Najib's reduced sentence: 'Harapan will pay the price in GE16'

 

The Pardons Board's decision to halve former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak's jail sentence will take a toll on Pakatan Harapan in the next general election, said an independent analyst.

P Gunasegaram, who authored a best-seller book on the 1MDB scandal, believed that the issue would see Harapan's support dwindle and eventually benefit its rival PAS.

"I certainly think there will be a price to be paid in the 16th general election.

"I think there is a very palpable quietness on the Harapan front, except for those who are not in government making some statements about this, like Ramkarpal (Singh) and Tony Pua, for instance, from DAP and Hassan (Abdul Karim) from PKR.

"But the thing is, I mean, who will be the beneficiary at the end of the day from all of this?

“I think if given the status quo currently, it will be PAS, of course, who has seen a huge swing towards them in the 2022 election," he said.

P Gunasegaram

Gunasegaram was speaking in a radio interview with BFM presenter, Wong Shou Ning yesterday morning.

The podcast, which also featured criminal lawyer Goh Cia Yee, discussed the decision to reduce Najib's 12-year jail term to half and its ramifications for the country.

Adding further, the author of "1MDB The Scandal That Brought Down A Government", also trained his gun at Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his anti-corruption campaign.

Anwar fell for a fallacy

According to Gunasegaram, Anwar had sacrificed his aspirations to a fallacy that Najib could help his government get more Malay support.

"I mean, certainly as far as corruption is concerned, it seems to be all gone. So, unless Anwar redeems himself in the next four years, he's got four years to do it.

"But how do you redeem yourself from a situation like this if you carry the conspiracy theory right through?

"The overall plan seems to be to get Najib back into the political arena... to me, the fallacious belief that he commands a lot of Malay support.

"And if you go back and you look at the numbers, it shows that he does not," he said, pointing to Umno's defeat in 2018 when Najib was its president.

‘Review rules on pardon’

Meanwhile, Goh told the station that Anwar's government can show its commitment to fighting corruption by taking steps towards preventing Najib from getting a full pardon in the future.

This, the lawyer added, could be done by pushing legislation that will limit the power of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to give pardons.

"So, if Anwar believes that in the future, there may be instances where a pardon may be granted for Najib.

“A pardon may be granted for, let's say, other convictions of these politicians, what his government can do is to push a legislation forward on a federal level to amend or limit whatever powers that is causing this to happen," Goh said. - Mkini