If Najib is not removed, he might still win GE14 and Malaysia would end up like Zimbabwe or even worse Togo where Faure Gnassingbe’s family has ruled for 48 years.
KUALA LUMPUR: A former veteran newsman has reiterated an earlier suggestion that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak be given safe passage to get him out of the Prime Minister’s chair and the government and Umno. “A spooked Prime Minister won’t go. Some of the people around Najib are very bad and extremely rude.”
“Najib, Datuk Seri Mappadulung Daeng Mattimung Karaeng Sanrobone in Sulawesi, refuses to resign, confidence in the economy is declining, the ringgit is plunging, the people are seething, Umno is fracturing, and the Barisan Nasional (BN) is dying.”
Our strong economic fundamentals, he stressed, are being ignored by investors, because they have no confidence in the government.
Kadir Jasin, a former New Straits Times Group Editor-in-Chief, was commenting on former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad telling participants at a public forum organised by the Umno Taman Cempaka branch that Najib doesn’t want to step down for fear that he would be arrested, charged and carted off to jail for wrongdoing.
Already, said Kadir, Najib has admitted in New York that 1MDB’s business model was too idealistic and it went into heavy debt financing. “That’s what we have been saying all along. With the ringgit in free fall, 1MDB’s debt could have risen way above the reported RM42 billion.”
“We see that in his desperation to be accepted, he’s trying to sound in sync with the rakyat.”
A “spooked” Prime Minister won’t go, reiterated the former veteran newsman. “I am saying it again. “Let’s give him safe passage. Let’s make it easier for him to leave.”
“We have to ask ourselves, which is more important — putting him on trial for alleged corruption or saving the country?”
Kadir pointed out that the moment Najib resigns and loses control of the Attorney-General’s Chamber, the police, the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) and Bank Negara, he would be arrested and charged. “We all know that he would do all he could to stay put. He may be putting on a brave front at home and abroad but deep down he knows in his heart what would happen to him if he resigns (without safe passage).”
Mahathir, he added, was not saying anything new when he told the participants at Taman Cempaka that Najib won’t leave because he’s afraid of being arrested and charged, and that the ringgit would recover if he resigns.
Again, he asked whether Malaysia wants to be another Zimbabwe where the people allow Najib to do a Robert Mugabe – at 91 he has been in power 35 years — by staying on at whatever cost while the economy heads towards the abyss. “Or we allow him safe passage?”
“Let’s put aside our thirst for blood and set our focus on saving our country from ruin. The longer the current situation persists, the worse it will be for us, worse than Greece, Zimbabwe and Togo. Idris Jala was prophetic when he spoke about Greece and Malaysia in the same breath.”
Zimbabwe, he reminded, no longer has an official currency and is using the USD as its official currency, while the South African Rand, the Indian Rupee and Chinese Yuan are also accepted in local circulation.
He warned that “we will all be damned by future generations if we do nothing to stop this rot. We should be gravely concerned about our present and about the future of our children and grandchildren”.
Kadir conceded that the people can wait for the next General Election in 2018, or even earlier in 2017, to force Najib out but this is by no means a sure bet. “He might still win and by then, it might be too late for the country. All over the world, bad leaders get re-elected by enslaving the people and manipulating the electoral process.”
“President Faure Gnassingbe was re-elected as President for the third term less than a month after the UNDP issued a report describing the people of Togo as the unhappiest people in the world. His family has been in power for 48 years. His father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, took power in a coup in 1967.”
He cites neighbouring Philippines as another case in point. “It used to be better than us. It took only one bad leader and his wife to ruin it. Marcos has been long gone but the Philippines has never really recovered from what he and his wife did.”
Even then, said Kadir, Marcos and his free-spending wife, Imelda Marcos, would not have left on the night of 25 February 1986 had Washington not guaranteed them safety and had Corazon Aquino, who went on to become President, not allowed them free passage.
The movie, “Turks and Caicos” on Astro’s Cinemax, is another example, said Kadir. “It’s about unscrupulous American contractors who conspired with a rogue British spy to overcharge the British Government, laundered their loot in Turks and Caicos, and set up the secret fund for the British Prime Minister who had the ambition of becoming an international statesman. Déjà vu.”
“Turk and Caicos is an offshore financial centre or tax haven like Cayman Islands.”
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