Former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad made a valid point when he asked the UMNO youth leader and Minister for Youth and Sports, Khairy Jamaluddin, why he is afraid of “old men” in politics because Khairy had asked Mahathir, Datuk Seri Anwar and I myself to retire from politics.
While we wait for Khairy’s reply, just as I am waiting for Khairy to elucidate the mysterious reason he had given asking for my retirement from politics, Khairy should explain why he is being overshadowed not only by “old men” in Pakatan Harapan, but also by “old men” in UMNO!
Khairy, who may regard himself as the greatest gift to Malaysians, has failed to stand heads-and-shoulders over the “half-past six” and “deadwood” Ministers in the Najib Cabinet which he joined in 2013 – an eloquent but sad testimony of the mediocrity of an Oxonian.
The mission to craft the country’s new vision in TN 50 (Transformation Nasional 2050) should have provided Khairy with a final opportunity to show his intellectual and political prowess and talents against the rest of the maddening Cabinet crowd, but Khairy again blotted his copybook as he had been infected by the same disease which afflict all the other Cabinet Ministers – the lack of courage to stand up on principles most notably over the unprecedented and colossal international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal.
Khairy must have known about the case of the former Singapore banker, Yeo Jiawei, who was sentenced to 54 months in jail in Singapore during the early part of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.
Did he quote Jiawei’s conviction and case to ask the Cabinet at the meeting yesterday to stop pretending that the 1MDB scandal does not exist.
This was all the more pertinent as the prosecutors in Singapore said that 1MDB was the “main victim” of the financial scam by the Penang billionaire Jho Low, described as the “central figure” in probes linked to the 1MDB in at least ten countries, focused on possible embezzlement or money-laundering.
Yeo was last December handed a 30-month term on charges of trying to tamper with witnesses into Singapore’s 1MDB money-laundering investigation, which Singapore prosecutors described as the largest in the country’s history.
As whizz-kid of Malaysian politics, Khairy who had once boasted of wanting to be Prime Minister before he is 40 years, should have “belled the cat” to ask in Cabinet yesterday whether it is true that 1MDB was the “main victim” of Jho Low’s financial scam, and if so, why the Malaysian authorities had been singularly kind to Jho Low?
Former Deputy Prime Minister and now Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia president, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has said that as UMNO Youth leader, Khairy should take a braver stand, in particular over the 1MDB scandal.
Muhyiddin is disappointed with Khairy as Muhyiddin had high hopes in Khairy when he was still in UMNO.
When will Khairy respond to Tunku Makhota Johore, Tunku Ismail Ibrahim, Mahathir and Muhyiddin?