Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia Youth Wing Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has frightened the UMNO propaganda bigwigs with his call to Malaysians to keep alive the controversial issue of US$ 27.3 million jewellery bought for the wife of Malaysian Offical 1 (MO1) during the entire Hari Raya celebration.

US Department of Justice (DOJ) had drawn the ire of the Barisan Nasioanl Strategic Communications Director, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan who publicly asked why it had implicated Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor as “wife of MO1” for committing a wrongdoing when it did not intend to seize the 28 jewellery items, including the pink diamond necklace, from Rosmah.

Just as Abdul Rahman had no problem publicly admitting in an interview with BBB in September last year that “MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1” (“MO1”) was none other than the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and even saying “only an idiot does not know who that person was”, he had no qualms in publicly admitting that the “wife of MO1” was none other than Rosmah herself.

At least, on the matter of “MO1” and “wife of MO1”, Abdul Rahman was being forthright and truthful unlike his other Ministerial colleagues, including Defence Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, who moved heavens and earth to deny knowing or suspecting the identity of these two personalities in the DOJ suits.

But BN strategic communications director’s fatal error was not to realise that the ordinary people are smarter than the propagandists, as for instance, their not being misled by Abdul Rahman’s rhetorical question as to why the DOJ had implicated the Prime Minister’s wife for it had no intention to forfeit the 28 jewellery items alleged to have been bought by Jho Low for her using stolen 1MDB funds, but zeroing in on the fact that there had been no denial of the allegations presented by DOJ with regard to Jho Low’s purchase of the 28 jewellery items, including the US$27.3 million pink diamond necklace, as gifts to Rosmah from stolen 1MDB funds.

It speaks volumes that although more than a week had elapsed since the DOJ’s third kleptocratic actions to seize a total of US$1.7 billion of 1MDB-linked assets from over US$4.5 billion of laundering of stolen 1MDB funds using American banks and financial institutions, there has not been a single denial about the facts with regard to the gifts of 28 jewellery items to Rosmah from the stolen 1MDB funds.

If Abdul Rahman could publicly admit that “MO1” is Najib and “wife of MO1” is Rosmah, would he withhold denial that Rosmah had been given gifts of the US$27.3 million pink diamond necklace and 27 other jewellery items by Jho Low if these were not the case?

Suddenly, Syed Saddiq’s call to Malaysian youths to return to the kampongs to share the scandal of Rosmah’s pink diamond necklace and 27 other jewellery items assumed greater importance and became a grave threat to the political future and survival of Najib, UMNO and Barisan Nasional, and hence the need to counter and neutralise it became imperative.

Thus the escalation of the propaganda to spread the fairy tale that the DOJ kleptocratic suits were unacceptable violation of Malaysia’s sovereignty and foreign intervention with the country’s domestic affairs, when these were never the issues or the Cabinet last Wednesday would not have ignored the sjubject or the Foreign Ministry failed to make any protests the US government in the past ten days.

Syed Saddiq is therefore responsible for the intensity of the UMNO propaganda campaign, even roping in the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang and several state muftis, from Pahang, Perak, Melaka and Federal Territory, to ensure Malaysians do not focus on Rosmah’s US$27.3 million pink diamond necklace and the DOJ suits but on the fairy tale of foreign intervention during the Hari Raya holidays.
Which narrative would win the day during the Hari Raya holidays?

We will know soon enough, but I am confident that Malaysians, including the overwhelming majority of UMNO and PAS rank-and-file, do not support corruption or Malaysia as a global kleptocracy, while all Malaysians stand as one to oppose any foreign intervention into Malaysia’s domestic affairs.