TH-1MDB deal may be Najib’s final undoing

All signs seem to show that the situation is at breaking point, and many onlookers doubt that Najib will escape this time.

COMMENT

The game between Mahathir and Najib seems to be headed to a foregone conclusion, with many speculating that Mahathir has already won the battle given the outpouring of public support for the good doctor and the movements within the Umno machine that hint at a coming upheaval. As always, however, politics is by nature unpredictable, and things can still change between today and tomorrow, between this month and the next.

Over the past several days, Malaysians have descended into a downward spiral of incredulity, disbelief, and yes, rage, over the perceived move to bail out 1MDB with the purchase of one of its assets by Tabung Haji. The move was derided almost universally, with prominent BN figures condemning it and Malaysians everywhere up in arms.

Tabung Haji is almost sacred to the millions of Muslims in this country. For years and years, they have saved significant portions of their meagre wages to fulfil one of the most holy duties in Islam – to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. They rely on Tabung Haji to keep those funds safely for the day that they can do their holy duty. To touch Tabung Haji is tantamount to robbing these hardworking Malaysians of their hard-saved money. Indeed, without concrete guarantee of return on investment, Muslims nationwide have good reason to be incensed.

Couple this with the extraordinary burden the GST has inflicted upon the masses striving to keep their heads above water, and you have a volatile cocktail of anger and frustration that is coming close to breaking point. Appropriating the Tabung Haji funds may prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, as it has become clear now that the Najib administration is desperate to the extreme in its search for funding to bail out the Prime Minister’s beloved project.

Perhaps more important than the anger of the people is the undeniable turning of the tide on Najib within Umno. Take, for example, Khairy Jamaluddin. Khairy and his Umno Youth boys may have shown the Prime Minister support when he met them to explain the 1MDB dilemma, but even this crafty politician has had to bow to the changing tides. Through a statement from Umno Youth headquarters, he has demanded that the Finance Ministry and Tabung Haji explain the purchase of land from 1MDB.

Khairy is joined by Umno Vice-President Shafie Apdal and many divisional chiefs in a chorus of disapproval that could be their lifeline in retaining their positions.

But most important of all is that it appears Muhyiddin Yassin, Najib’s deputy in Putrajaya and in Umno, is finally making his moves. As veteran journalist A Kadir Jasin pointed out, Muhyiddin chose to make a statement on 1MDB while comfortably seated in Milan, much like how he chose Singapore to stand his ground against former PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He chose to play his cards close to the chest as usual, but supported Umno Youth’s statement. Perhaps more tellingly, during the campaign for the recent Permatang Pauh by-election, he confessed that he did not know what to say when questioned over the 1MDB crisis.

Muhyiddin has made up his mind, and it seems like Umno has too. To allow the situation to go on could really mean a fulfilment of Mahathir’s prophecy that Umno would fall should Najib remain in power. The sentiment on the ground is now outright hostile, and even Najib himself must fear the repercussions, as evidenced by his recommendation that Tabung Haji dispose of the property as soon as possible.

That will not be enough. Correcting a mistake does not forgive the doing of the mistake itself, and now Najib has angered a majority of the populace in the move to use Tabung Haji funds to help 1MDB out of its financial quagmire. All signs seem to show that the situation is at breaking point, and many onlookers doubt that Najib will escape this time. The delicious irony lies in that it was not Mahathir or the opposition that made what could be the fatal mistake that dethroned Najib. He set those wheels in motion himself, the day he and his compatriots decided to create the monster that is 1MDB.