Tan Sri Musa Hassan’s last month as Inspector-General of Police in his two-year renewed term is not to act as the country’s Top Cop to draw up a blueprint and National Action Plan to roll back the tide of crime in the past five years but as a politician to lobby for another two-year renewal as IGP next month.

In exchange for another term as IGP, Musa has cleverly packaged to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak an “elixir of life” to win the next general elections but it may really be a “poisoned chalice”.

Musa is offering something many Umno and Barisan Nasional leaders have been dreaming of – to finish off the Opposition in one stroke.

This is a prospect Musa is holding out to the Prime Minister – to knock out the Pakatan Rakyat leaders from PKR, DAP and PAS in one blow by arresting and charging Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang and I for “masterminding” last Saturday’s peaceful gathering in Kuala Lumpur of tens of thousands of Malaysians demanding for the abolition of the Internal Security Act.

In the past five years, crime in the country has become so endemic that it runs the risk of becoming a pandemic like the current A (H1N1) flu pandemic, undermining the country’s international competitiveness and depriving Malaysians, tourists and investors the two most important fundamental rights – the right to be free from crime and to be free from the fear of crime as the streets, public places and the privacy of homes are no more safe and secure from crime!

But to Musa, the three biggest “crooks” in the country are Anwar, Hadi and Lim Kit Siang!

Recently, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz had his own list of the “three crooks”, viz former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir, former IGP Tun Hanif Omar and former Attorney-General Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman.

In another three weeks, Malaysians will be celebrating our 52nd National Day and it is tragic that Malaysian nation-building has come to such a pass that those whom the powers-that-be regard as “crooks” wield and command greater respect and authority from the masses than the formal leaders in government!

Musa is in the minority of those in the country who think that the future for Malaysia lies in turning the clock back, wipe out the opposition, and return to the era of virtual one-party rule of Umno hegemony under the pretence of a Barisan Nasional coalition.

The majority of Malaysians however believe that there is only hope for Malaysia in a highly competitive globalised world if the country evolves into a mature democracy with healthy and vibrant check-and-balance mechanisms for all the key institutions in the country as through the emergence of a two-coalition system.

The prospect that Musa is offering to Najib – the elimination of the leadership of the three Pakatan Rakyat parties – must be very mouth-watering and tempting, even quite irresistible to a few among those in power today but would be utterly abhorrent to the majority of patriotic and far-sighted Malaysians.

If Musa envisages himself as a great political strategist who could assure Najib’s victory in the next general election, he should all the more surrender all notions of wanting to have his term as IGP renewed for another two years and openly step into the political arena as an Umno standard-bearer in the next general elections and see how he would fare in the judgment of the electorate.