The failure of the UMNO General Assembly on Sunday to adopt a resolution to condemn and sack Datuk Seri Najib Razak from UMNO for the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal is proof that UMNO and UMNO leaders continue to be complicit in the monstrous 1MDB scandal.

The 1MDB scandal will continue to be an albatross round the neck of UMNO and UMNO leaders.

Malaysians must thank Wanita Umno delegate from Batu Pahat, Masurana Samian, who wore a “MACC lock-up” orange-coloured T-shirt to the UMNO General Assembly on Sunday, as henceforth, UMNO and UMNO leaders are literally garbed in the orange-coloured MACC uniform!

But it is not only UMNO and UMNO leaders who must repent and make amends, all political parties, individuals and organisations complicit in the 1MDB scandal, like all the Barisan Nasional parties including MCA, Gerakan, MIC, the Sabah and Sarawak BN parties, as well as PAS, the Parliament Speaker and the printed and electronic media, who had been complicit in the 1MDB scandal, must repent and redeem themselves for directly or indirectly aiding and abetting Najib Razak in the monstrous 1MDB scandal.

At the UMNO General Assembly, the Speaker of the 13th Parliament, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia urged UMNO to take action against party rebels who will weaken the party.

I thought Pankdar’s main concern should be how to repent for his 1MDB misdeeds.

In being complicit with Najib in the 1MDB scandal, suppressing the 1MDB issue in the 13th Parliament whether during question time or parliamentary debates, the most honourable thing for Pandikar to do is to repent and make amends for aiding and abetting the former Prime Minister in the 1MDB scandal instead of demanding action against UMNO rebels!

All the other BN parties, whether MCA, Gerakan, MIC, the Sabah and Sarawak BN parties are also complicit in the 1MDB scandal, landing the country in the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of a global kleptocarcy.

Instead of dragging its feet, despite being told by UMMO Secretary-General to “buy their own tombstones”, the November MCA General Assembly should make a clean break with the 1MDB scandal, adopt a resolution to condemn Najib and the 1MDB scandal and disallow all former MCA leaders who had been Ministers, Deputy Ministers and MPs from standing for election for any party posts.

PAS was quite ambivalent about the 1MDB scandal, and though formally opposed to any corruption and money-laundering ala-1MDB, it was not strenuous at all in opposing the 1MDB scandal, as evident from the preparedness of PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang to be “kingmaker” to make Najib as Prime Minister again if there was a hung Parliament on May 9, 2018 with PAS holding the balance of 40 parliamentary seats.

But it is the media people, especially in the printed and electronic, who should search their conscience as to why they had been complicit with Najib’s 1MDB scandal and why they failed as the “fourth estate” to promote democracy instead of aiding and abetting Najib in the crime and corruption of the 1MDB scandal.

In Penang, the former Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng was blacklisted by certain Chinese Press because three media association received money from the 1Malayia-Penang Welfare Club in 2013 to aid and abet Najib in the 1MDB scandal.

The shenanigans and the scandal of 1MDB should have been exposed by Malaysians journalists and not by foreigners, whether Clare Rewcastle Brown of Sarawak Report or Wall Street Journal reporters Tom Wright and Bradley Hope.

Chapter 17 of Clare Rewcastle Brown’s “The Sarawak Report – The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose” tells of how, at that time, the editor-in-chief of a national daily owned by one of the BN parties was flown to London so that he could write glittering reports about the 1MDB!

Even now, there are many in high places who continue to maintain that Najib was innocent of any crime and corruption in the 1MDB scandal, and that he was at most, the victim of the 1MDB “wonder crook”, Jho Low.

Clare’s book (p. 198) produced Jho Low’s rare interview with the business magazine Ëuromoney in early 2015, where Jho Low said:

“Guys, it’s very simple, there’s a board, who’s the shareholder? Have you ever seen one statement from anyone that talks about the simple governance of a company? Are you telling me the prime minister doesn’t make his own decisions? That the ministry, the minister of finance, who is the prime minister…just signed without evaluating it? No one seems to ask the question, who is the ultimate decision-maker on 1MDB? No one asks that. No one ever asks about the shareholder’s role.”

Clare also wrote about Jho Low’s “self-pitying outburst”:

“There are so many other people who get away with ridiculous billions and billions worth of projects. But every single time there seems to be a political attack, wow, suddenly Jho is there again.”

In a New Malaysia after May 9, 2019, both Jho Low and the “other people who get away with ridiculous billions and billions worth of projects” must all be brought to justice!

In Page 199 of the book, Clare noted that later Jho Low “went as quiet as a tomb” as if “his silence had been bought with an understanding”.

Only a full investigation into the 1MDB scandal can tell whether Clare was right in her speculation, who paid for Jho Low’s silence and what was the price.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah on Tuesday, 2nd October 2018)