Lim Guan Eng’s fate rests with Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz – believe it or not
The Third Force
Fractured ex-premier Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad is good at manipulating people – he gets them to do his dirty work, and by the time they’re done, he is left with a document trail that begins and ends with just one person – his trusted confidante. It’s a viscous cycle, and at the tail end of things, he consigns all who conspire with him to his mercy.
Really, there’s nothing especially queer about that plan, other than this – people repeatedly fall for his tricks with absolute confidence that he never loses a fight. But last year, they were forced to dissolve their confidence in shame – Mahathir failed miserably in trying to force Prime Minister (PM) Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak out of office.
It was a free for all – a year long no-holds-barred mudslinging campaign that saw millions being shelled out in world media coverage. Mahathir laid down the law against Najib, arguing that the PM lacked the dictates of conscience required to lead government.
Put differently, the ex-premier claimed that Najib was morally corrupt and criminally liable for having siphoned RM 2.6 billion of 1MDB’s funds into his personal account. That allegation has since been proven wrong, as has another – that RM42 billion of the firm’s fund was dissipated, presumably into thin air.
Braided into that conspiracy were no less than 30 persons, split into five political parties, the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), the Malaysian Anti Corruption Agency (MACC) and the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC). The whole bunch fell for Mahathir’s trap and conspired with him to subvert the government and democracy. Now they find themselves beholden to his patronage to keep them out of jail.
Among those complicit with Mahathir were three key personalities – ex-deputy premier Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, ex-Attorney General (AG) Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, and the current MACC head, Tan Sri Abu Kassim. Of the three, it is the earth beneath Abu Kassim’s feet that seems to be shaking the most.
An article that was carried by Malaysia Today yesterday (refer http://www.malaysia-today.net/how-taman-manggis-may-force-the-macc-into-conspiracy-a-true-story/) ended with me saying that Abu Kassim had his eyes set on Bank Negara (BNM) Governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz. And that’s true – Zeti may prove to be a bigger problem for him than Mahathir, who to him is a set deal – if he says sit, you sit, and if he says stand, you stand. No problem there.
His problem is with an incident that took place in July last year. Weeks, or perhaps months before the incident, Zeti let Gani in on a secret – more than USD1 billion had flowed into the PM’s private account. The billions aside, the BNM governor’s action was a breach of banking laws, which forbade her or BNM officials from leaking classified banking documents or information to persons other than those who were authorized to possess them.
As the story goes, both Gani and Zeti were told by Mahathir that their mission was to have Najib charged with criminal malfeasance. The BNM governor then took the unprecedented step of giving Gani the nod to rope the Special Task Force (STF) – comprising the MACC, the AGC, PDRM and BNM – into a discovery exercise to trace the source of funds that had ended in the PM’s account.
The directive was clear – the spotlight needed only to be on the flow of USD681 million from a Singaporean based bank. This eventually led to the allegation by Wall Street journal (WSJ) and Sarawak Report (SR) on the 2nd of July last year that RM2.6 billion had been transferred to the PM’s account. Prior to the editorials, documentary evidence pertaining to the transactions was reconstituted to leave the impression that the sum had been laundered.
In the thick of it all, Zeti is said to have notified Gani that it was she who had authorised the transfer of funds into Najib’s personal account. Further to that, not only did Gani know the source of the funds, he knew that much more had ended in the PM’s account, and that all transactions had sufficient paper trails leading to the same source – the Saudi government.
The bottom line being, money was never laundered – Gani knew, as did Zeti, that the transactions were meant as political donations. But when this became increasingly clear in the weeks after, new allegations began to surface – that the funds had been siphoned from 1MDB.
The long and short of it is this – banking documents that pertained to the PM’s account were forged, though it is uncertain if both Zeti and Gani were directly involved in the reconstitution of what is now classified as evidence. Also, there was never a need for the STF to conduct an investigation into the RM2.6 billion controversy – Gani was well aware that Najib had been advised by none other than Zeti to channel the funds into his personal account. The AG knew that because Zeti had herself told him so.
There are conflicting versions as to what transpired thereafter. One has it that the forgeries were conveyed to Clare Rewcastle Brown through an intermediary – Tan Sri Rashpal Singh – who was liaising with her even before WSJ’s and SR’s editorials went to print. With Mahathir’s go-ahead, Clare built a fabrication around those forgeries with a mission to effect a regime change in Malaysia.
As you may already have guessed by now, both Muhyiddin and Abu Kassim were informed well in advance that an alleged conspiracy involving the banking transactions would break into public view, and that both WSJ and SR were tasked to hatch the controversy with red ink. The only problem was this – the whole conspiracy was cursed with flubs and blunders from day one.
For instance, WSJ – which is believed to have been in communication with Clare – claimed in its 2nd of July article that its report was based on documentary evidence by Malaysian investigators. Realising the blunder, a stumped Gani immediately directed the STF to conduct raids on companies that had been named by WSJ. Following this, on the 4th of July, Gani announced the raid and confirmed that documents had been handed over to him for review. Four days later, Gani announced that the STF had been initiated into a probe to get to the bottom of WSJ’s allegations.
Question is, to which investigation was WSJ referring to?
Once you try to answer that question, you will find that everything – from the MACC probe into the RM2.6 billion controversy to its current probe into the Taman Manggis controversy – starts to come together in a weird, weird way. And believe it or not, that question may be Abu Kassim’s single, biggest concern. And here’s why:
Last july, Gani called on the MACC head and deliberated on the possibility of drafting a charge sheet against Najib. According to the AG, it was imperative that Najib be arrested before an investigation was launched by the PM into the leak of banking documents to WSJ. Abu Kassim is believed to have concurred with Gani that the WSJ report contained a major plot-hole, and that something needed to be done to avert attention from the gaffe.
With that, a charge sheet was drafted by the MACC against the PM on counts of criminal malfeasance, while both Muhyiddin and Gani were tasked with presenting it to Najib during the 29th of July sitting by the Cabinet. Like I said in a previous article, that plan fell flat on its ass.
Seven days ago, when Dato’ Seri Azalina Othman called for an investigation into persons who had leaked forgeries to the media, the trio– Gani, Abu Kassim and Muhyiddin – started grinding their teeth in fear. They knew then as they do now that the document trail would lead to one person and one person only – BNM governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz.
Like I said at the beginning of this article – Mahathir gets people to do his dirty work, and by the time they’re done, he is left with a document trail that begins and ends with just one person – his trusted confidante. In this case, that person is Zeti.
And the conclusion follows – if Zeti is investigated and found to have breached banking laws, she would be left with no choice but to bring the trio down together with her. Which is why, the only option left for her would be to get Najib arrested before the PM can harbour hopes of launching a discovery into source of the leak.
And guess who is all smiles with fingers crossed and eyes shut? If your guess is Mahathir, you’re spot on. Now, let us see how all of this relates to the Taman Manggis controversy.
Yesterday, the Star reported that a panel overseeing the MACC had urged Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan and Penang Chief Minister (CM) Lim Guan Eng to call off a debate that had been scheduled to deliberate on a land-scam controversy involving the CM. The panel was of the view that the debate would conflict a discovery that was being conducted by the MACC into the controversy, which has been all the news in recent weeks. In short, the debate would prove to be counterproductive.
But the caution reeked of a hidden agenda – it seems that the MACC had sighted the questions Rahman was planning to raise during the debate, and view them to be toxic provocations that would spell the end of the CM’s political career. Abu Kassim knows that there is no way on earth Guan Eng can convincingly address the questions, which is something the MACC head cannot afford.
He can’t, for the simple reason that Mahathir has instructed him to spare Guan Eng the gallows. Some time between the 21st and the 26th of last month, Guan Eng’s father, Lim Kit Siang, met Mahathir and solicited a truce on terms of reciprocity. You can read more about the truce in an article that Malaysia Today had carried yesterday (refer http://www.malaysia-today.net/how-taman-manggis-may-force-the-macc-into-conspiracy-a-true-story/).
The point is, Abu Kassim is forced to liberate Guan Eng from the barnacles of conspiracy, simply because Mahathir told him to do so. He hasn’t a choice – like I said, those who were complicit with Mahathir to undemocratically dislodge Najib from power are beholden to his patronage to keep them out of jail.
But as we already know, the other candidate capable of bringing Abu Kassim to heel is Zeti – should a probe be launched against her for breaching banking laws, Abu Kassim would likely drown in his own cold sweat when it is established that he had conspired with Muhyiddin and Gani to cook-up a charge sheet against Najib based on editorials which they had known all along were fabrications.
In a queer sense, that is precisely how Guan Eng’s fate as Penang CM is tied to the fate of Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz.
