Najib’s defenders make things worse for him

Fantastic excuses only serve to convince the public that something is indeed terribly wrong.

COMMENT

Every day since the earth-shattering revelation that Prime Minister Najib Razak had RM2.6 billion in the bank, we have been inundated with excuse after excuse after excuse, each more nonsensical than the last. It has come to the point where some of us would cringe as we open up a news portal, knowing we might again be greeted by news of Abdul Rahman Dahlan, Salleh Said Keruak or some other Najib apologist trying to explain away the money.

Sometimes we have Najib himself telling us what to think or not to think. Asking us to “please, just drop the funding issue” was probably the most inane plea ever issued by a politician under pressure, especially when you consider how much money we’re talking about.

Now, apparently that money comes from a benign Middle Eastern country not much more powerful than our own, with absolutely no interest in collecting on the favour of donating US$700 million. That’s according to our Tourism and Culture Minister, Mohamad Nazri Abdul Aziz. The reason this is okay, apparently, is that this “brotherly” nation is not like the United States and will not impose its agenda on us, even though it essentially donated so much money that you can win an election in the United States.

If this brother nation has so much goodwill, perhaps all of us Malaysians should appeal for donations. Perhaps it will single-handedly eradicate poverty in Malaysia in one fell swoop.

And then comes the whole issue of “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy.” Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi apparently thinks that calling for a vote of no-confidence is exactly one of those detrimental activities despite it being a standard feature of democratic life.

It would be an entirely different matter if people were openly calling for riots and a violent removal of the regime. That would probably be detrimental to parliamentary democracy, and we as Malaysians are by nature not inclined towards such a move.

Salleh Keruak can be even more irritating than Zahid. First, he ruminated on censoring social media for the sake of his boss. Now, he wants to approach Facebook, Google, and Twitter to ask them to please censor all those nasty lies and rumours about Najib.

Online defamation is indeed a problem in the social media age, but legal safeguards are in place to champion the injured parties. It appears that our authorities are loathe to enforce the available laws, presumably because the public outcry would be deafening. But trying to get the three biggest social media companies in the world, which have never supported attempts to censor an entire nation, appears to be something only a cave dweller would think of as he tries to come to terms with a world that far outpaces him.

If you feel you must defend Najib and apologise for him, at least put some thought into it. No one will buy the claim that the donation was made in recognition of our zeal in fighting ISIS. It is insulting to all Malaysians to be fed claims and statements that grow ever more fantastic and elaborate. Najib’s defenders have succeeded merely in convincing Malaysians everywhere that our Prime Minister has something to hide.

Enough already. We’ll never get a straight answer. But it seems that Najib’s defenders aren’t even trying anymore, with each fresh statement turning the entire debacle into a bigger mess. No politician worth his salt would see all this as a viable means of crisis management.