Shahbudin Husin says Najib Razak's decision to put off the legal suit against WSJ compounds the silence on the AmBank personal accounts.
KUALA LUMPUR: Things are not looking good for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, and not only because of the allegations against him in the highly-regarded Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last Friday, according to a political analyst. “He’s also in trouble because of his reaction, and even non-reaction, in the wake of the report .”
“The question is whether he can any longer be defended and, if so, for how long can he stand when he has already become a liability to the party?”
The WSJ allegation that Najib’s personal bank accounts with AmBank saw an inflow of nearly USD700 million has shattered all his dreams, added the analyst. “The WSJ has defended its reporting although he has claimed that it was unthinkable that he would steal public monies and keep them in his personal accounts in Malaysia.”
Shahbudin Husin, taking to his blog, pointed out that after all the hype about suing WSJ, Najib not surprisingly has now put off the decision while he consults further with his lawyers. “Why postpone the decision if the WSJ report was defamatory? WSJ’s willingness to defend any legal suit, and defend its reporting, probably made Najib think twice about proceeding.”
“This postponement cannot be good for Najib. He can do without more negative news.”
The analyst thinks that if Najib eventually does not go ahead with his much-touted legal suit against the WSJ, it will further strengthen the public perception that the allegations in the prestigious US publication must be 100 per cent true. “The people already think very highly of WSJ because of its reputation built up over 125 years and its huge 2.5 million daily circulation.”
“If WSJ is right, then Najib must be wrong. That’s the logical deduction. What other advice can his lawyers give him?”
Already, added Shahbudin, Najib has remained silent on his AmBank bank accounts mentioned in the allegations for too many days. “He has yet to confirm whether he has or had accounts with the bank and whether unusually large sums of money entered those accounts.”
AmBank meanwhile has remained silent as well on the allegations. “If Najib really does not have accounts with the bank, it should have issued a statement to clarify the matter. They didn’t and this has given rise to further speculation.”
The analyst wonders what’s taking Najib so long to give a simple “Yes” or “No” answer on the AmBank accounts. “Can such an attitude help him win the battle of perceptions among the people especially when the majority did not vote for the ruling coalition in the last General Election?”
The analyst said that he dare not hazard a guess at Umno’s current popularity among the people. “It won’t be surprising if it’s as low as 30 per cent, or even worse, lower.”
Besides things not looking good for Najib, continued Shahbudin, the WSJ report could not have come at a worse time. “He had just managed to persuade the Umno Supreme Council to put off the party elections until after the General Election in 2018.”
Unless he falls in GE14 come 2018, said the analyst, he had been looking forward to the party elections after that. “His greatest hurdle, until WSJ came along, was to get past GE14.”
“He probably wanted to break former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s 22-year record as head of government.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.