Too Late For Regrets – Traitor Azmin Now Worse Than Before He Betrayed His Own Party PKR In 2020

 With a blink of an eye, the prospect of becoming the country’s youngest prime minister evaporated into thin air. It was only in 2018 when Azmin Ali, at the age of 53, was on cloud nine after Mahathir Mohamad appointed him as Minister of Economic Affairs – a newly created portfolio to reduce the size and involvement of the Prime Minister’s Department in the economy.

 

In his evil effort to groom Azmin as a potential prime minister, then-Prime Minister Mahathir had transferred all the economic functions of the Prime Minister’s Department to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, particularly the powerful Economic Planning Unit (EPU). Essentially, the new portfolio would allow unlimited opportunities to enrich the minister through nepotism, corruption and embezzlement.

 

Mahathir, who ruled with an iron fist for 22 years (from 1981 to 2003) as the 4th Prime Minister, before returning as the 7th Prime Minister in May 2018 at the age of 92, knew precisely how to bribe his pawn in exchange for loyalty. It was the same way a younger version of Anwar Ibrahim was recruited – and rewarded – back in 1982 by master strategist Mahathir.

In a stroke of genius, the cunning Mahathir managed to kill three birds with one stone. First, he diluted the powers of finance minister, supposedly the most powerful portfolio which went to 58-year-old Lim Guan Eng (secretary-general of DAP – Democratic Action Party). It was only the third time in Malaysia’s six decades since independence that the post has gone to a person from the ethnic Chinese minority.

 

By transferring not only EPU, but several important departments and agencies out of the Treasury to Azmin’s Economic Affairs Ministry, Mr Lim was reduced to just a “bookkeeper”. The move was to appease both the Chinese community and DAP, while at the same time stripped the finance ministry of control over vital government-linked companies (GLCs) to preserve Malay hegemony.

 

A known racist, the old man had no plan whatsoever to cede any real power to non-Malays, what more to bitter nemesis DAP. After stripping the finance ministry to its bare-bones, critical and lucrative GLCs like Petronas, Khazanah Nasional Berhad (KNB), Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) and Tabung Haji (Hajj Pilgrims Fund) were given to Azmin Ali to buy the young ambitious man’s loyalty.

Second, Mahathir started the slow process of killing rival-turned-ally DAP, which previously branded by the same man as racists and chauvinist party. Mahathir had no choice but to reward Mr Lim after DAP, a member of Pakatan Harapan, helped to topple then-Prime Minister Najib Razak in the May 2018 General Election, which saw UMNO lost power for the first time since independence.

 

Third, appointing Azmin was the old fox’s divide-and-conquer strategy to put PKR president Anwar Ibrahim and his deputy at loggerheads as part of Mahathir’s plan to split and weaken PKR (People’s Justice Party). After using Pakatan Harapan to achieve his goal, the next phase was to stop Anwar from taking over, even though Mahathir had promised to hand over power in 2 years.

 

After appointing himself as the chairman of Khazanah, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, Mahathir also appointed Azmin to the board, when the convention says the Finance Minister (Lim Guan Eng) should serve on Khazanah’s board of directors. But Lim was left out, largely because of his skin colour and the racist policy that Khazanah belongs to the Malays.

The relationship between Mahathir and Azmin was so intimate it created a perception that the PKR deputy president would succeed Mahathir, not Anwar Ibrahim. The stronger the perception, the more successful Mahathir’s plan would be in stopping Anwar. The bad blood between the top two leaders in PKR eventually reached a point of no return, so much so Azmin was rumoured to be quitting his party.

 

Azmin, who foolishly thought his path to premiership was inevitable, believed he was more qualified than his party boss Anwar to become the next prime minister. Mahathir was grinning from ear to ear when Anwar-Azmin relation deteriorated to the extent that Azmin openly declared his support for Mahathir to complete his term as premier until the next election.

 

When the nation was entertained with a leaked “gay sex” video clip, where Azmin Ali was caught with his pants down engaging “unnatural sex” at Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Sandakan, Sabah, Mahathir vigorously defended him. In June 2019, just a day after videos of disgraced Azmin were exposed to all and sundry, his gay partner Muhammad Haziq Abdul Aziz dropped an even bigger bombshell.

Haziq confessed on Facebook that his sex partner – Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali – had tried to force him to lie about the affair which he said had actually begun three years earlier. Of course, not only Azmin was never investigated, let alone charged, Haziq too was never charged for defamation for obvious reason – suggesting that both were indeed gay lovers.

 

In fact, Azmin’s gay sex videos have been authenticated, but laughably the police insisted that the authorities were not able to positively identify the two men shown in the videos that were leaked online. However, if you ask the public, people can positively identify them as Azmin Ali and Muhammad Haziq. After all, did not Haziq himself admit to the gay sex already?

 

Defending his new protégé, Mahathir quickly pronounced Azmin’s innocence and declared that the video clip was fake – even “before” the police could start the process of authenticating the video. The premature statement from PM Mahathir put the police in tatters, unable to perform their job professionally and could not investigate the sex scandal without fear and favour.

But Anwar said if Azmin were the other “actor” in the gay sex video clip, then he should resign. The prime minister-in-waiting could be trying to be neutral and did not want to be seen as bias in the public. However, his deputy was not impressed that Anwar did not defend him the same way Mahathir did. Feeling abandoned by Anwar, Azmin asked Anwar to look in the mirror, whatever that means.

 

The enemies outside and inside were watching with popcorn as the sex scandal saw Anwar, Azmin, PKR and Pakatan Harapan plunged into a family fight. After more than 40 years of friendship, brotherhood and political crusade between them, Anwar and Azmin appeared to be on the brink of “irreconcilable separation”. Anwar could not offer Azmin the future which Mahathir could.

 

Drunk with power and greed, Mr Azmin betrayed not only his own party, friends and allies in Pakatan Harapan built through blood and sweat over the years, but he also chose enemies – corrupt UMNO and extremist PAS Islamist party – whom he had fought for decades over personal relationship with Anwar families. The architect of “Sheraton Move” left along with 10 PKR MPs, leading to the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government in March 2020.

Under Muhyiddin regime, traitor Azmin was named as one of the four Senior Minister,even though his portfolio was downgraded to a less powerful Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI). To buy his loyalty, the backdoor PM Muhyiddin unofficially announced Azmin as the Acting Prime Minister during his absence. Azmin idiotically thought he was PM-in-waiting.

 

In his haste and greed for power, however, the PKR’s biggest traitor had overlooked one problem. What’s the next move after joining Muhyiddin Yassin, another traitor who pulled Bersatu or Malaysian United Indigenous Party out of the Pakatan Harapan government? Azmin and his band of 10 PKR defectors were unable to join Muhyiddin’s party until August 2020, some 5 months later.

 

On paper, Azmin appeared as the second man in command. In truth, Muhyiddin did not trust anyone, let alone a traitor like Azmin who may betray his new master. That was why instead of appointing Azmin as deputy prime minister, four senior ministers were created. To make matters worse, Azmin had no position in Bersatu – till he was appointed by Muhyiddin to the party’s supreme council.

There’s a difference between being “appointed and elected”. As an outsider, Azmin’s backdoor entrance into Bersatu was not welcome by other warlords like secretary-general Hamzah Zainudin and deputy president Ahmad Faizal Azumu. Without a party to call home, or a power base to expand his influence, Azmin and his evil twin bitch, Zuraida Kamaruddin, could only squat like illegal migrants in Bersatu without any dignity.

 

In the same breath, Azmin had also miscalculated the ferocious competition for power in the over-crowded Malay-centric Perikatan Nasional government. Anwar Ibrahim was his only competitor in the Pakatan Harapan government. In the new regime, Hamzah, Hadi Awang, Hishammuddin Hussein, Khairy Jamaluddin, Zahid Hamidi, and even “turtle egg” Ismail Sabri were cannibalizing each other for power.

 

What the traitor did not expect the most was his “Abah” Muhyiddin would lose power in just 17 months, shorter than Mahathir’s so-called chaotic 22-month administration. After the collapse of backdoor Perikatan Nasional regime under Muhyiddin, who tasted his own medicine when Najib-Zahid faction withdrew support, Azmin’s ambition to become the youngest PM was torpedoed.

To make it more dramatic, Azmin had bad blood not only with Hamzah, but he also had to pay the price for picking a fight with Ismail Sabri, who would become the 9th Prime Minister because he was the only weak and clueless man that everyone could order to buy pizzas. It was game over when lame duck Sabri dissolved the parliament in Oct 2022, paving the way for the 15th General Election.

 

Angry voters still remembered Azmin’s treachery and betrayal, and happily punished the traitor in the Nov 2022 election. He thought he could defend Gombak, the parliamentary seat he had held since 2004, due to his track record as Selangor Menteri Besar (Chief Minister) from 2014 to 2018. He had obviously overestimated himself. People simply hate the traitor.

 

With Perikatan Nasional reduced to Opposition, Muhyiddin is now struggling to keep Bersatu afloat. To avoid self-destruction, the party has designed a new line-up for its top five leaders ahead of its election in October 2024 – Hamzah Zainudin “promoted” as the party’s deputy president, demoting Ahmad Faizal Azumu to vice-president, a position to be shared with Ronald Kiandee and Radzi Jidin.

Azmin will become secretary-general, a position currently held by Hamzah. The proposition is an insult as not only Azmin will be ranked behind rival Hamzah, he is below the three vice-presidents of Bersatu in terms of hierarchy. So, the despicable traitor is actually ranked fifth, if he believes a secretary-general can become a prime minister to begin with.

 

Worse, if he accepts the post, he will be a laughing stock. It is a humiliating downgrade from his previous post as “PKR Deputy President”. Had Azmin remained loyal to PKR, he would be PM Anwar’s successor today. Not only will he remain a Member of Parliament, he will be de-facto PM-in-waiting in the event Anwar is no longer the premier – commanding Pakatan Harapan with 82 seats.

 

Mr Azmin is now many times worse than before he betrayed his own party PKR in 2020. His partner Zuraida and all the 10 PKR traitors had been terminated. In the wilderness, he is without a party to call home (he’s just a squatter in Bersatu). He is no longer an MP, hence cannot become a PM. As Selangor state assemblyman, he is now way down to climbing the ladder of becoming a chief minister.

But it’s useless to cry over spilt milk. It’s too late for regrets as karma is always watching and has a funny way of coming back to you. Even if Hamzah is not the stumbling block, PAS Islamist party has its own prime ministerial candidate – Terengganu chief minister Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar. The biggest sucker is Bersatu as PAS has started swallowing its partner after using it to become the largest political party. - financetwitter