The sympathy twist: Umno tries to turn disgraced Shahrizat into a Wan Azizah

Umno, in defence of disgraced Wanita Umno Chief and Federal Minister Shahrizat Jalil, has begun beating war drums over the issue that Parti Keadilan Rakyat Chief Wan Azizah Wan Ismail didn’t quit her party post when her husband, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, was jailed on a corruption charge.

“When Anwar was jailed, Wan Azizah continued as president. They (her family) are only going to be charged, not guilty yet. So why resign?” Umno information chief Ahmad Maslan told reporters on Monday.

But there are no parallels between Wan Azizah and Shahrizat. Shahrizat's husband and children were accused of corruptly spending public money to the tune of million in the RM250 million NFC financial debacle. Her husband, Salleh Ismail, who is also the NFC chief, was finally charged for CBT on Monday after months of paper shuffling and delay.

Shahrizat herself claims to have 'quit' her Cabinet post but since the effective date is April 8, the same day that her Senatorship expires and she would automatically be dropped, there is not much value in the resignation despite the sympathy that Umno - with an eye to snap polls - is trying to wring for her with huge and splashy media coverage.

Even so, despite the huge effort, the public consensus is clear. The Wanita Umno Chief must resign her party post, not just her ministerial position, unless she and her party want to further test the people’s patience at the forthcoming 13th General Election.

Anwar's corruption charges

As for Anwar’s corruption charges, firstly they do not relate to public money at all. These are related to the sodomy charges pressed against him by former premier Mahathir Mohamad in 1998 was over-turned by the Appeals Court in 2004  after Mahathir had retired and after Anwar had completed his jail sentence for alleged corruption.

Anwar’s corruption charge, only one but split into three for dramatic effect, stems from the allegation that he tried to get the police to close the case on a report lodged by his own secretary on a book included in a folder distributed to Umno delegates at a party General Assembly. The book, a documentation of the cowardly 'surat layang' or poison pen culture in Umno, had listed all the reasons why Anwar was not fit to be the Prime Minister. One of the alleged reasons was sodomy.

It's arguable if there’s anything wrong in Anwar advising the police to close the file on the case. In fact, it's strange that the police did not close the file on the case when the complainant himself, Anwar through his secretary, expressed a desire to withdraw the complaint.

Mahathir himself had gone on public record to state that Anwar’s secretary should not have lodged the police report. In fact, he even blamed Anwar for inviting the investigations into the sodomy allegations via the secretary’s police report. Mahathir had a point there. There are news clippings from around that date in the mainstream media to support this point.

However, Mahathir - known for his Machiavellian ways - also prevailed upon the police to continue the investigations, to ignore the complainant’s application for withdrawal of the police report, and not to close the file on the case. Mahathir is the one who should have been investigated for abuse of power in this particular case, for influencing the direction of police investigations, and charged with corruption. But he walks around scot-free while the complainant was incarcerated.

The police knew that the sodomy charge was false but to make sure that Anwar was locked up, and therefore kept out of Mahathir’s way, they threw in the highly subjective abuse of power charge under which anyone’s goose would be cooked. With Anwar's 2004 acquittal, the allegations that it was Mahathir who was behind the sodomy plot to derail the fast-rising Anwar are all the more credible.

The police did not investigate either how the book got into the folders distributed to the Umno delegates. Perhaps, they were waiting for a police report to be lodged by Umno before they did anything about it. If the police did investigate, they have not disclosed anything so far to the public.

Neither did Umno commence any investigations into how the book got slipped into the folders given out to the party delegates. As pundits said, they pretended to be deaf, dumb and blind. This is nothing short of an outrage and a disgrace since in advanced countries, good governance would demand that the entire secretariat of the party is incarcerated and the keys thrown away for good.

If Shahrizat's husband is innocent, she should follow Azizah and form a new party to fight for justice

Which is why Wanita Umno, and Umno in general, will pay a heavy political price if Shahrizat continues to lead the women’s wing into the 13th General Election. The chain reaction and political fallout from the RM250 million debacle or Cowgate Scandal as it is also known will follow them, spilling all across the nation and into the small towns and villages when campaigning begins.

With GE-13  expected to be held in May or June, perhaps this is why back-to-the-walls Umno strategists are trying to turn Wan Azizah intotheir version of Wan Azizah, who rose to regional fame for her courage in taking on the entire BN government to fight for her husband.

But Umno's hopes to get away with it by making the Wan Azizah comparison will not work. Both women saw their husbands being prosecuted. But the charges are totally different. Salleh was charged for CBT involving millions of public money, Anwar for asking the police to close the case on a complaint he himself originated. With the jailing of her husband, Wan Azizah assumed the presidency of PKR. She literally gave birth to the reformasi movement. Her party is called Keadilan, which means justice, because she wanted to fight the injustice of her husband's incarceration.

If Shahrizat believes her husband is innocent, then it she who should emulate Wan Azizah. Quit Umno for it is the Umno-led goverment which is now prosecuting her husband. Form her own Justice party and be like Azizah. This is how a woman stands up for her man, not broker backroom deals with her party bosses. Of course, Shahrizat would only be able to do this if her husband was innocent and did not take a dime of the people's money.

As for the Pakatan Rakyat, they have already said if they won GE-13, they would subject Salleh to the full scrutiny of the law without any bias, fear or favor.

End of the road for dirty tricks

Pundits say Umno warlords, never known for superior intellect, should not try to indulge in their now discredited practice of getting into distractions and disruptions to pull the wool over the people’s eyes by directing the people’s attention to Wan Azizah. This dirty trick won’t work at all.

It is undeniable that more than one top Umno leader is involved in Cowgate, from Najib to his predecessor Abdullah Badawi, deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin to mention the main ones. They have been caught with their pants down and should own up, instead of 'sacrificing' Shahrizat to cover their own rears.

Obviously, with so much information on the NFC in the public domain, Umno warlords and Shahrizat know there is no way they can fudge the details if Salleh's defense is called and open trial begins. Thus, as pundits have pointed out, there is no way Umno will allow a full-scale and independent trial to be conducted.

Most Malaysia believe Monday's charges are for show. They are aimed to sweeten up voters and to tell Umno members that top party leaders are a fair and God-fearing bunch. They won't stoop to covering up just because Shahrizat is one of their inner club. Whether such a drama will really satisfy Umno grassroots is tough to tell. After decades of emulating their leaders, many have been experts at doubletalk.

For example, the head of the Jerlun Wanita division, Maznah Hamid, was even reported by the Star as saying, "We are lucky that she did not step down from her Wanita chief post. We never had a leader who could unite all Wanita members the way she has done."

The proof of the pudding is always in the eating and GE-13 will tell. But as far as the rest of Malaysia is concerned, even if Salleh's defense is called, it would be just another show trial.

As one cyberspace commentator by the name of 'People Power' put it, "Cowgate is done deal, rakyat just have to follow up, it is a side show now."

Malaysia Chronicle