Mat Taib’s defection: Jahabar Sadiq’s cock-and-bull story
Mat Taib told Noh Omar and Azeez Rahim about the rampant and blatant corruption in Selangor. “Azmin teruk, lagi teruk dari aku,” said Mat Taib, which had Noh Omar and Azeez Rahim in stitches. Mat Taib said he cannot get state government approval to develop his Yayasan FAS land at Kelana Jaya unless he agrees to pay Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali a huge under-the-table ‘commission’.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Jahabar Sadiq of The Malaysian Insight is at it again. Today he came out with yet another cock-and-bull story, which you can read below. Jahabar must have had too many beers last night and is still suffering from a hangover because he is definitely imagining things.
According to Jahabar, his ‘sources’ told him that Muhammad Muhammad Taib’s a.k.a. Mat Taib’s defection yesterday was supposed to be together with eight Pakatan Harapan State Assemblypersons or ADUNs. That, however, did not happen, said Jahabar, and in the end Mat Taib defected alone.
Jahabar must have gone to Clare Rewcastle Brown’s School of Journalism. Who are these so-called sources? Name them. Don’t be like Sarawak Report that always talks about unnamed sources, those close to the investigation, according to documents they have sighted, and so on. That is classic Clare Rewcastle Brown type of reporting: which is to talk a lot but say nothing.
Don’t drink and drive write
More importantly, Jahabar says eight Selangor ADUNs were supposed to have defected together with Mat Taib. If you know there are eight ADUNs then, without a doubt, you would know who they are. Name them! Why report eight nameless ADUNs?
Malaysia Today challenges Jahabar Sadiq to name his so-called ‘sources’ and to also name those eight Pakatan Harapan ADUNs.
Anyway, let Malaysia Today be the first to reveal the untold story behind Mat Taib’s defection yesterday — the true story, not the dongeng (fairy tale) story from Jahabar Sadiq. In fact, Malaysiakini has already reported this story, which you can read here (Dr Mahathir surat khabar buruk, kata Noh Omar).
At least Malaysiakini got that part right.
Just over two weeks ago, Mat Taib bumped into Umno Selangor chief Noh Omar and Azeez Rahim in Mekah. Mat Taib and Noh Omar are old friends from school so their relationship is still very cordial notwithstanding their political differences.
In their conversation, Mat Taib grumbled about the problems he was facing. He said DAP practically calls the shots in Pakatan Harapan and the rest need to do whatever DAP wants. “Pakatan Harapan yang sebenarnya Pakatan Cina,” said Mat Taib. “Melayu hanya baruah Cina.”
Mat Taib then told Noh Omar and Azeez Rahim about the rampant and blatant corruption in Selangor. “Azmin teruk, lagi teruk dari aku,” said Mat Taib, which had Noh Omar and Azeez Rahim in stitches. At least Mat Taib is honest about his dishonesty.
Mat Taib said he cannot get state government approval to develop his Yayasan FAS land at Kelana Jaya unless he agrees to pay Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali a huge under-the-table ‘commission’.
“Azmin nak ambik daging, tinggal aku tulang je,” said Mat Taib in disgust. Mat Taib explained that Azmin was building a war chest to take on Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail for the PKR presidency. “Sebab tu dia makan keliling,” said Mat Taib. And Azmin will make sure that only his people are chosen as candidates in the coming general election to ‘isolate’ Wan Azizah and encircle her with his people.
Noh Omar and Azeez Rahim then asked Mat Taib why does he continue to waste his time in Pakatan Harapan. Why not just return to Umno? That was when, just two weeks ago, the idea for Mat Taib to return to Umno was mooted. And this happened in Mekah and has nothing to do with a ‘Selangor Move’ à la ‘Perak Move’, as Jahabar Sadiq insinuates. How could in just two weeks they negotiate Mat Taib’s defection together with eight Selangor ADUNs? That cannot be done between 31st August and yesterday.
Mat Taib grumbled that Azmin Ali was trying to screw him on his Selangor land
The issue here is not so much that Mat Taib defected and returned to Umno. It is about why he left Pakatan Harapan in disgust. That is what The Malaysian Insight should be talking about. And Mat Taib is just one more in a series of many defections from Pakatan Harapan. And, according to our sources (Malaysia Today can also write just like The Malaysian Insight and Sarawak Report), there are many more defections to come.
Instead of trying to suggest the so-called ‘failure’ of the eight unnamed ADUNs who were supposed to defect together with Mat Taib, The Malaysian Insight should explain why Mat Taib defected in the first place, and why he is one more of many defections so far and not the last of the many defections yet to come.
Why would Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak want to engineer a ‘Perak episode’ in Selangor, like how Jahabar Sadiq suggests? The next general election is around the corner. If you want to oust a state government through defections you do it in the beginning of the term and not at the end of the term. Najib would not be stupid to take over Selangor for just a few months. Better let Selangor be and then take over the state in a general election, which can happen if Umno Selangor plays its cards right.
Selangor is weak and is ready for a take-over. The only problem is Umno and Barisan Nasional Selangor are no better than PKR and Pakatan Harapan Selangor. So it is not a contest for first place but a contest for last place. Selangor is not for Pakatan Harapan to win but for Barisan Nasional to lose. Sad to say, that is what is really going on in Selangor at the moment.
And remember, you read all this on Malaysia Today first.
Jahabar Sadiq’s beer-induced fairy tale regarding Mat Taib’s defection
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Mat Tyson’s volte-face was to trigger a Perak move, say sources
Jahabar Sadiq, The Malaysian Insight
IT was meant to be more than just Muhammad Muhammad Taib re-joining Umno yesterday. He was supposed to bring along eight state government lawmakers and cause the collapse of the Azmin Ali administration.
But for the intervention of powerful stakeholders in Selangor, the end result: Umno president Najib Razak only had Muhammad to show at 5pm in a much-hyped press conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Sources told The Malaysian Insight negotiations for Muhammad’s defection back to Umno and that of eight others were handled by intermediaries and not the prime minister himself.
“Najib was informed that it was a go, but when he turned up, only Mat Tyson was there,” a party source told The Malaysian Insight, calling the 72-year-old former Selangor menteri besar by his popular moniker.
“The deal fizzled out because it was blocked at the highest levels when it was found out that Mat Tyson was part of the deal,” another source told The Malaysian Insight.
That led to the rather short and flat announcement yesterday that Muhammad was re-joining Umno, despite the presence of almost the entire party Supreme Council that sparked rumours and speculation of a state government change or a party reshuffle ahead of the general election which must be held by August 2018.
It is learnt that the political equation that involved Muhammad’s defection would be eight PKR assemblymen joining the 12 Umno lawmakers and another 13 from PAS together with former menteri besar Khalid Ibrahim to form a bloc of 34 lawmakers that would be enough to form a state government in the 56-seat legislature.
The reasons for the eight PKR assemblymen willing to quit their party have not been revealed, said Umno sources familiar with the plan.
Political observers said the move to bring in Muhammad and eight others state assemblyman was reminiscent of the Perak move in 2009 when three Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers quit the ruling state government and backed Barisan Nasional (BN) in the 59-seat Perak state assembly.
That caused the PR government with 28 lawmakers to collapse and the state ruler then invited BN, also with 28 lawmakers, to form the state government as it had a thin majority of three due to the defections.
The observers said Muhammad’s move yesterday reflected Najib and Umno’s desire to revisit the Perak route to defeat their political foes in Selangor.
Muhammad was a four-term Batang Kali assemblyman (1982-1999) and Selangor MB from 1986 to 1997 when he quit over a currency offence in Australia.
He quit Umno to join PAS in 2013, four years after losing his job in Najib’s cabinet reshuffle in 2009. He quit PAS after two years and joined PKR in 2015.
He has had a major run-in with the Selangor palace when he eloped with a sister of the current sultan in 1987 to marry her in Thailand. But he and the Selangor princess, Tengku Puteri Zaharia Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah, have since divorced.
In an interview to Utusan Malaysia two years ago, Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah discussed the string of state menteris besar but reserved the most scathing comments for Muhammad.
“Muhammad changed many customs, such as the granting of royal honours, so the process bypassed the Royal Council and went straight through the state exco.
“He amassed wealth when he was in Umno and then he joined PAS. Then just as things were turning south for PAS, he left it to join PKR. Whichever party he joins, it is hard to have respect for him for his tendency to jump ship.
“If someone with no principles assumes the helm, everything is bound to fall apart. We must hold on to our principles. If our faith is in the right place, we can weather every test, analyse each problem that arises properly and do not falter after we have made a decision,” the ruler said.
