Double felicitations are in order today.

Firstly, to UMNO for its 71st anniversary and its “superlative achievement” in its 71-year history – turning Malaysia into a “global kleptocracy” which no UMNO member or leader, past or present, including the previous six UMNO Presidents, Datuk Onn Jaafar, Tengku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir or Tun Abdullah would have imagined possible in their wildest dreams or would have given their endorsement or approval.

In fact, I believe that the overwhelming majority of the current 3.5 million UMNO members would not have approved or tolerated Malaysia being known world-wide as a “global kleptocracy” if they fully understand the meaning of the term.

Secondly, to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for an unprecedented congratulatory message by the country’s anti-corruption agency to a political party, asking UMNO leaders to serve as role models to the public in the fight against corruption.

But the MACC message is noteworthy, not for what it said but what it did not mention – the elephant in the room, viz. the 1MDB scandal which has given Malaysia the epithet of a “global kleptocracy”!

In his 2016 New Year message 17 months ago on 31st December 2015, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak told Malaysians that his RM50 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion donation twin mega scandals had been resolved and were no more issues.

Najib could not be more wrong as the Malaysian government and people continue to be haunted and hounded by the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal.

In the past 17 months, Malaysia went from the third “worst corruption scandal of 2015” by international website foreignpolicy.com to second worst example of global corruption by Time magazine in March last year, second place in the index of crony capitalism by the Economist’s ranking in May, and full-blown “global kleptocracy” when in July, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed the largest kleptocratic lawsuits to forfeit US$1 billion of 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland from US$3.5 billion international 1MDB kleptocratic embezzlement and money-laundering scandal.

There has been no let-up of the incessant international battery and assault of Malaysia’s credibility and reputation in 2017, the two latest 1MDB-related blockbusters being the co-called IPIC-1MDB debt “settlement” agreement and the sudden termination by TRX City Sdn Bhd of the sale of 60% interest in Bandar Malaysia to Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH) and China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) consortium.

It is to the eternal shame of Parliament and the UMNO/MCA/Gerakan/MIC General Assemblies they had failed to defend the country’s honour and reputation in failing to rebut and refute the ignominy and infamy of being regarded world-wide as a “global kleptocracy” or to purge and cleanse Malaysia of such international infamy and ignominy.

I do not believe that the first five Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah would have stood idly by and done nothing if Malaysia had been regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy during their premiership.

The time is well past for UMNO or MACC to tip-toe around the humongous 1MDB scandal and to end the charade that Malaysia is not regarded as a “global kleptocracy”.

Would both UMNO and MACC act patriotically and courageously to jointly take the bull by the horns to rebut and refute the infamy and ignominy of Malaysia as a “global kleptocracy” or to purge and cleanse the country of such ignominy and infamy?

Such an action by UMNO would make its 71st anniversary one of the most glorious chapters in UMNO history.