How long will Najib overstay his hospitality?

COMMENT How shameful it is for us Malaysians, especially members of the elite Umno nationalist party, when people start making fun about a scandal-riddled prime minister who is still in office despite being told on numerous occasions to vacate his position.

With over a million people signing the Citizens’ Declaration, certainly the people have already spoken, and we cannot be wrong about the decision. Till today, Umno has never produced more than a million signatures in support of Najib, despite having over four million members.

This is because over the imprisonment of former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, over 100,000 people signed the petition to the White House, but the counter-petition was riddled with fake signatures. This prompted the White House to close the counter-petition in order to clean up the fake signatures.

The message is clear

In the past one week, I have received two video clip via the social media that Prime Minister, Najib Abdul Razak, should in fact, watch and tell us what he thinks.

Call it whatever, the message is strong and clear and this represents the sentiments on the ground, and from Umno grassroots themselves. It clearly shows that Najib, and to a large extent the Umno elites, no longer have the moral ground to rule the country. This will undoubted have a backlash on the other Barisan Nasional component parties.

In the past, Najib could dismiss the show of sentiments against Umnoism in this country as the work of the opposition or its supporters. Adam Adli, for example, was hauled up to court for showing his protest, and a girl stomping on a portrait of Najib during Bersih 4 was demonised for her expression of disgust at the administration.

Bilqis Hijjas has just been acquitted for her act of dropping of yellow balloons with words such as ‘Justice’, ‘Media Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’ during an event attended by Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor.

With her, I celebrate, but what she did was a simple gesture of protest which was both peaceful and artistic, and kids would love her for it! If people are so afraid of even balloons, there must be something that they are trying to hide.

The Semporna anger

Different people show their protest differently.

For example, Umno treasurer Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanadziah resigned from all his posts including his post as second finance minister. Based on sources, the morally upright Husni was greatly disappointed with the way how the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was handled.

With Johari Abdul Ghani now as minister, we are told that the government may have no choice but use public funds to bail out 1MDB. In an earlier article, Johari had equated the 1MDB scandal to both Perwaja and other failed projects which required government bailouts.

My question is: How can Johari make such an assumption that the people are happy with such a bailout using public funds? Where did the money go? Why is there no case against those who were involved in the transfer of funds from 1MDB to companies that were registered in the British Virgin Islands? Why is Najib keeping silent about the disappearance of such huge sum of money?

This explains why there was such a strong protest like what we see happening in Semporna, Sabah, which is more than just the tearing away of Najib’s poster. This, for all you know, may not be the first and last incident that we will witness.

It clearly shows that the grassroots no longer have confidence in the Umno president and in Najib as the country’s prime minister. I believe in the next six months, we will be seeing more of such show of anger by other Umno grassroots.

As I mentioned in my previous articles, it may be necessary for the elites in Umno to suffer a major defeat in the coming general election in order to humble its leaders.

Across the Causeway

Another video clip that I received was that of a stand-up comedian in Singapore who was trying to differentiate between Singaporean Malays and Malaysian Malays.

I do not think that he was trying to make fun of Malaysian Malays or showing his supremacist attitude of the Singaporean Malays. However, what came across clearly from his stand-up comedy was that in Malaysia, we call a thief ‘perdana menteri’ (prime minister), whereas in Singapore, a spade is called a spade.

Even in the United Arab Emirates, two former senior officers of 1MDB have come under intense investigation, and one of them face the possibility of being extradited to the United States.

Over the 1MDB scandal, we learn that at least one bank officer in Singapore has been charged with assisting in money-laundering. It clearly shows that (1) while corruption does exist in the ‘squeaky clean’ Singapore, and (2) the state is against such acts.

This is why Singapore is on the top of the list in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. People who are involved in corruption do it knowing that they will surely be punished for it.

It is no wonder that a Singaporean stand-up comedian is making fun of the Malaysian prime minister. We have to respect him for his courage, as he, too, wanted to express his disgust over the 1MDB scandal. You have to watch it in order to appreciate what I have to say.

It simply makes no sense for any ordinary person to look at the way how the Malaysian authorities handle the 1MDB scandal, when at least six other countries including Singapore have initiated an investigation against their own citizens who were at the fringe of things.

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STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008. - Mkini