Mahathir is playing his last card in a futile attempt to oust Najib

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jun 22, 2017

The DoJ song-and-dance is not for legal purposes. It is for political purposes. Legal action would take too long and may not come out the way you hope. And who can wait ten years anyway? The Special Task Force report on the US$10 billion forex losses is coming out in a matter of weeks, if not days, while the general election could be any time from August this year to the first half of next year. So we are talking about a 12 months plan at best. And, for sure, the DoJ matter cannot be resolved in 12 months.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

(NST, 14 March 2017) – The Special Task Force set up to probe Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) forex losses in the 1990s will present its findings to the Cabinet in three months. If necessary, this will include the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the matter.

Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan, who is the task force chairman, said the six-member team will focus on three terms of reference. These include conducting preliminary investigations into losses by BNM related to its speculative foreign currency transactions.

“The task force will investigate whether there was any action to cover up the losses, and whether misleading statements on the matter were presented to Parliament. The task force will submit recommendations on further action to the government, including the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry, if necessary, based on the results of the investigation,” Sidek said in a statement, today.

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For 30 years Kit Siang waged a crusade to expose the truth regarding Bank Negara’s US$10 billion forex losses and now he has done a U-turn and has changed sides

That was what the Special Task Force announced three months ago. And that three months for the Special Task Force to present its findings to the Cabinet is already up. And when the Special Task Force made this announcement three moths ago it sent Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Tun Daim Zainuddin, Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang into panic.

This ‘gang of four’ know what happened in the 1990s that resulted in Bank Negara Malaysia losing US$10 billion gambling on the forex market. In fact, as Kit Siang himself admitted, he has written millions of words regarding the matter. And he did bring it up in Parliament in 1993 and 1994 and went into great detail regarding this scandal.

And, of course, Mahathir, Daim and Anwar know as well because they were behind it. Daim planned the gambling, Mahathir instructed Bank Negara to gamble, and Anwar was in charge of covering up the scandal and of denying it in Parliament. So all four know the details like they know the back of their hands.

And this is the reason for the panic. They know the Special Task Force — and the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) that will follow the Special Task Force report to the Cabinet — is going to reveal the truth. And the truth is not only going to hurt but also cannot be covered up any longer. And this is going to hurt Pakatan Harapan real bad and without a doubt is going to cost them the election.

So Mahathir, Daim, Anwar and Kit Siang need to go into damage control. They can’t afford to do nothing. Doing nothing is going to be political suicide. The only weapon Pakatan Harapan has against Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, Umno, Barisan Nasional and the government is allegations of abuse of power, corruption, wrongdoing, bad governance, lack of transparency and wastage of public funds. That is what they hope to bring down Najib and the government with.

Mahathir, Anwar and Daim are going to be in trouble once the Special Task Force report comes out and they are going to drag Kit Siang down with them

But what is going to happen if just before Hari Raya the Special Task Force (or the Cabinet) announces its findings? How can Pakatan Harapan tell the voters that the government needs to be brought down because of its abuse of power, corruption, wrongdoing, bad governance, lack of transparency, wastage of public funds, etc? Would it not look hypocritical for Pakatan Harapan to ask the voters to bring down the government for the same transgressions that Pakatan Harapan itself commits?

That is what troubles Mahathir, Daim, Anwar and Kit Siang. So they need to deflect attention away from what the Special Task Force is about to say any day soon. If, say, the Special Task Force announces its findings a few days before Hari Raya, just as Malaysians are about to balek kampung, that would be terrible. People will be talking about how Mahathir and Daim stole US$10 billion of the taxpayers’ money and how Anwar covered up the crime and lied to Parliament and how Kit Siang exposed the crime and spoke about it for 20 years — and how, now, Kit Siang is no longer talking about it and has forgiven Mahathir, Daim and Anwar since they are all political allies.

Yes, it does look bad, does it not? And that is the cause for the panic. And that is why they all sat down — together with Matthias Chang, Cynthia Gabriel and Sivarasa Rasiah — to plan how to deflect attention away from the impending doom of the Special Task Force announcement. And that was when they came put with ‘US-DoJ Part 2’.

The reason why the DoJ made that announcement yesterday

To pay for the DoJ announcement, Mahathir donated US$5 million to the Clinton Foundation and some of this money went to Lynch’s people

As mentioned in the two previous articles (see links above), in 2016, Mahathir sent Mathias Chang, Khairuddin Abu Hassan, Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Abu Kassim Mohamed, and Abdul Gani Patail to the US to meet the DoJ. On 20th July 2016, the DoJ came out with its announcement regarding the investigations into 1MDB. That was supposed the be the thunder before the lighting — but because Daim and Kadir Jasin blundered, the lightning never happened. And Mahathir was furious.

This time they must not fail. So this week’s DoJ announcement was better planned. Mahathir asked Matthias and Sivarasa to draft DoJ’s statement (which was why it came in 251 pages with more than half merely slander and irrelevant to the issue). What Mahathir wanted was not a legal document but a document full of sensation and drama, even if it is not relevant to the issue and can never be proven or stand up in court. After all, Mahathir does not expect it to go to court anyway. And even if it is does Mahathir would be long dead and not around any more.

So the plan is simple. As soon as the DoJ announcement is made, everyone will jump onto the bandwagon and will whack left, right and centre. And that is happening even as you read this. The strategy is to make as much noise as possible and make sure the noise comes from as many people as possible. It has to be like the Fourth of July fireworks.

The DoJ announcement is merely plenty of noise and fireworks to attract attention and distract everyone from the impending report regarding the US$10 billion forex scandal

So Muhyiddin Yassin is asking Rosmah Mansor to return the jewellery. Gobind Singh Deo is asking the IGP to launch a criminal investigation. Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail is asking for a special sitting of Parliament to discuss the DoJ announcement. Lim Kit Siang is asking the entire Cabinet to resign next Wednesday. And so the screaming and wailing will go on and on for this next week until everyone balek kampung next weekend.

If you read the details in that 251-page document, unless you are slow in the brain, you can see that it is merely an exercise in perception-creation. Some may say the document is damaging. But in what way is it damaging? It just damages Najib’s image and reputation if you believe what has been alleged. It does not, however, damage Najib legally. Legally Najib is going to be unscathed. As for his image and reputation that is another matter.

Pakatan Harapan supporters, such as the Dapsters and Pakatuns, are going to believe this 251-page document. But then they hate Najib, Umno, Barisan Nasional and the government anyway even if the DoJ had not made that announcement and the 251-page document did not come out. So what difference does it make? Even if the DoJ comes out with a statement saying that on further investigation they are of the opinion that Najib is not guilty of stealing RM42 billion of 1MDB’s, as alleged by Mahathir, the Dapsters and Pakatuns are not going to believe it. They will say the DoJ is lying.

In other words, the Dapsters and Pakatuns are going to vote Pakatan Harapan come hell or high water. This DoJ announcement is not going to change anything. The hardcore Umno supporters will also vote Umno come hell or high water while the hardcore PAS supporters will vote PAS. That is the reality of the situation. But then the 30% of so atas pagar or fence-sitters who are still undecided can most likely be swayed. And this is their target. And in an election where just 5% of the votes can determine the result, 30% atas pagar is no small thing.

So this round two of the DoJ announcement is a two-prong objective. It is not about going to court. That takes too long and does not achieve their short-term objective. It is about creating a weapon of mass distraction so that they can divert the people’s attention away from the Special Task Force report regarding the US$10 billion forex loss that Bank Negara suffered and the truth behind that scandal. And it is about swaying the fence-sitters and undecided voters with the story that Najib and Umno stole US$4.5 billion of the people’s money.

Khairuddin and Matthias flew to the US to meet the DoJ to lodge a ‘complaint’, which is the basis for the DoJ announcement

What Mahathir hopes to achieve is to tell the people: hey, forget about the US$10 billion that the Special Task Force say I stole even if it is worth US$23 billion today, and instead focus on the US$4.5 billion which the DoJ says Najib stole.

Actually the DoJ did not say Najib stole anything. Mahathir is saying that the DoJ said that Najib stole US$4.5 billion. And that is the purpose of all this noise these last two days, which will continue until Hari Raya. And, of course, Mahathir is not going to tell Malaysians that the DoJ document is of full of ‘details’ because it was drafted by Matthias and Sivarasa and Cynthia just passed it to the DoJ to circulate.

Actually this is a good strategy if the general election is going to be held soon after Hari Raya. But if the general election is going to be held in another year or so, then all this effort would have gone to waste — unless they can get the DoJ to make a third announcement after Parliament is dissolved a year from now.

But then one year is too long in politics. Many things can happen in just a week. If the London Towering Inferno had happened just before the recent UK general election, instead of just after, the results would have been very different and most likely UK’s Prime Minister would now be Jeremy Corbyn.

But of course, the Dapsters and Pakatuns are celebrating all night long and will drink themselves silly this Hari Raya. But parties never last forever, even marathon parties. Sooner or later all parties must come to an end and everyone goes home. And that will be when Najib will hit back. And he will make sure that the hit causes permanent damage and leaves life-long scars. Then he will call for the general election and slaughter Pakatan Harapan like how the Indians slaughtered George Armstrong Custer’s army at Little Big Horn.

Oh, and one last thing, please remember you read that here and that Malaysia Today is the first to predict a Pakatan Harapan massacre in the next general election and that the DoJ onslaught did not succeed in bringing down Najib, Umno and Barisan Nasional after all.

Mahathir spent millions to get the DoJ to come out with its 20th July 2016 announcement and millions more for the 15th June 2017 announcement; the normal price one pays for lobbying services in the US