Although the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has accused Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad as the No. 1 actor, who should get an Oscar for his acting, there is no doubt that Najib has no equal as the best actor in the Malaysian political arena.
Najib has three acting roles in the 14th General Election:
Firstly, pretending that the international multi-billion-dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal which had given Malaysia the infamy of a global kleptocracy does not exist, that Malaysia had not lost a single sen from 1MDB scandal, and that there is good governance and full public accountability in Malaysia.
This requires acting of the first order, for the whole world knows that 1MDB is the world’s “worst kleptocracy” to use the words of the United States Attorney-General, some 10 countries are investigating the 1MDB money-laundering scandal with several of them closing down financial institutions involved in the money-laundering scandal including several former bankers found guilty of money-laundering crimes and some serving prison time; and there is the evidence of the ill-gotten gains of 1MDB money-laundering gains like the billion-ringgit Equanimity luxury superyacht impounded in Indonesia in February and the RM144 million pink diamond necklace bought for the wife of “MO1”.
Najib even claimed that the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had cleared him of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal but he dared not accept my challenge to a public encounter to quote chapter and verse to prove that the PAC report had indeed cleared him of wrongdoing – as what Najib claimed was a pure lie.
Najib planned for 1MDB CEO Arul Kandasamy to go on a national roadshow before the 14GE to explain the 1MDB scandal, but Arul has such absence of credibility that nobody believes his fairy tales about the 1MDB scandal, as Najib himself dare not accept full accountability for the biggest kleptocratic scandal in the world
Secondly, acting and pretending that the 14th General Election is fair, honest and clean, when it is held under the most unfair and undemocratic circumstances, with the worst gerrymandering of electoral constituencies, which will plunge Malaysia’s already very low ranking in the Electoral Integrity index further downwards, to the extent that the international media has reported about the “theft” of the 14GE in Malaysia – confirmed by the unfair and undemocratic disqualification of one parliamentary and five state assembly candidates from Pakatan Harapan on Nomination day.
Thirdly, pretending that he is a popular Prime Minister, when he is in fact the most unpopular Prime Minister in the nation’s 61-year history, to the extent that the MCA is putting up election billboards displaying the image of China President Xi Jinping and not that of the Malaysian Prime Minister.
Who then is the greater actor – Najib or Mahathir?
(Media Statement in Mentakab on Tuesday, 1st May 2018)