What a pity! Datuk Mah Siew Keong should have resigned as Gerakan President over national issues such as protesting the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal and Malaysia becoming a global kleptocracy under Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s premiership instead of over any personal matter.

If Mah had done the former, he would have the sympathy, support and solidarity of all thinking patriotic Malaysians, as he would be doing something which a patriotic Malaysian should have done long ago, but I am not sure he would gain similar public sympathy, support and solidarity in resigning as Gerakan President for a personal matter.

Mah had resigned as Gerakan President with immediate effect when officiating the 43rd Gerakan Negri Sembilan annual assembly this morning, on the ground that he had promised to do so if the party’s performance in the 14GE was worse than its previous showing.

This is the fundamental problem with Gerakan and Barisan Nasional leaders – they cannot see the wood for the trees.

This is all the more so at a time when two books on the 1MDB scandal had hit the bookstores and no Malaysian can claim that the 1MDB scandal is just “fake news” and part of an international plot by diabolical forces to topple Najib from power!

The two books are Clare Rewcastle Brown’s “The Sarawak Report – The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose” and Wall Street Journal’s two award-winning journalists Tom Wright and Bradley Hope’s “Billion Dollar Whale”.

As I said in Teluk Intan yesterday when officiating the opening of the DAP Service Centre of the DAP MP and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Nga Kor Ming and Perak State Assemblyman for Pasir Bedamar Terence Naidu, the more I read the two books, the angrier I became.

I believe that all Malaysian will share my feeling when reading Clare Rewcastle-Brown and Tom Wright/Bradley Hope’s two books on the 1MDB scandal, the more you read and angrier you become, at how tens of billions of Malaysian ringgit and the future of the present and future generations of Malaysians could be so easily and irresponsibly stolen and pawned away!

It is indeed the heist of the rights and interests of future generations of Malaysians!

I thought I had known more than ordinary Malaysians about the criminality and moral turpitude of the 1MDB scandal, but I was completely floored by the scale and scope of the immorality and brazenness of the two protagonists of the 1MDB scandal which transformed Malaysia into a global kleptocracy as revealed by these two books – Najib and Jho Low.

Former US Ambassador to Malaysia, John Mallot, is right – the 1MDB scandal is even worse than what one had thought.

As John Mallot wrote in his recent article on “Billion Dollar Whale”:

“”The authors describe in great and fascinating detail how Jho Low, with Najib’s connivance, was able to steal over US$5 billion from 1MDB – and therefore from the Malaysian people. Jho Low put Malaysia on the map, but for all the wrong reasons.

“”The Najib in this book is incompetent and uncaring and doesn’t care to learn the details – as long as he gets money for his political purposes, and as long as his wife, Rosmah, is happy and gets what she wants. He knew Jho Low was stealing, but he didn’t know how much. As for Rosmah, what mattered most was the millions of dollars worth of Birkin bags and jewellery, funded by money stolen from 1MDB.”

John Mallot rightly pointed out: “The authors talk about Imelda Marcos and the 1,100 pairs of shoes that were found after Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown in the Philippines.

“But even if each pair of shoes was worth US$1,000, that still is only a million dollars. The Malaysian police say that all the ‘loot’ confiscated from the Najib family home and condos added up to US$273 million.”

I said in Teluk Intan yesterday that my conclusion after reading the two books on the 1MDB scandal was “How could the political and government leaders in the Najib government, whether Ministers, Members of Parliament, top government officials or UMNO/MCA/MIC/Gerakan/Barisan Nasional leaders at all levels, from national to state to local, be so blind to the criminality and moral turpitude in the 1MDB scandal committed since 2009”.

Those who claim that the 1MDB is fake news, an elaborate international conspiracy to topple a freely-elected Prime Minister in Malaysia, should just read these two books.

All political and government leaders, whether Ministers, Members of Parliament, top government officials or UMNO/MCA/MIC/Gerakan/Barisan Nasional leaders at all levels, from national to state to local, under Najib’s premiership were guilty of aiding and abetting Najib in the crime and corruption of the 1MDB scandal, and should apologise and repent for their betrayal of the nation and people by their silence and inaction – and the least they should do is to withdraw from public office for they have proved unworthy leaders of the Malaysian people and nation.

Mah’s resignation, without lodging a single protest at the 1MDB scandal and Malaysia’s infamy for being regarded as a global kleptocracy, is a great disservice to Gerakan and himself.

Will there be anybody in the Gerakan leadership who will resign from all public office in repentence and shame in aiding and abetting Najib in the 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal resulting in Malaysia becoming a global kleptocracy?

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah on Sunday, 16 September 2018)