed, Najib jumped into that political
sports car like a wayward prince and immediately careered off into
trouble, full throttle without a glance in the rear vision and barely
looking ahead.
His move to grab his first
billion dollars of public money came within just a few weeks of being
handed the premiership (no election), when he schemed a heist with an
equally feckless Saudi Prince, Turki bin Abdullah, on the grand yacht
Tatoosh off Monaco in July 2009.
That PetroSaudi deal was a hoax from beginning to end and it is hard to decide which party conned the other more.
Was it the boys from
PetroSaudi, who had hired the yacht and pretended they owned it and who
then further lied that their worthless company was valued at US$3
billion? Or was it Najib and his agent Jho Low, who lured the young
Saudi/UK adventurers into imagining they could make a fast mega-buck by
‘acting as a front’ for a Malaysian government led theft from its own
people and then move on with their lives?
What is certain is that
neither of these irresponsible parties ought to have been entrusted with
running a country or doing any form of public business. They are now
locked in the horror of discovery from all sides (their ill-deeds having
escalated from bad to far far worse in the intervening period) and in
reaction Najib has revved that sports car up through the gears, like a
mad drugged-out teenager in a police chase, crashing through safety
barriers, tearing through reservations and now heading full throttle
down the wrong side of the freeway!
Compare this madman to
Britain’s David Cameron, who last week announced his resignation
following a major political blunder. Cameron was already embarrassed
having had to admit to benefitting from an off-shore family trust to the
tune of a few thousand pounds. But he can get on with the rest of his
life with dignity now, having plainly attempted to do the right thing in
the light of his country’s interests, which he has placed first.
Meanwhile, what of the
billionaire Najib? This man dare not take his foot off the accelerator,
by contrast, because the cops will catch up.
He just drives faster and
like James Bond he is hurling from his now tattered vehicle every last
cunning advantage that an over-accumulation of powers and wealth have
given him: an IGP who does his bidding; an anti-corruption agency that
resides in his personal private office; an Attorney General appointed by
him; judges who owe their positions to him; politicians and party
office holders who all seem happy to acknowledge they have received
regular cheques from him… but still the car must, eventually, according
to the laws of nature run out of petrol or crash!
Just look at what he has
done to stay in power. Just this last week he came after the respected
Chief Minister of Penang, one of the few havens of remaining good
governance in Malaysia, like a goon.
Accusing the man of having
cheated over the purchase of his relatively modest home, in return for a
non-existent favour to the previous owner, Najib made sure that his
police agencies slammed Mr Guan Eng in a lock up over night, as a taster
of what he plans in store for him, once this latest act of judicial
persecution is through. After all, Malaysia’s other opposition leader
has been banged up over a year for the similar offence of being a threat
to Najib.
Malaysia is left asking,
surely if Guan Eng was corrupt he would have done more to feather his
nest than worry about getting a slice off the price of a house purchase,
given his pivotal position over Penang’s successful economy? So,
presumably Najib could find nothing else, which merely re-confirms the
perception of clean government compared to the federal mess run by the
Prime Minister cum Finance Minister himself.
Next in his sights, we are
informed the by now blood-lusting PM himself, is Selangor, another
relatively orderly and well-run state of the federation, again ruled by
the opposition.
Having bought a slender
majority in two recent by-elections, in which the narrow margin of
victory was disguised by his ‘achievement’ in dividing the opposition
through his encouragement of Islamic extremism in his own country, Najib
has told himself that he can also career to political victory in the
heartlands of the urban opposition to BN’s 60 years of uninterrupted
rule.
Added to his box of tricks
provided by ‘Q’ (for whom read the above mentioned Mahathir, who plainly
now feels somewhat like the original Dr Frankenstein) is a total
control over the Election Commission, therefore Najib clearly reckons he
has a chance of ramming such a triumph through. It just involves
smashing through a few more of the remaining rules, checks and balances
after all – and if you control and appoint all the ballot counters and
election monitors as well, you can always say you won, even if you lost…
ask the guys in Sarawak, they do it all the time.
So, expect a strike against
Selangor’s Azmin soon. Perhaps there will be a judicial move to begin
with also, to soften him up? After all, most of Azmin’s top political
colleagues are already battling the apparatus of the state on trumped up
charges against them, for speaking out, joining peaceful protests,
uttering ‘official secrets’ and the like. Maybe it will be another
‘corruption charge’ that Najib has in mind? Since it is always nice to
persecute others for the sin that you yourself are most notoriously
culpable of.
Following that, might we
even see a daring further move against that pesky class of sultans in
Malaysia, who still appear to hold some constitutional weight and
popular support?
Najib (to his own mind) is
by now the real royal, surely the country realises and recognises that?
Those chaps down south in Johor would seem to make a good starting point
for such a move, being they tend to be so frequently cheeky.
Since no one so far seems
to have managed to rip Najib’s tyres and the lead chasers appear to have
been successfully thrown off by his various deployments of Q’s
weaponry, it looks as though Najib may now seriously be contemplating
such ultimate moves, in order to secure his total, final grasp over
Malaysia.
After all, it is only once
he has established a complete and unequivocal dictatorship that a
fugitive from the law, like Najib Razak, could ever possibly feel safe
from justice.
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