‘Opposition’ now in tatters

By MT Webmaster Last updated Dec 15, 2015

So where do they go from here? Do they abandon the 1MDB and RM2.6 billion issues and go back to Rosmah and Altantuya? A more pertinent question would be: will Dr Mahathir now abandon Muhyiddin and go solo? It looks like in spite of all the bravado talk Muhyiddin has thrown in the towel and last night he walked away from facing Najib in the briefing session that was held to answer all his questions.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The ‘opposition’ is now in tatters, not Pakatan Harapan, although it is also in tatters, but the Team B in Umno led by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad with Muhyiddin Yassin as his sidekick. Now that the Plans A, B, C, D, E, F, etc., have all failed, the blame-game has started.

It was a yearlong campaign that started in December last year and was supposed to see fruition within six months. But six months later, after enduring attack after attack, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak counter-attacked and demolished the entire conspiracy — a move that sent shock waves throughout the country.

Najib was called chicken, gutless, takde telur, and much more. The joke that was going around was that the Mamak shops now offer Roti Telur and Roti Najib — Roti Najib, of course, meaning roti without telur. Then Najib demonstrated that he not only had telur but had telur made of steel on top of that.

They ridiculed the Prime Minister and said what kind of Bugis warrior is this who dares not face his adversaries? Why keep quiet? Why remain silent? Why does this Bugis warrior not dare come out and fight?

So come out and fight he did. In one swoop he got rid of all those duri dalam daging. He arrested four of Dr Mahathir’s Gurkhas. He sacked the Deputy Prime Minister who is the party Deputy President, a Minister who is a party Vice President, and he sent a few others into early retirement plus transferred some into cold storage.

Now they no longer say he is Roti Najib. Instead they say he is draconian, undemocratic, a dictator, and so on. They cannot decide whether they want him to remain silent or to come out fighting. And when he comes out fighting, the way Dr Mahathir would have done if anyone crosses him, they cannot take the heat.

As they say, if you cannot take the heat then stay out of the kitchen. After all, as Billy Joel would say, “We didn’t start the fire.” They started the fire and they complain about the heat. Don’t start a fight if you cannot stand the punches. It is as simple as that.

The belief was that Najib is not a fighter. He never had to fight for anything in his life. Everything he has was handed to him on a silver platter. Najib, just like Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah), would rather run away than fight. So all you need to do is to put some pressure on him and, just like Pak Lah, he would resign from office.

But Najib did not run away. He did not resign from office. He fought back and he fought more brutally against those who were attacking him and were trying to bring him down. And that was something his adversaries had not anticipated. So they were caught off guard and unprepared. And the six months became one year and it does not look like Najib is about to leave office with his tail between his legs after all, as they had planned and hoped.

So the conspiracy failed. And now they need to look for a scapegoat to pin the blame on. And Dr Mahathir’s camp is blaming Muhyiddin for the failure while Muhyiddin’s camp is blaming Dr Mahathir. Both won’t accept the fact that maybe it is the fault of both camps.

Dr Mahathir wanted to focus on Rosmah Mansor and the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder. This, Dr Mahathir felt, would be a better issue to use against Najib. And he was hoping that the police officer fugitive in Australia would be able to offer the means to do that.

Muhyiddin, however, wanted to use 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion issues. He felt that these matters are too complicated for people to understand and if they can raise the issue of abuse of power and corruption then surely Najib would fall.

Syed Akbar Ali had prepared the points to use against Najib. Basically, RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money had disappeared into thin air and RM2.6 billion of that RM42 billion had been transferred into Najib’s personal bank account.

The plan was presented to Dr Mahathir and he agreed to shift the focus from Rosmah and Altantuya to 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion. But what Dr Mahathir was told was not entirely true. The real story was something else altogether. But it was too late to back down because the shots had already been fired.

Muhyiddin then admitted that he does not really understand the real story after all. What he knows about the matter is what he read in the news portals. And what was reported is a far departure from the truth. So they had to continue with the plan and instead of making allegations it was changed to asking questions. And they demanded that Najib reply to these questions or else the allegations must be true.

Last night a briefing was held for the 191 Umno divisions at the Umno headquarters in the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC). And all the questions that Team B had been asking over the last one year were replied at this briefing. Muhyiddin, however, did not attend the briefing although he is the party Deputy President and was in the building at that time.

And this upset Dr Mahathir because just the night before they had raised all these questions at the Kelab Sultan Sulaiman in Kampung Baru. So Muhyiddin should have attended the briefing. Now that he did not, he cannot continue to raise the same questions that had already been answered last night.

Dr Mahathir felt that Muhyiddin should not have suffered an attack of cold feet and chickened out. The 1MDB and RM2.6 billion issues was his strategy after all. So he should have seen it through till the end by attending the briefing so that at least he can give an appearance that he really did want to know the answers.

Now the impression he is giving is that he is not really interested in the answers after all. He is just raising the questions as a means to attack Najib. He wants the questions to remain unanswered questions. Once the answers are provided, like it was last night, then the issue is dead in the water.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK