The new Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Zahid Hamidi said in Tanah Merah on Saturday that UMNO members will be given a detailed explanation on the issues 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and the RM2.6 billion political fund soon.

This is a cop-out and completely unacceptable for two reasons:

Firstly, why only to the three million UMNO members? What about the 27 million non-Umno Malaysians – or does Zahid think they are not entitled to a “detailed explanation” on these two issues, which are making their rounds not only in Malaysia but world-wide as examples of how a show-case to the world of a successful, modern, democratic plural society can almost overnight virtually become an object of international scorn and mockery of a nation with great promise which has taken a wrong turn to become a rogue and failed state.

Secondly, why the government had failed to give proper and satisfactory explanation about the 1MDB scandal in the past five years since questions were asked by the DAP MP for PJ Utara Tony Pua and the PKR MP for Pandan Rafizi Ramli; or for the past five weeks since the Wall Street Journal shocked Malaysians and the world that government investigators had found US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) deposited into Najib’s personal accounts in AmBank in March 2013, just before the 13th General Elections.

Those who had advised Najib to avoid giving a full and detailed explanation about the 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion deposits into Najib’s private bank accounts had not only committed major strategic errors but done a grave disservice to Najib, but most unfortunately, those have ascended to new influence to deal with these two issues are people of such inclination – most notably the newly-minted Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications Director!

What Najib should do, instead of going on a national road show to elicit sympathy and support at UMNO divisional meetings, is to start giving detailed explanations about the 1MDB and RM2.6 billion deposit scandals.

However, there are no signs that Najib is prepared to come clean, or his newly-promoted lieutenants would not remain obsessed with fighting fictitious or imaginary enemies – like the new Education Minister Datuk Seri Madzir Khalid accusing a “Jewish and Christian agenda aimed at splitting the Malays” as behind the demands for accountability for the 1MDB and RM2.6 billion scandals.

I am very worried for the educational future of the new generation of Malaysians when we have an Education Minister of such ilk.

Other Najib “loyalists” are spinning the theory of an international conspiracy to “criminalise” Najib and to topple the elected government of Malaysia, resulting in the most fractured government in the nation’s history, the “Nine Days of Madness in Putrajaya” with the Police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on “war footing” against each other for nine days – even with a prayer session by MACC officers seeking divine intervention when they find themselves overwhelmed by the “force and might” of the Police.

In such a hot-house atmosphere in the top reaches of government created by a so-called “international conspiracy” to topple Najib as the elected Prime Minister, there appeared to be an enemy behind every bush and stone, as if traitors were crawling all over the key national positions, in particular in three of the four agencies constituting the Special Task Force investigating 1MDB and RM2.6 billion deposits – the Attorney-General Chambers, Bank Negara Malaysia and MACC.

In this connection, the Prime Minister or the new Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohd Apandi Ali owes Malaysians a full and satisfactory explanation as whether Tan Sri Gani Patail was suddenly and shockingly sacked as Attorney-General on July 27 – whether he was involved, among other things, with the draft charge sheet to prosecute the Prime Minister for corruption.

When the draft charge sheet against Najib on corruption offence first appeared on Sarawak Report website, the new Attorney-General Apandi Ali had in the first instance dismissed the draft charge sheet as false and a fake, and if so, this matter should be the end there.l

However, the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said yesterday that police actions against MACC directors and two senior officers were taken because there was a need to find how the copy of the charge sheet could be uploaded into the Sarawak Report portal.

This would mean that there was in fact such a draft corruption charge sheet against Najib in the premises of MACC, and that this draft charge sheet had leaked out to the Sarawak Report website?

If not, why were the MACC directors and officers arrested or investigated in connection with this draft charge sheet against Najib for corruption?

With these new developments, which points to the new Attorney-General not speaking the truth in his first public statement when he denied there was a draft charge sheet against the Prime Minister and that it was a fake, Malaysians want to know whether Gani was sacked because he was in some way implicated in the draft charge sheet on corruption against Najib.

(Media Conference Statement [1] at Penang DAP Hqrs at Jalan Rangoon, Penang on Monday, August 10, 2015 at 11 am)