Bukit Bintang is the 60th parliamentary constituency I am visiting since my six-month suspension from Parliament on Oct. 22 for wanting the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to give full accountability for his RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.
Najib had been most ill-advised to claim in his 2016 New Year Message nine days ago that these twin mega scandals had been resolved and are no more issues in the country, when both these Najib scandals continue to be major concerns and conversational topics of Malaysians throughout the country every day since the New Year – an alarmin g indication of how divorced from the ground and reality the Prime Minister has become.
As everyone can testify, Najib’s twin mega scandals had been in the news every day since New Year’s Day , with greater intensity than last year, and there are no signs any time soon that Najib’s twin mega scandals will disappear from the radar of national consciousness and concern.
There is only one way to make Najib’s twin mega scandals disappear and vanish from the public domain – for the Prime Minister to give a full and satisfactory explanation for the twin mega scandals:
• On the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal, firstly, where the RM2.6 billion donation came from, whether it was from one or more donors, which country it came from, as receiving donation from a foreign country for general election purpose to interfere with Malaysian internal affairs will normally be regarded as an act of treason and treachery; secondly, where the RM2.6 billion had gone to, which Ministers, MPs or UMNO/Barisan Nasional leaders had been the beneficiaries, how much each had received, and what have they done to the “donation”; thirdly, what is left of the RM2.6 billion “donation” and where are the balance of the monies now; and fourthly, what was the motive for the huge sums of RM2.6 billion “donation”. • On the 1MDB scandal, what were actually the total debts incurred by 1MDB, as the RM42 billion figure was the total debts incurred by 1MDB at the end of March 2014 when the 1MDB accounts were last audited. Tan Sri Muhyddin said in his last speech as Deputy Prime Minister on July 26 last year that 1MDB debts would have already exceeded RM50 billion, and by the end of November when the 1MDB assets were “rationalized”, cannibalized and sold out, the 1MDB debts would be nearer RM55 billion. Why no one had been sacked, charged in court for corruption or breach of trust for such an astronomical “debt hole” of some RM55 billion?
Is Najib likely to come forward and to accept full responsibility and give full accountability for these two scandals, as he is the only person in the country who is personally responsible for all the major 1MDB transactions, investments and decisions right from Day One of 1MDB seven years ago?
Of course not! Otherwise all the Najib strategies to avoid accountability last year would not have happened – the desperate cover-ups and stalling efforts like the government purge which saw the sacking of the Attorney-General, the Deputy Prime Minister, Senior Minister for Rural and Regional Development; the dissolution of the high-powered multi-agency Special Task Force on 1MDB headed by four “Tan Sri”s (Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, Bank Negara Governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner Tan Sri Abu Kassim Mohamad); the arrest and immediate transfer of key officers involved in 1MDB investigations in the government investigating/;enforcement agencies; the sabotage of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigations and my six-month suspension from Parliament.
Najib is trying his utmost to avoid accountability for the twin mega scandals by drumming fear and hatred that his downfall as Prime Minister will result in Malays losing political power and Islam placed under grave threat.
Will Najib’s downfall as Prime Minister result in Malays losing political power and put Islam under threat?
Nobody really believes this – in fact, I do not believe Najib himself will believe it. This is because Najib’s downfall will only mean that Najib and his cronies in UMNO will lose political power, for political power in Malaysia will continue to be in the hands of the Malays as the demographic reality is the surest guarantee that the Malays will not lose political power whatever happens to Najib or to UMNO in the next general elections.
In 1970 Malaysia’s population was made up of 44.32% Malays, 34.34% Chinese, 8.99% Indians, 11.89% non-Malay Bumiputeras, 0.67% others.
In 2010, the percentage of Malays increased to 55.07%, Chinese reduced to 24.34%, Indians dropped to 7.35%, non-Malay Bumiputeras maintained at 11.94% and 1.3% others. During the 13th general election, 52.63% of the voters were Malays, 29.68% Chinese, 7.31% Indians, 8.96% non-Malay Bumiputeras and 1.43% others.
Out of the 165 Parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia, 114 are Malay majority seats, 22 Chinese majority seats and 29 mixed seats. There is not a single Indian majority seat.
How could Malays lose political power in such circumstances, whether from the point of the ethnic make-up of the general population, the electorate or the parliamentary constituencies?
In fact, if the electoral system had been really “one man, one vote, one value” in the 13th General Election in May 2013, UMNO would now be in the Opposition benches and the Prime Minister today would be Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and not Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and the country would have been spared the catalogue of political and socio-economic scandals plaguing the country, like Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and the RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.
In reality, it is not the Malays who face the danger of losing political power, but Najib himself who might be toppled as Prime Minister in the next general election. Najib and his coterie are doing their utmost to avoid accountability for the twin mega scandals by drumming fear and hatred that Najib’s downfall as Prime Minister will result in Malays losing political power and Islam placed under dire threats.
In the coming months in the next two-and-a-half years, these tactics to incite fear and hatred based on irresponsible and irrational politics of race and religion will intensify and we must expect the campaign of demonization of the DAP to falsely paint the DAP as anti-Malay and anti-Islam to escalate further.
DAP will not forsake our original commitment and vision to be a party by and for all Malaysians regardless of race or religion at all levels of party leadership and elected representatives bound by the common goal of an united, just, democratic and progressive Malaysia.
I am accused of leading anti-Malay street demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur after the 1969 general election and responsible for the May 13 riots in 1969 – when I was never in Kuala Lumpur at the relevant period, as I was campaigning in Kota Kinabalu.
DAP had been falsely accused of wanting to create a Christian Malaysia when DAP had repeatedly pledged our commitment to uphold the fundamental features of the Malaysian Constitution, as reiterated at today’s accords signed at the historic Pakatan Harapan Convention in Shah Alam, including protecting Islam as the official religion of Malaysia.
Recently, there was the lie that Israel had offered RM1.2 billion to DAP in exchange for a naval base in Port Dickson.
DAP will not succumb to these lies and demonization campaigns.
We must have a very incompetent and unprofessional police force if these three allegations are true, and the police had not done anything about them – when in fact, Malaysia has one of the most competent Special Branch in the world.
DAP will forge on with our original commitment and vision to be a party by and for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, with all races and religions represented at all levels of our party leadership and elected representatives, whether in Parliament, the State Assemblies or the local councils.
We will remain true to our conviction to be a truly Malaysian party for all Malaysians!
(Speech at the DAP Bukit Bintang Dinner at Confucian Private School, Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, 9th January 2016 at 9 pm)