I am in Sandakan to attend the dinner organised by Sandakan DAP to celebrate the historic victory of DAP, Pakatan Harapan and Warisan in the Sandakan by-election on May 11, 2019.

While waiting at KLIA to board the aircraft for Sandakan, I was taken aback to read the Malaysiakini report about the former Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s speech at a breaking fast event at a surau in Bangi, entitled: “18 missed calls – Zahid recounts fateful night ‘Bossku’ made him DPM”.

The report said Zahid lamented that he could not spend “Lailatulqadar” in Mecca as was his tradition, revealing that when he was in the holy city for the occasion in 2015, it also marked his appointment as deputy prime minister.

Zahid said:

“In 2015, when I was doing my umrah pilgrimage during the last 10 days of Ramadan, on the 25th night, I received 18 missed calls.

“I said I can’t because we need to wait until the 27th day of Ramadan. It turned out he had appointed me as deputy prime minister.”

Zahid’s account of the “Week of the Long Knives” at the end of July 2015 was both shocking and revealing.

Shocking because it was apparent that former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had not informed his former No. 2 not to admit that “Bossku” was none other than Najib and that Zahid had stopped paying attention to Najib’s tall tales including his recent denial that he was “Bossku”.

Najib had claimed that “Bossku” was the people and not him and that “Malu Apa Bossku” was “ less of a campaign, but more of an organic youth movement”, saying:

“They (the youth) came up with the catchphrase, they made their own T-shirt designs and graphics. It is something which comes from their hearts.”

Quite a highly-funded “organic youth movement” indeed which could not be separated by the 1MDB mega scandal!

Revealing, as Malaysian kleptocracy would have been stopped in its tracks three years ago if Zahid had refused to be a DPM under a kleptocrat, and Malaysia would have been saved from the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being condemned by the world as a global kleptocracy if Zahid and others had demanded full accountability from Najib in the Week of Long Knives in July 2015.

In the weekend before the “Week of the Long Knives” at the end of July 2015, the Federal capital was awash with rumours that the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, with the full support of the Chief Commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner, Tan Sri Abu Kassim Mohamad were ready to arrest Najib and prosecute him on corruption charges.

But this did not happen. Instead there was the “Week of the Long Knives” with Najib staging a coup d’tat against the Malaysian Constitution on the rule of law, the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence, impartiality and professionalism of national institutions.

Muhyiddin was sacked as Deputy Prime Minister, Shafie Apbdal sacked as Minister for Rural and Regional Development, Gani Patail sacked as Attorney-General and major national institutions compromised and neutered of their independence, impartiality and professionalism.

This was the period when the present Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Hamid Bador was summarily removed as deputy head of the Special Branch and transferred to the Prime Minister’s Department as part of a major clampdown on the 1MDB scandal.

The country started on a Dark Age from the last week of July which last nearly three years until the great and historic decisions of the Malaysian voters on May 9, 2018 to end Najib’s shameful global kleptocracy.

If Najib had won the 14th General Election, Malaysia would have undergone an extended period of the Dark Age, and we would have notched another world record of being the country which failed the most in being unable to live up to our potentials for development and mortgaging future generations of Malaysians.

The “Week of Long Knives” is an episode for patriotic Malaysians to express regret and not one to gloat about, as Zahid is doing, associating it with his appointment as Deputy Prime Minister.

The quality of Zahid’s politics could be gleaned from the lies and mischief which he is spouting, as when he alleged that the “minority controls the majority”, which is his shorthand of inciting racial and religious tensions and hatred implying that the Chinese are controlling the Malays.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Sandakan on Sunday, May 26, 2019)