Today is the day I feel most ashamed as a Malaysian – to find a Malaysian listed internationally among the world’s top kleptocrats who may even be the world’s No. 1 Kleptocrat!

After viewing again the documentary “The Kleptocrats” which tells “the wild story of the world’s biggest white-collar heist” which followed reporters and law enforcement agents as they track “an audacious scam – one that involves embezzlement, corruption, film stars, politicians and crooks”, I browsed the Internet on sites on kleptocracy and corruption.

As Nazir Razak recounted in the documentary ”The Kleptocrats” that he fell off the chair one morning in July 2015 when he was holidaying and having breakfast in a Los Angeles hotel and picked up a copy of Wall Street Journal which exposed the RM2.6 billion deposit in Najib Razak’s personal banking accounts, I almost fell off the chair when I read the Wikipedia page on “kleptocracy”, where Najib was listed among the world’s 11 top kleptocrats, and may even be the world’s No. 1 Kleptocrat when all the facts and truth about the 1MDB scandal and all the other scandals in his regime are revealed.

According to Wikipedia, which is used by netizens worldwide, Najb is in the company of the 10 leading kleptocrats of the last three decades compiled by Transparency International in 2004, viz: former Indonesian President Suharto, former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, Former Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko, Former Nigerian head of state Sani Abacha, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Former Haitian President, Jean-Claude Duvalier, former Ukranian Prime Minister Paylo Lazarenko, former Nicaraguan President Arnold Aleman and former Philippines President Joseph Estrada.

The pertinent question is apart from my feeling most ashamed today as a Malaysian to find that a Malaysian is among the world’s top kleptocrats in the past three decades, and may even by the No. 1 kleptocrat when all the facts about the 1MDB scandal and other scandals are fully known, is this feeling of enormous shame similarly felt by all patriotic Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region?

Will all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, unite on a common platform to redeem Malaysia’s honour, dignity, reputation and good name after being sullied and dishonoured worldwide for having been a global kleptocracy for close to a decade?

Or should Malaysians take the stand that a kleptocrat should be supported so long as he belongs to the same religion with the defiance of Malu Apa Bossku?

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah on Thursday, 3rd October 2019)