So is Muhyiddin with the conspirators after all or not?

What I’m driving at is this; is there something Muhyiddin has kept secret from the people, something that had to do with YTL Communications and the award of a project that was once slated to cost Malaysian taxpayers some USD 300 million?

The Third Force

Readers are referred to www.malaysia-today.net/dr-mahathir-and-daim-zainuddin-are-confederates-of-the-fifth-column/, which serves as a prelude to the following:

Villains who twirl moustaches are easy to spot. So it seems. But at times I wonder if UMNO is deliberately turning a blind eye to their misdemeanours for tactical and substantive reasons. And it took a former deputy premier to drive this point through as the nation stood still over what may well have been ‘the day Najib shot his deputy’.

It was the 9th of September 2015, and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin proved to Malaysians that he was as indomitable as the pyramids of Giza. The party had just concluded its supreme council meeting when Muhyiddin walked right out of it the same way he walked into it; a deputy president. It was a meeting that stunned the opposition into immobility. It was a sitting that jolted Mahathirists violently out of the land of make-believe.

Let’s be frank; it was the mother of all anticlimaxes in UMNO’s 27 year history (discounting UMNO lama, of course). Ever since his sacking from government on the 30th of July 2015, the public was imbued with rumours of a conspiracy to blow Muhyiddin’s political career to bits. And the supreme council was whispered to be the whip that would lash him right out of character and into oblivion for acts of treason against government (refer link above and www.malaysia-today.net/the-torture-of-raja-petra-kamarudin/).

The rumour was, of course, whispered to UMNO politicians and the media by Muhyiddin himself and certain other persons from the Mahathirist camp. It was a measure of contrivance by the embattled statesman to convince all and sundry that Najib was power crazed and hell bent on destroying his detractors. It was also a ploy by Muhyiddin to impress upon Mahathir that he had what it took to wage vengeance against the Prime Minister despite the odds. Well, that’s how the story goes. 

But what transpired thereafter was something nobody could have envisaged. Muhyiddin was given ‘assurance’ by the supreme council that he was indeed a ‘team player’ and that there was no reason to sack him from the party. And the fact that the supreme council meeting had turned into an amnesty exercise foiled a no confidence plot Lim Kit Siang was said to have devised with anticipation.

The DAP supremo had apparently ‘wagered’ a king’s ransom on a Muhyiddin ouster simply to stoke a frothy-mouthed frenzy in UMNO. It was part and parcel of a plan to squeeze 35 votes (of no confidence) out of Barisan Nasional (BN) MP’s against the Prime Minister. But what the senior DAP politician failed to anticipate was the ‘vote of confidence’ that was delivered to Muhyiddin by the party’s highest decision making body on the 9th of September 2015.

The delegation of council members appeared drawn towards lenity the minute Muhyiddin waved the white flag and pledged loyalty to the party and its cause, as if in remorse. But it was a pledge fraught with irony and in no uncertain terms, sanctimony. Today, Muhyiddin is once again seen flirting with justice as he wades his way into the conscience of UMNO members over the arrests of Dato’ Seri Khairuddin Abu Hassan and his de facto lawyer, Matthias Chang. 

In a press conference that was held on the 12th of October 2015, Muhyiddin clearly was in the conciliatory with Tun Dr. Mahathir as the two fraternised to bring mayhem to life within government and UMNO. The fallen heroes charted a rendezvous with Najib as they bludgeoned through administrative scruples over arrests Mahathir claimed were “without any legal basis”.

The perfidy notwithstanding, both Muhyiddin and Mahathir seemed grossly misguided into believing that Khairuddin and Matthias were charged under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA), which doesn’t say much for their informants who were either ill-informed or, as I am told, of dubious merit. One source seems to think that the informants had conducted Mahathir up the wrong end of the scale, which tilted either way, registered half-truths.

And a truth of omission, however put, is a whole lie. Mahathir and Muhyiddin, along with four other senior Barisan Nasional (BN) politicians now stand liable to charges of indefensibly broadcasting impropriety charges against Najib and government in a manner that was injurious and stood to obstruct the due course of justice.

The act of publicly broadcasting such charges without proper redress to government or authorities to whom they concern also places them under a shadow of doubt over charges of inflaming partisan emotions among the people. But more importantly, it appears that much of what Muhyiddin spewed during the council meeting was a little more than lip service and a whole lot of claptrap.

But the big question remains; why was Muhyiddin spared the gallows? Were council members not in the know of his liaisons with the Confederates of the Fifth Column, or was there really a hidden motive?

The plot thickens..

The supreme council meeting triggered a perfect storm of confusion that prompted Lim Kit Siang to speak his disgust in very slighting syllables. According to the senior DAP leader, the meeting had failed to address controversies that implicated the Prime Minister of impropriety and fraud.

The outburst was an apparent attempt to convolute perception with retort that was meant to make bad of what appeared to look good. It bothered Kit Siang that UMNO had done just the opposite of what he and many others like him had bargained for. Muhyiddin’s retention not just as party member but as deputy president had evidently quashed perception that Najib was on a rampage to silence his detractors.

And while Kit Siang cackled like a green feathered demon from the vents of hell, several other oppositionists were equally at sixes and sevens over the outcome of the meeting. Both Dato’ Seri Khairuddin Abu Hassan and Tony Pua were well aware that they’d been hit by a challenge that virtually grounded activities of the Confederates of the Fifth Column.

The confederates were left with the arduous task of deciding if Muhyiddin was still their guy. The former cabinet minister found himself relegated to a lame duck deputy president who could do a little more than be a thorn up the Prime Minister’s ass. Kit Siang now realises that Muhyiddin isn’t likely to shore up the kind of support the opposition had hoped he would back when it seemed certain that his days in UMNO were numbered.

But not many are aware that when Muhyiddin arrived at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) on the ‘fateful’ Wednesday, he had pinned his hopes on being sacked from UMNO and declared a martyr by his apologists. It wasn’t until paranoia began creeping up on his spine and rested on his shoulders that he sold the confederates out by conceding knowledge of a plot to topple the Prime Minister by artifice.

In other words, Muhyiddin sold Mahathir out. It is said that the former Education Minister cringed at the thought of being arrested on charges of committing lese majesty against the government. Be that as it may, Muhyiddin more or less confessed to the council that he was not just a detractor, but a turncoat party member who was determined to deny the ruling coalition a home run come the 14th general elections. This, of course, brings to question the motives for not sacking Muhyiddin from the party. But I’ll address that question soon enough.

As I’ve said, it appears that things have taken a conciliatory turn for Muhyiddin and Mahathir. Back when the council met, Muhyiddin repudiated claims of there being links between him and the confederates before pledging loyalty to the party and its cause.

However, his seemingly disarming candour became suspect the minute he was seen ingratiating himself with Mahathir during a press conference we can now safely dub as ‘the mother of all duds’. Not only did it put to question his commitment to the party and its cause, it evidently raised questions of his links with a confederacy of saboteurs he flatly denied collusions with.

Is there more to Muhyiddin than meets the eye? Specifically, is he all that qualified to seek answers from government over 1MDB or its attendant problems?

What I’m driving at is this; is there something Muhyiddin has kept secret from the people, something that had to do with YTL Communications and the award of a project that was once slated to cost Malaysian taxpayers some USD 300 million?

Stay tuned to find out.

To be continued…