To Umno, if a whistle-blower is non-Malay and the thief Malay, then it's not corruption!

Ibrahim Ali is getting richer and plumper by the day. Unfortunately he has not been using the money for his own good and spending it on his health, because at times, this survivor of a triple-bypass heart operation still has difficulty breathing.

His critics say this shortness of breath is further aggravated by his inhaling backwards whatever 'filth' that escapes from his "big mouth". He may not even be able to enjoy the money he makes, they warn, with his brazen behavior and unthinking words a growing embarrassment to the clear-minded Malays, including even a few in UMNO - his patron party!

To UMNO, corruption is a "virtue"

Someone in UMNO seems to be giving Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa a lot of money to make all sorts of noise. They say he is given the money for two reasons. Firstly, as a proxy for UMNO - to be its mouth piece and to spew all sorts of racist and filthy things that the UMNO supreme council dare not openly say themselves.

Yes, UMNO is shrewd. It always uses others for its own interests and after achieving what it wants, it will spit out those whom it has used. Same goes for Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa. But not so soon though, the UMNO elite still have several assignments left for Ibrahim and they won't want him to 'die' so soon.

Whether he realizes it or not, Ibrahim Ali is helping UMNO do the impossible - to convert the corruption allegations against Wanita Chief Shahrizat Jalil and the National Feedlot Corp into something of 'virtue' for the Malays.Really, UMNO thinks the Malays are so stupid, so immoral and so cheap. It is really insulting. Yet, oblivious to this, Ibrahim - the so-called defender of Malay rights - is saying that if the debacle had not been exposed by the unpatriotic non-Malays, the Shahrizat NFC project is actually huge success.

“It turns out before this Datuk Salleh had two non-Malay employees. They handled RM150,000 in cash every day. One of these employees siphoned off the money,” Ibrahim told reporters over the weekend, as if that exonerated the Shahrizats' alleged corruption as well as the alleged negligence of deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, former premier Abdullah Badawi and even Najib himself in awarding the project so carelessly.

Obviously, it is a whole load of bull and few people in the whole world will agree with Ib Ali. But among this 'select' group are likely to be the intelligent Oxford-graduate, Khairy Jamaluddin, who by the way rose to success not on the coat-tails of his education but by virtue of being the son-in-law of Abdullah Badawi. Is this getting too personal? Not at all, because to understand Khairy, one must understand how ambitious and how far he will go to get what he wants.

Back to Bolehland make-believe

Ibrahim Ali has no valid points to make or to argue in the Shahrizat-NFC debate. He hardly has any thoughts of his own and his explanation for the RM250 million debacle is just an embarrassment to himself and the Malays, whose rights and pride he claims to protect.

But this is the power of UMNO's wealth and influence. Suddenly, people can turn around and say that black is white and white is black. Does this not remind you of ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad and hisBolehland or make-believe era where the citizens were forced to accept as good what was clearly corrupt and bad!

There is really no logic at all in what Ibrahim Ali is saying. He seems to be making a fool of himself while at the same time trying to intimidate the Auditor-General into officially amending his report! Like coughing and sneezing at the same time! Who does Ibrahim Ali think he is? The incarnation of Hang Tuah? Yes, maybe so because he is always trying to parody the folk hero and be seen wearing the traditional Malay warrior garb with all the regalia and paraphernalia!

But a man is more than just his clothes. And as one esteemed intellectual once put it, one does not have to wear Batik or likekeroncong music just to be Malay. Unfortunately, Ibrahim Ali is making a mockery of himself and insulting his own intelligence. He is not unfairly called a clown, a buffoon even, and could be going senile sooner than the 86-year-old Mahathir! Worst of all, he is giving Malays a bad name.

Bolehland style "in a mess" becomes "in order"!

Nonetheless, the latest tirade from this dimunitive man, who is also the Pasir Mas Member of Parliament, shows how desperate the UMNO supreme council really is. Back to the wall, UMNO is banking on the flimsiest thing to cover up the Shahrizat-NFC debacle because they have no more defense to offer the public. Somehow they have to do regain the upper-hand as more misdeeds will soon be exposed by arch rival Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's Parti Keadilan Rakyat.

Indeed, UMNO is afraid that the Opposition Leader now has the weapon of mass destruction in his hand!

The latest argument put out by Shahrizat's husband Salleh Ismail in defence of how he and his family managed NFC is also flimsy, hair-splitting, trivial and petty. It just shows how incompetent Salleh is that it is only now that he realizes the Auditor General had "confused" NFCorp, his private entity, with the National Feedlot Corp. What Salleh is implying is that NFC is not in a mess but NFCorp is the one the Auditor found to be in a mess?

However, what Salleh did not disclose or make clear is, whether or not it is NFCorp which is the overseer for NFC? Also is NFCorp authorized to invest the proceeds of RM250million government soft loan? If there is not a grain of dishonesty in Salleh, why sidestep the facts? Why try to blame the Auditor and the opposition when the overall situation does not change at all?

Did the Auditor or the opposition buy the condos or did the Shahrizats? Did the Auditor or the opposition go for plush overseas holidays on NFC money, give family-controlled firms million-ringgit discounts, chalked up huge credit card charges or did the Shahrizats? No wonder the NFC - meant to provide beef at affordable prices to everyday Malaysians  - is in a mess even though Ibrahim and UMNO say it is in order!

“There was crisscross between the two. NFC is a government company and NFCorp is a company that belongs to us. It was unfortunate for our company, for us and for my wife because the Auditor-General writes about government departments, never about companies,” Salleh took the trouble to tell an Umno-linked portal all the way from Mecca - perhaps in a bid to show he could not be lying because he was in the Holy Land.

But to misrepresent is just as great a sin especially if there is ulterior motive to cover up.

Another bungle, Najib has to backpedal including on Anwar's acquittal

If UMNO is really serious in solving the debacle, they should engage Ibrahim Ali 24/7 to bark at Salleh and Shahrizat. Maybe even tie Ibrahim to one of the table legs in Salleh’s plush office!

It looks like Najib, whose camp instigated the mess against Shahrizat all for the sake of getting their guy Raja Nong Chik to contest Shahrizat's longstanding Lembah Pantai seat, is now starting to realize he has bungled yet again and created another time-bomb for himself and UMNO. But no matter how fast he backpedals now, the damage is done. No doubt, Utusan and the Star and other government -controlled media will cover up for him, but Malaysians already know who is lying.

Najib has no intention to clean up. He is too laden with baggage of his own to take on an anti-corruption platform and too vulnerable to point the gun at others because they will point even deadlier weapons against him. He has no choice but to get Ibrahim Ali to play the racist card - create hatred against the non-Malays - to get Malay sympathy for himself and NFC. Incredible, but that is the level of Najib's intelligence.

NFC a weapon of mass destruction, with the opposition poised to make more revelations

His second stroke is of course to discredit the rest of the revelations due to be revealed by PKR once they have checked out the facts. Even Shahrizat has launched RM100 million lawsuits against PKR leaders Rafizi Ramli and Zuraidah Kamaruddin in a bid to gag them. In fact, Najib is also trying to use the NFC to bargain for Anwar's freedom - notice the Attorney-General has decided to appeal against the Sodomy II acquittal, which really makes no sense because such a move to persecute Anwar can only damage UMNO itself.

Whether Anwar and PKR are aware is immaterial. If they could be stopped, Anwar would have long ago pulled out from active politics but he is hanging in there and will most probably make it as the country's next prime minister. As for PKR, do you think they will stop revealing more dirt of NFC - whether Shahrizat sues or if Anwar's acquittal is over-turned? Why should they?

It looks like both Anwar and PKR have better respect for Malaysians. They won't bargain when it comes to corruption - whether in the form of abuse of power and persecution as in the Sodomy II case, or basic daylight robbery as in the case of the RM250 million NFC debacle. Either way, the boomerang is set to hit UMNO in the gut for reneging on the fight against corruption and abuse of power.

If whistle-blower is non-Malay and the thief is Malay, then it is not corruption!

Really, Najib and Ibrahim Ali must understand that just because a whistle blower is non-Malay, it does not mean corruption is no longer corruption. If a Malay was corrupt and the whistle was blown on him by a Chinese or an Indian, it does not mean that Malay did not steal or embezzle or cheat.

PAS, the second largest Malay party in the country, would be the first tell UMNO that such double-standards are un-Islamic and does nothing to further the moral fabric of the community - unless of course, Najib and UMNO are looking to engineer a race of thieves and hoodlums!

In the NFC, Anwar and PKR have in their hands a weapon of mass destruction that they must be prepared to use no matter how strong the pressure from UMNO, or the Malay race will lead the rest of the country in perishing and becoming extinct.

Malaysia Chronicle