Category: UMNO

By Bridget Welsh
Malaysiakini
Jul 10, 2015

COMMENT As Prime Minister and Finance Minister Najib Razak faces explosive allegations of embezzlement, corruption and electoral manipulation that go to the very core of his leadership and the legitimacy of his government, the country is plunged into yet another crisis.

Sadly crises have become common developments of the Najib government, whose responses to 1MDB even before the revelations by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) brought to the fore questions of economic mismanagement which has undermined the reputation of the Malaysia’s financial institutions.

For many, the issue at hand is what Najib will do – he has already done serious damage to the country and unfortunately every day he stays in office, his leadership negatively affects the country’s reputation. Not only is Malaysia’s international credibility is on the line, its currency, access to foreign capital and future economic prosperity are at risk.

Unlike his father, Malaysia’s second premier Abdul Razak Hussien, Najib has apparently chosen to put himself first rather than the country. During his tenure, Najib has distinguished himself from Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his effectiveness in using the country’s political institutions to strengthen his personal position. He has indeed taken the office of the prime minister to a new low.

Najib deserves a fair and impartial investigation of the allegations made by WSJ. This can be done if he opts to go on leave during the investigation period and appoints respected impartial individuals to lead the investigation. Neither of these have been done so far, as the approach has been to issue denials, thus raising suspicions of a potential cover-up, and this sends conflicting signals about the investigation.

In a ‘fox guarding the hen house dynamic,’ members of the task force assigned to investigate are neither impartial nor distant from developments. In some cases, their job was to review these bank transactions and as such should also be subject to an independent investigation in their failure to act before the WSJ report. The lack on impartiality of the task force does not build credibility, especially in international markets.

Najib’s decision to hold onto power and stay in office compromises any investigation due to the inherent conflict of interests involved and this assures that any departure will be an even harder landing for himself, his family, his political party, Umno, and worst of all, the country. Continue reading “Fissures appear in Umno as crisis deepens”

In one sense, the 18-month postponement of UMNO party polls is good news as Datuk Najib Razak will be an easier target in the 14th General Election with the avalanche of scandals – socio-economic and political – as well as the continued festering of internal UMNO warfare.

Never before in Malaysia has a Prime Minister amassed such a huge brew of socio-economic and political scandals within so short a time, creating a most explosive mix with far-reaching consequences in the next general election.

Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor was not being candid when he merely admitted that the postponement of the Umno election was due to “current political crisis” but not related to 1MDB, as the truth was that the postponement was caused by “current political crisis arising from scandals like 1MDB”.

Unlike the 13GE, the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal will be the lead “scandal” in the 14GE although desperate attempts are being made to defuse it, including an elaborate script of “The Empire Strikes Back” based on the notion that the allegations of the 1MDB scandals were all based on the “tampered” emails (not only unsubstantiated to date but clearly impossible) including the last desperate option of a winding-up and asset-stripping of 1MDB.

But even after being wound up, 1MDB scandal will remain alive in the 14GE although it will be one in a shoal of seething multiple scandals – whether economic and financial like the Felda Global Venture (FGV), Tabung Haji, GST, weak Malaysian ringgit and now MARA’s Australia property scandals, or socio-political like Najib’s major failures including his signature 1Malaysia Policy, Global Movement of Moderates initiative, the National Transformation Programme, the worst racial and religious polarization in the nation’s history. Continue reading “UMNO party polls deferred by 18 months is in one sense good news as Najib will be an easier target in 14GE with avalanche of scandals and continued festering of internal UMNO warfare”