The thunderous silence of former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Ministers, MPs and Barisan Nasional leaders about their complicity in the monstrous global 1MDB scandal from 2015-2018 is not surprising, but their continued silence after May 9, 2018 is most damning, unforgivable and destroy all their credibility to represent the people and nation.

Yesterday, I asked the UMNO Secretary-General Datuk Seri Annuar Musa whether the UMNO President, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi, UMNO Deputy President Datuk Seri Mohamad Hassan as well as the UMNO Supreme Council are going to wear sackcloth to seek the forgiveness of Malaysians for their complicity in the monstrous global 1MDB scandal.

I also asked why all the former Ministers, MPs and BN leaders of the former Najib government had not apologised to the nation in the past 14 months for pretending that there was no 1MDB scandal under the Najib premiership – when the whole world regarded Malaysia under Najib was a global kleptocracy because of 1MDB scandal?

I am not surprised by their continued silence, which is not only cowardly, craven but even more serious, an act of treachery against the nation.

There are those with political axes to grind who are trying to influence public opinion by putting forth the argument that with the change of government in the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018, we should now forget about the 1MDB scandal so as to allow the courts to decide the guilt or otherwise of Malaysia’s global kleptocrats and focus on what the Pakatan Harapan government can do to fulfil its election pledge of a New Malaysia.

They cannot be more wrong. Malaysians can only forget about the monstrous global 1MDB scandal at their own risk.

Malaysians should not forget about the catastrophe of the monstrous global 1MDB scandal and other rampant corruption of the previous administration, for it is going to take years and even decades to fully undo all the damages of the 1MDB scandal.

Malaysia cannot overnight achieve the New Malaysia goal of a world top-class nation because of the ravages and the mindsets spawned by the 1MDB scandal.

The historic decision of the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018 saved future generations from having the pay the price for the monstrous global 1MDB scandal and the rampant corruption of the previous administration.

But the present generation of Malaysians must pay the price for draining the country of the swamp of the monstrous global 1MDB scandal and rampant corruption of the past.

At least we have saved future generations of Malaysians from having to suffer the present fate of Venezuelans.

Venezuela is in the thick of a terrible political, socio-economic and humanitarian crisis. Once one of the 20 richest countries in the world and the richest in Latin America with free education and free medical services for her citizens, it is now poor, backward, broken and bankrupt state, with over 10 per cent of Venezuelans (3.4 million) having left the country in despair.

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has affected the life of the average Venezuelan on all levels. By 2017, hunger had escalated to the point where almost seventy-five percent of the population had lost an average of over 8 kg (over 19 lbs) in weight, and more than half did not have enough income to meet their basic food needs.

An United Nations report estimated in March 2019 that 94% of Venezuelans live in poverty and that twenty-five percent of Venezuelans need some form of humanitarian assistance. Venezuela led the world in murder rates, with 81.4 per 100,000 people killed in 2018, making it the third most violent country in the world.

We must never forget the monstrous global 1MDB scandal and the rampant corruption of the past, but must for ever remember the catastrophe we had miraculously escaped with the historic decision of the 14th General
Election as a constant reminder that we have no time to lose to reset nation-building policies in accordance with the Malaysian Constitution and the Rukunegara principles to build a New Malaysia where we can take our place in the international community as a top world-class nation.

Najib’s Ministers, MPs and Barisan Nasional leaders had many opportunities to establish their credibility and even patriotism to the country in the past by stopping the 1MDB scandal but they failed to do so.

Why were they silent when the international media started to publish details of the monstrous global 1MDB scandal?

Why did they remain silent in the Week of Long Knives in July 2015, when the then Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, Deputy Prime Minsiter-cum-Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, and Minister for Regional and Rural Development Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal were summarily sacked, and the major institutions such as the Police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and Bank Negara castrated and lost their institutional independence and professionalism?

The final blow to their credibility and patriotism was delivered in June 2016 when they continued in their complicity with Najib in the 1MDB scandal despite the largest kleptocratic forfeiture litigation of the United States Department of Justice in what the US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions had described as “kleptocracy at its worst” 1MDB scandal.

There is no way Najib’s Ministers, MPs and Barisan Nasional leaders could cleanse themselves of their complicity in the 1MDB scandal and the rampant corruption of the Najib administration.

But they could have mitigated their complicity in the crime of 1MDB kleptocracy and the betrayal of national interests by apologising for their past 1MDB complicity in the past 14 months, which they had not done.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Parliament on Tuesday, 9th July 2019)