Najib has to do what Mahathir would do to those disloyal to him

And that is what Mukhriz the son of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is — a dead man walking. His days are numbered. So Sarawak Report was wrong when it said that Najib is on the way out and that he is now negotiating his exit plan with Dr Mahathir. It is Mukhriz who is on the way out and Najib is not negotiating the former’s exit plan with Dr Mahathir.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

There was a bit of a political crisis in the UK two weeks ago soon after the end of the Christmas-New Year holidays. This crisis involved the Labour Party. And this was what The Telegraph had to say about the matter:

“Three shadow ministers have resigned in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘vindictive’ purge of moderate MPs from his front-bench amid accusations that the Labour leader’s aides had lied about the reshuffle.”

The three who resigned were Stephen Doughty, Jonathan Reynolds and Kevan Jones and they resigned out of protest over what they alleged was Corbyn’s ‘revenge reshuffle’.

The issue was actually very simple that it borders on triviality. It all started when Pat McFadden was sacked as Shadow Europe Minister for criticising Corbyn’s suggestion that military intervention by the West was partly responsible for the Paris terror attacks.

In short, Corbyn was opposed to the West attacking and bombing the Middle East and his own Shadow Europe Minister took the opposing stand. And because of this insubordination and disloyalty he was removed. And those who did not agree with his removal resigned in protest.

So there you are. Corbyn said that the West ‘creates’ terrorists by bombing their homeland. His own Minister-in-charge of Europe disagreed. And for that Corbyn sacked his Minister. Such a simple matter but with far-reaching and drastic repercussions attached to it.

What Muhyiddin Yassin, Shafie Apdal and Mukhriz Mahathir did was worse than that by far. They did not just disagree with Prime Minister Naib’s Tun Razak’s statement about whether the West should or should not bomb women, children, schools, hospitals, mosques, etc., in the Middle East. What they tried to do was to launch a coup.

Muhyiddin and Shafie have paid for their transgression. So why should Mukhriz not also pay for his? After all, his father just announced that he is not going to stop attacking the Prime Minister until he is brought down.

Some say the son should not pay for the sins of the father. True. Tun Hussein Onn did not have to pay for the sins of his father. But then he did not support what his father said and did. He did not join his father in Parti Negara to try to bring down Umno and the Prime Minister. So Hussein went on to become the third Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Mukhriz, however, is not a Hussein. He joined his father, Muhyiddin and Shafie to attack Najib. So he, of course, has to pay for it.

Anyway, the issue here is not just about him showing insubordination and disloyalty to his own party President cum Prime Minister. The issue is also performance related. Many promises were made in the run-up to the 2013 general election. But the promises are not being delivered.

It is really not strange or the first time that a Menteri Besar has met with a vote of no confidence from his own party. I was told it is not just his own party that is unhappy with him but that the Palace has indicated its displeasure as well. And that makes it a double-whammy when both your own party and the Palace are not happy with you.

I can’t remember of any state with Rulers that has not seen some sort of problems between the Palace and the Menteri Besar some time in history. Some states have even seen this more than once, three times even.

Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Perak, Perlis — and that makes eight — all have seen problems between the Palace and the Menteri Besar. And now if we include Kedah that makes all nine states with Rulers that at one time or another have had problems between the Rulers and the Menteri Besar.

But then officially the Rulers are not supposed to be involved in politics or interfere in the ‘system’. But that does not stop Their Highnesses from whispering into the Prime Minister’s ear regarding their displeasure. And normally the Prime Minister would take into consideration Their Highnesses displeasure and try to address the matter.

So there you are. Be very careful about how you Republicans whack the Monarchy. We have more power than what you think. You people can scream, shout and demonstrate on the streets and still nothing happens. All we need to do is to whisper into certain ears and you are a dead man walking.

And that is what Mukhriz the son of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is — a dead man walking. His days are numbered. So Sarawak Report was wrong when it said that Najib is on the way out and that he is now negotiating his exit plan with Dr Mahathir. It is Mukhriz who is on the way out and Najib is not negotiating the former’s exit plan with Dr Mahathir.