Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s position as Prime Minister and UMNO President has never been so fragile and precarious as now, and the question uppermost in many minds is whether Najib can untangle the 1MDB-Tabung Haji bailout in the next 48 hours or whether there will be a political explosion when Najib meets the UMNO division leaders on Monday.
Najib’s desperation over the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal as to approve a raid of Tabung Haji funds has created an unprecedented political spectacle of the current Prime Minister being sandwiched under attack by former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir and the current Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Mahathir is demanding that the bailout in the land deal between Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH) and 1MDB be called off immediately while Muhyiddin warned from Milan that the 1MDB scandal may explode on UMNO.
Muhyiddin admitted that the debt-ridden 1MDB was the biggest factor that led to Barisan Nasional’s (BN) loss in the Permatang Pauh by-election as he was not even able to explain the scandal when campaigning because, “I don’t even know what to say”.
He said: “The rakyat wants to know, not just Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The rakyat wants to know why no one has been charged, why the 1MDB board has not been sacked, and about the position of the CEO and the prime minister as adviser.”
In fact, if the 1MDB-Tabung Haji bailout had been revealed earlier, BN would not only lose with a bigger majority in Permatang Pauh by-election, it could have even lost in its stronghold in the Rompin by-election.
Former Attorney-General Tan Sri Abu Talib has posed legitimate questions whether the 1MDB-Tabung Haji bailout documents were classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), and who classified them as secret, with reference to the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar’s statement that investigations were looking into using the OSA against the perpetrators of the leak.
Will the IGP next say that all documents connected with the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal are protected by the OSA?
Police credibility and integrity will suffer another tumble under the present IGP if the police are seen as protecting the perpetrators of the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal instead of siding with the public and national interest.