Why Was The 1MDB Issue Blown So Big?

The opposition spent the whole year harping on an issue, and they failed to do anything positive from their end. In summary of their achievements in 2015, they can only say they exposed this and that.

Raghavan Nair

Year 2015 will be remembered largely for the alleged financial scandal of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). The Opposition linked everything to 1MDB in their failed attempts to oust Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Why did Pakatan only speak about 1MDB?

A  survey was conducted in March this year among registered voters by independent pollster Merdeka Center. The survey showed that 69% of Malaysians were uninformed on controversies surrounding 1MDB. Since publication on those results, the opposition bore the responsibility of spreading the 1MDB story at all costs. Merdeka Center concluded that majority of voters who are low-income earners lacked awareness of 1MDB. Malay voters living in the outskirts without internet access and those earning below RM 3000 monthly were least informed about the 1MDB scandal. Only one in three respondents said they were affected by the 1MDB issue. They were mainly from the upper income households, ethnic Chinese voters, and those from the private sector.

When things looked very shady for the PM, Najib requested time till end of the year to resolve the 1MDB crisis. The six months is almost up. Has the 1MDB crisis been solved? Bloomberg certainly feels so in their latest article title “Oil Slump Now Biggest Risk For Malaysia Debt as 1MDB Mess Fixed.” Critics have condemned the sale of assets in Malaysia to foreign firms. However, when national companies previously bought the assets, the same critics alleged that local firms were bailing 1MDB’s debts. Nothing 1MDB could do was right. Nevertheless, the highlight now is the mess is more or less fixed.

The opposition spent the whole year harping on an issue, and they failed to do anything positive from their end. In summary of their achievements in 2015, they can only say they exposed this and that. They have nothing much to be proud of with regards to initiatives completed. 2015 also marked the end of Pakatan Rakyat and formation of a new coalition that is filled with infighting and internal scuffles. 2015 will be remembered as the year where it was proven that the Anwar family shares close ties with the Sulu Sultanade. It is also the year where Bersih played into a trap by the government to isolate the Chinese from Malays. 2015 could possibly be the year Najib caused a split in the opposition and won GE14. Twenty-fifteen evidenced the shredding of Dr. Mahathir’s reputation as well.

Pakatan has wooed voters who are already in their favour. I do not think they have gained any grounds on the BN vote bank. If anything, the resurgent MIC have won back some amount of Indian votes due to Pakatan’s ignorance to plights of the Indian community. What started as an earth-shuttering year for Najib has ended with him on top.