Najib distances himself from Muhyiddin over Anya 'molest'

Seizing a rare opportunity to go one up on his deputy, Prime Minister Najib Razak moved to end allegations of sexual harassment levelled against DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng’s son by calling on politicians to leave family members out of politics.

“That is ideal in a modern democracy where you concentrate on policy matters. You can debate the differences in policies in terms of weaknesses of implementation but you leave aside family, or the exploitation of family matters for your own political gain,” Najib told reporters on Sunday.

Undercurrents

But beneath the smiles and friendly handshakes, there is intense rivalry between Najib and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who a day made a huge gaffe that may cost him the PM's seat when he defended Umno blogs for the recent attacks against Guan Eng's son.

Muhyiddin is widely expected to challenge the flailing Najib for the Umno presidency next year and has been careful to stay on the right side of the powerful warlords in the party, who badly want to see the Pakatan Rakyat opposition decimated one way or another. To these extremists, as long as Umno retained political power, it did not matter if gutter, racial or religious politicking was used. The name of their game was simply to win.

Pro-Umno bloggers had claimed that Guan Eng’s son had assaulted a 16-year-old schoolmate and had tried to escape punishment by using his father’s name. The Penang chief minister has denied the allegations, saying he was furious with the “barbaric lies” made about his teenage son by “pro-Umno ferocious beasts”.

It turned out that the purported victim was 21-year-old chess grandmaster Anya Sun Corke, who is studying at Wellesley College in the US. On Friday, Corke denied ever having met or hearing about Guan Eng's son.

The principal of the school from which Guan Eng's son had transferred out from, has also denied there was such an incident. The Penang Education Director has also made a similar denial.

World of difference between Anya Corke and Rosmah Mansor

But deliberately ignoring these denials, Muhyiddin had called on Guan Eng to let the police investigate the claims if he had nothing to hide. His response has raised another wave of resentment against his party's less-than-ethical conduct, and sentiment is growing that he is not a fit successor for the PM's chair.

Perhaps realisizng this, Najib said on Sunday, “You have to agree on certain ethics. It works both ways.

“I do not know the facts of this case but if you want to abide by certain ethics, to exclude families, then everybody should adhere to it, including the Opposition,” he said, appearing to refer to attacks against his wife Rosmah Mansor.

But unlike Anya, who was not at all involved, Rosmah was privy to a RM24 million diamond ring transaction that the Customs Department has confirmed does exist. Najib may deny Rosmah bought the ring, but in the Customs database, it was clearly stated the ring was to be inspected by her.

And the same goes for Rosmah's involvement in the sodomy trial against Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim. She was mentioned by complainant Saiful Bukhari Azlan and the police did take down her statement.

This is the huge difference between the sheer fabrication put up by Najib and Umno versus the no-holds-barred spilling of beans by the Opposition.

Malaysia Iinsider/Malaysia Chronicle