Jomo Sundaram: 1MDB, ECRL were used to fund elections

1MDB and East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) were the tools created by the previous BN administration to fund the last two general elections, according to Khazanah Research Institute senior advisor Jomo Kwame Sundaram.

These tools were created, Jomo said, because BN suffered a setback in the 2008 general election, in which it lost the two-thirds majority of parliamentary seats, purportedly due to the lack of election funds.

Back then, he said, some people blamed former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as responsible for BN's setback in the 2008 election.

"Pak Lah (Abdullah) did well in the 2004 poll because he replaced the prime minister then (Dr Mahathir Mohamad), who had been there for two decades. People were quite happy to see him (Mahathir) go and see a new face and (expected) a new spirit," he said.

"But by 2008, all that waned out. So, BN did badly," Jomo told a GE14 forum at the International Islamic University Malaysia today.

"The whole idea of the new BN leader (Najib Abdul Razak) was how to get money for 2013 and he did all kinds of funny deals," he said, referring to both 1MDB and ECRL as well as two gas pipeline projects in Sabah and Malacca.

"The whole point of ECRL was precisely to raise money for the last election (GE13), considering how it was rushed through the cabinet in November 2017. And in January 2018, ECRL started operations," he added.

China's Eximbank, which provided 85 percent of the loan for the project, allowed Malaysia to repay only after seven years, he said.

Such an arrangement of repaying the loan, which also applied in other projects, is irresponsible as it passes the debt to the younger generations.

"It is grossly irresponsible, but this was the way the country was being run," Jomo added.

[More to follow] - Mkini