The MACC is Playing Pucks with the Rakyat (Part 1)

Rohaizad seems to be plastering up the murders with patchwork rhetoric and a lot of froth and foam. He’s only interested to tell you what he thinks you ought to know, which basically, is nothing.

The Third Force

When Dato’ Rohaizad Yaakob of the Malaysian Anti Corruption Agency (MACC) came out last Saturday to rubbish claims of subversion against the Prime Minister, he spoke in syllables that meant only one thing; he was pretending. He pretended not to know that the MACC was on a partisan witch hunt to run the gamut of negative perception and conspiracy against Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Razak.

“The MACC is said to be complicit with foreigners and several politicians from Barisan Nasional and the Malaysian Opposition to subvert government and destroy UMNO”

As a matter of fact, it is highly likely that Rohaizad will pretend never to have read this article. But I think that pretending is just part of the problem. The bigger problem here might be the agency’s propensity to spin yarns just to keep under the hat conspiracies and crimes it has ceremoniously denied involvement in. And if they’re getting away with it, then we have a national crisis on our hands.

And it’s a crisis, no matter what anyone says. Today, we may be left with a branch of enforcement that is out of check and hence, balances.  The MACC doesn’t take lightly to being brought to task by any one authority it doesn’t share a page in history with. But it is winning the war on perception, driving people to believe that any attempt at keeping the agency in check is tantamount to an act of subversion by the government against democracy.

Nothing but a bully

Of late, people have been labouring against the government under the delusion that the MACC has its tack on a conspiracy involving the Prime Minister. After all, it is the highest executive authority we’re talking about. People believe that if the MACC were bold enough to fly in the face of the Prime Minister, then, it is most certainly worth its salt. And as long as the graft-busting watchdog fuels this delusion, it may literally be getting away with murder.  

In an article that surfaced on the 30th of October 2015, Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) touched on a multitude of conspiracies and backstage spice the MACC was said to be embroiled in. For RPK, old battles are not to be laid to rest easily, particularly when these battles involve crimes of perception by a party complicit with felony.  

But the scene was becoming familiar. Rohaizad seemed drawn into one issue and one issue only – subversion. It was among the many RPK had touched on, ones Rohaizad took no notice of. These days, the MACC appears to feign ignorance of anything it deems paltry, even if the matter bears import repercussions to the system of checks and balances built into the Federal Constitution.

So basically, the MACC is threading the needle between “we hear what we want to hear” and “we’re here to tell you what we think you should hear.” And it didn’t seem to bother Rohaizad one least bit what people thought of the agency. As a matter of fact, Rohaizad may well have been telling RPK to stick his oars elsewhere and not into the agency’s affairs, because he feels that the agency knows how to go about its business.

And that’s where the problem begins.

The MACC makes no concessions in telling your story to the rest of the world, even if it were at the slightest whisper of conspiracy. But it does not want you to tell its story to the world.  Rohaizad scored a hat trick on that point on the 31st of October 2015 when he averted attention towards a controversy that was virtually on everyone’s lips.

It had to do with RM 2.6 billion the Prime Minister was said to have funnelled into his personal account from 1MDB through a well connected company. Rohaizad more or less told everyone that the agency was hot on the trail of conspiracy. But he chose to remain silent on two other issues; the murder of Teoh Beng Hock and that of Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed.

“The murders of Teoh Beng Hock and Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed were never explained satisfactorily by the MACC. No officer has ever been made respondent to any charge on either death.  And neither did any detail by the agency pertaining to the murders make any sense.”

These were deaths in custody, meaning, the persons in question were being detained by authorities (in these cases, the MACC) at the times of their deaths. The opposition charged the MACC with conspiracy to dismiss the murders as flukes of circumstance. And they were right; the MACC did engage in botched attempts to conceal the deaths with blockbuster works of fiction that almost got their blocks busted. On the 29th of June 2015, Kit Siang himself implied conspiracy in a narrative that read like a cranky old man’s grump.

“Next month is the sixth death anniversary of innocent DAP aide, Teoh Beng Hock, who lost his life in the very sanctum of MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on the 16th of July 2009, and up to now, no MACC officer has yet been penalised for Teoh’s death.”

Indeed, it was nothing but a cranky old man’s grump. Today, the MACC is seen rubbing shoulders with Kit Siang and his satellite of minions (Nurul Izzah Anwar, Datin Sri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Haji Mohamad Sabu) who appear to be ‘forgiving’ only when forgiving is expedient. This is not to mention Malaysiakini (which incidentally, is funded by the Soros Foundation), The Malaysian Insider and Malaysia Chronicles (run by Tian Chua), portals that are now said to be the agency’s mouthpieces.

All said and done, Kit Siang was right. No officer has ever been made respondent to any charge on either death.  And neither did any detail by the agency pertaining to the murders make any sense. Yet, Rohaizad seems to be plastering up the murders with patchwork rhetoric and a lot of froth and foam. He’s only interested to tell you what he thinks you ought to know, which basically, is nothing.  

“Lim Kit Siang and his satellite of minions would sell you down the river with as little scruple as the devil. Today, they are braided in a confederacy with the MACC to topple the Prime Minister and destroy UMNO. The crocodile tears they once shed for Teoh Beng Hock and Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed seem to have dried off completely”

And there you have it. Rohaizad stretched the mile to the notion that the MACC was nothing but an agency tendentiously bound to be a bully. His knee-jerk response to RPK framed the agency’s duplicity for display, such that Malaysia Today was able to see into the inner recesses of its construct. But none of that matters to Rohaizad. At the moment, the MACC is enjoying a spike in its approval ratings, something Rohaizad and his superiors intend to sustain by whatever means necessary.

Rohaizad is a confidence trickster

The very fact that Rohaizad took to RPK’s bait like a trout in frenzy over a mayfly tells us that something is amiss.  The Communications Director went the extra mile just to deny claims that the MACC was out to topple the Prime Minister by artifice.

But the RM 2.6 billion controversy may really be something the MACC wants to draw your attention to. There are several reasons to opine that the agency may be gaining sympathy votes simply by harnessing the negative publicity its detractors have built around it.

For one, quarters that are charging the MACC of warped persecutions may inadvertently be fuelling partisan attitudes against government. People are now accusing Najib of playing cat and mouse with the anti-graft agency to deter it from pursuing with investigations.

But this is to the agency’s advantage; Rohaizad and his superiors are all too aware that the public wants answers over the alleged siphoning of 1MDB funds into Najib’s personal account. It is precisely for this reason that Rohaizad is telling you that the agency isn’t out to get the Prime Minister.

“Stop pretending, Rohaizad, and give the public the answers it deserves. Proper answers!!!”

The Communications Director believes that by telling you this, he’ll score another hat trick on the approval ratings. And the way to do this is to give you the impression that the government was out to cripple the agency on account of its investigations into 1MDB.

Put differently, Rohaizad told all of us to “just fook off.”

To be continued…