Late after midnight… on the wall of one of the buildings along Jalan Tun Perak previously filled with protesters in yellow.
Tag: Najib Razak
It is true. The 1MDB corruption scandal brings together strange bedfellows against the Najib government.
Mahathir Mohamad, Muhyiddin Yassin, Gani Patail and the likes are not exactly role models for liberals. These men have their own faults and sins. Their comments and their actions in other matters can be criticized easily. After 22 years in power while actively weakening Malaysian institutions, there are enough material to talk about Mahathir. Just the other day, a friend of mine jokingly said Muhyiddin was the enemy of the internet for all his nonsensical opinion about the Malaysian education system.
Yet, they have become, to their own followers at least, the leading voices against 1MDB. The Anti-Corruption Commission, much reviled by the federal opposition in particular for the mishandling of Teoh Beng Hock case, are now gathering sympathy for investigating the government and being intimidated by the police and suspicious men of conflicted interests.
As these new allies of sort band together, we hear and read the cynical remarks pointing out that suddenly these men, women and institutions are heroes and angels. Their past sins are forgotten and forgiven.
That is nonsense and utterly beside the point.
We are not in the business of appealing to authority. We are interested in answering questions and uncovering the truth, regardless who asked the questions. We are interested in removing the conflict of interest currently preventing a proper earnest investigation from being carried out.
Whether it is Mahathir or Muhyiddin or whoever your favorite man to hate, their questions are the same as asked by others. If they share the same concerns as many others, good for them.
What must be stressed is that those similarities of concerns say nothing of the legitimacy of the demand for truth and justice.
This is why when Najib Razak and his men began attacking Mahathir trying to wean credibility off the former Prime Minister, that did little to stop the advancing criticism against 1MDB, Najib and the government. It did nothing because this is never about Mahathir or Muhyiddin or Gani Patail or anybody else who are attacking 1MDB and the government.
We who want justice could not care less for the credibility of Mahathir, Muhyiddin and others.
What we care is the issue of corruption — both pecuniary and institutional wise — involving the 1MDB and the highest office in the land. Others are sideshows.
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[2787] The Bukit Aman fire
When I first learned Bukit Aman was on fire, I had a shot of adrenaline rush. I sincerely thought, finally, an uprising. Najib has been pushing everybody to the brink and I felt something drastic was bound to happen. In the air, with everything else failing, I could almost smell a revolution.
John F. Kennedy said “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” We Malaysians are close to that point.
This is a government that has preposterously threatened various individuals of attempting to overthrow the government only for wanting the truth out of the 1MDB corruption scandal. This is also a government which thinks democratic mandate gives them a free-reign on everything and that they are free from criminal charges. With all the outrageous hyperboles and disregard for rules, we might as well have a self-fulling prophecy.
And I think I am not the only one in this country frustrated at the current turns of event. Looking around my social media network and talking to friends, I feel a lot of people would be willing to go down to the streets to register their outrage beyond typing angrily on the internet. Bersih is planning a protest next month. I dare say it will be big beyond anything I have ever seen before in Malaysia and I have been to all of Bersih protests and they were a huge collection of Malaysians regardless of the lying government media and other paid hacks lacking moral fiber said.
Alas, how disappointing it was when I found out the fire was probably just an accident. Conspiracy theories are making rounds but at the moment, I think it is safe to say it was not caused by an angry mob who had had enough. It could be as innocent as short circuit and probably not nearly as close as men and women singing ”do you hear the people sing”¦”
But the fire does symbolize something bigger than a mere short-circuit fire burning various investigation papers.
It symbolizes the failures of our institutions. Our institutions are playing the old sleepy dogs that would just look on as the robbers entered the vault. The dogs lifted up their head, and went back to sleep.
Sadly, these institutions were created to serve us the public. To protect us. But they are now protecting the groups abusing us.
So let it burn. Let the police headquarters burn to the ground. They, their farcical crime index and their transformation labs are no use to us.
Folks, the PAC wants to question Jho Low but the Ministry of Finance cannot find him. Let us help our beloved government find him!
Where is Jho Low?
- Hong Kong (6%, 2 Votes)
- Cayman Islands (9%, 3 Votes)
- Riyadh (0%, 0 Votes)
- Somewhere in the Caspian Sea (0%, 0 Votes)
- London (6%, 2 Votes)
- Menara Dato' Onn (0%, 0 Votes)
- Perdana Putra (0%, 0 Votes)
- Ministry of Finance HQ in Putrajaya (6%, 2 Votes)
- Pekan (9%, 3 Votes)
- Seri Perdana (9%, 3 Votes)
- Brisbane with Sirul Azhar (6%, 2 Votes)
- I have never taken 1MDB funds for personal gain (25%, 8 Votes)
- Kota Belud (6%, 2 Votes)
- New York (9%, 3 Votes)
- Other places (6%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 32
Loading ...When Najib Razak first became the prime minister, he introduced us to his transformation programs in 2010. It was the Government and the Economic Transformation Programs, easier called the GTP and the ETP if anybody cares to remember anymore. On the eve of the 2011 Malaysia Day, the prime minister announced another one and called it the Political Transformation Program, the PTP, though it really appeared as an afterthought, probably included only because the speechwriter thought it sounded grand.
On that September night, the prime minister proposed to remove all emergency declarations made during the fight against the communist insurgents, relax laws against public assemblies and repeal the much-abused Internal Security Act. There were several other promises too. Notwithstanding the ominous caveats, he fulfilled his promise. Later in July 2012 and probably encouraged by the progress he made, Najib proposed to replace the Sedition Act with something else, giving the idea that more liberalization was on the way.
Enter 2013. As the general election approached, Barisan Nasional ran on the slogan ”Janji Ditepati”, meaning promises fulfilled. It was not long before the counter-slogan ”Janji Dicapati”, a humorous wordplay meaning broken promises, made its way to popular usage.
The 2013 BN under Najib did worse than Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2008. Stung by the electoral results, the conservatives within his party questioned whether Najib’s liberalization was working for UMNO. Their opinion was firmly in the negative.
Najib, losing his resolve and political capital while fretful of losing power the way his predecessor did, gave way and made multiple about faces. Among those U-turns was the direction of the political transformation program. And so, instead of liberalization, there was a noticeable reversal and a steady increase in political persecution.
The promise to repeal the Sedition Act remains a promise and in fact, it is being used more religiously now it seems with the latest case involving the arrest of several journalists from The Malaysian Insider.
New harsh laws are being introduced at Parliament that made the earlier repeal of the ISA a farce. Meanwhile, government critics are sent to lock-up as the police mete out some kind of extra-judiciary punishment while at the same time, UMNO politicians get special treatment and are free from the same ill-treatment others have received. The double standard says a lot about the ongoing political persecution however much the government denies it while hiding behind race, religion and the monarchy.
Regardless whether we agree on its efficacy, all the transformation programs have one intention in mind or at least they promised to do one thing: To push Malaysia into the wondrous modern First World from the tired old middle income grouping.
Unfortunately, the political part is subverting it. The so-called Political Transformation Program is transforming Malaysia from the verge of First World to the Third World.
We have to remember that being developed — First World, high-income nation and whatever the preferred jargons are — should be more than merely about income. Development has to be holistic and includes the sociopolitical front. Else, what we have is another old forgotten: First World infrastructure, Third World mentality.
