Why Najib-Zahid are so angry with Muhyiddin
The bottom line is Perikatan Nasional refuses to drop the criminal cases against Najib, Rosmah and Zahid. Pakatan Harapan, on the other hand, is prepared to pardon Najib, Rosmah and Zahid from all their crimes. That is all there is to it. All those other excuses as to why Umno cannot work with PPBM is merely meant to sanitise what is actually najis.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Since 2014, then Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s relationship with his Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, had been a retak menanti belah. But what many Malaysians do not know is that Najib and Muhyiddin have been at odds since much earlier than that — since 2003 to be exact.
Yes, Najib and Muhyiddin have been ‘enemies’ of sorts for 18 years and not only since last year when Muhyiddin took over as PM8 on 1st March 2020. The only thing is, Umno Malays are very clever at pretending to be friends when in actual fact they are enemies — just like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim who have been enemies for 40 years since 1981.
Muhyiddin’s and Najib’s relationship began to turn bad when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over as Prime Minister (PM5) on 1st November 2003.
Abdullah wanted to appoint Muhyiddin as his Deputy Prime Minister. Mahathir, however, disagreed and Muhyiddin did not dare defy the old man. So, he did nothing for two months. Yes, for two months Malaysia did not have a Deputy Prime Minister because Abdullah wanted Muhyiddin while Mahathir wanted Najib.
The ‘official reason’ as to why Umno no longer wants to work with Perikatan Nasional and now wants to defect to Pakatan Harapan
Then, in December 2003, the senior government officers approached Mahathir to tell him they were planning a farewell dinner for him. Mahathir replied he had already left more than a month ago so why only now throw him a farewell dinner.
Then an idea came to Mahathir’s head. He said he will agree to a farewell dinner on condition they also invite the Prime Minister.
So, the organisers approached Abdullah to ask him to also attend the dinner. At first Abdullah was reluctant, but when they told him if he does not agree to attend then Mahathir will not want any farewell dinner, Abdullah agreed.
On the night of the dinner the press, as usual, approached Mahathir for his comments. Of course, this was all planned, and Mahathir commented that he would like to thank the Prime Minister for agreeing to appoint Najib as the Deputy Prime Minister.
Abdullah almost fell off his chair and he ran out of the room to instruct his people to inform the press that the news of Najib’s appointment as Deputy Prime Minister is to be blacked out. But a reporter from Harakah was there and the next day Harakah published that news. The cat was now out of the bag and the news could no longer be stifled.
Abdullah had no choice but to go on TV to announce that Najib was the new Deputy Prime Minister — 24 hours after Mahathir had made that announcement. It was ironical that the Prime Minister’s announcement about Najib’s appointment as the new Deputy Prime Minister was made 24 hours after Mahathir made the announcement.
Abdullah wanted Muhyiddin as his deputy but Mahathir wanted Najib — and Najib got the job
The following day, on 7th January 2004, Najib was appointed as Malaysia’s new Deputy Prime Minister, thereby denying Muhyiddin the job.
In April 2006, Mahathir made his move to oust Abdullah and he asked Najib to do the same — but Najib refused. In fact, Najib even made an announcement that he is loyal to the Prime Minister — and this made Mahathir very pissed with Najib.
Mahathir then dropped Najib and started talking to Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as the possible replacement to Abdullah. Razaleigh then contacted Muhyiddin to propose an alliance against Abdullah and Najib.
Basically, it would be Razaleigh-Muhyiddin versus Abdullah-Najib.
This frightened Najib who quickly went running to Mahathir to make peace. He even sent Rosmah Mansor to attend Mahathir’s three-day international conference to criminalise war at the PWTC in early February 2007 to ambil hati the old man.
In the end, Mahathir sold out Razaleigh and pushed for Najib as the new Prime Minister. On 3rd April 2009, Najib took over as PM6 with Muhyiddin as his Deputy Prime Minister. Basically, Mahathir did not trust Najib — so he wanted Muhyiddin as the number two to keep Najib in check.
Mahathir’s main beef was not so much with Najib himself (in fact, Mahathir had a soft spot for Najib) but with Rosmah Mansor. To quote Mahathir’s inner circle: the old man ousted Abdullah to get rid of Khairy Jamaluddin. He does not want to end up getting Rosmah Mansor instead, who is ten times worse than Khairy.
Then the 1MDB issue exploded and Mahathir got pissed big time when he was told that Jho Low was behind the scandal and, more importantly, that Jho Low was linked to Rosmah’s son (Riza Aziz was Rosmah’s son, not Najib’s son).
Hence, concluded Mahathir, the 1MDB disaster was more Rosmah’s fault than Najib’s fault. And Mahathir commented to his people that the only way Najib can save himself was to divorce Rosmah or, in short, throw her under the bus.
The RM2.6 billion transfer from 1MDB created a rift between Muhyiddin and Najib in July 2015
Mahathir told his people he was right about Rosmah after all and that she is not only going to be Najib’s downfall but the downfall of Umno and Barisan Nasional as well. Mahathir then asked Khairuddin Abu Hassan to lodge a police report on the 1MDB scandal, which he did in December 2014.
When the story of the RM2.6 billion that was banked into Najib’s personal bank account surfaced, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi spun the story that the money was not from 1MDB but a donation from a member of the Saudi royal family. Zahid said he personally made a trip to Riyadh and had met the prince and saw the documents to prove this.
Mahathir asked Muhyiddin to look into Zahid’s story and find out whether this was true or not. Muhyiddin found out that the story was not true, and he told Mahathir so. Mahathir then made his move to oust Najib, which was supposed to happen on 29th July 2015. Part of that plan was Muhyiddin would take over as PM7 once Najib steps down.
Before Mahathir could oust Najib and replace him with Muhyiddin, Najib sacked Muhyiddin and replaced him with Zahid. And what happened thereafter is already well-documented and needs no further elaboration. Suffice to say, from thereon, Muhyiddin and Najib were to walk down separate paths.
Then, of course, came GE14 in May 2018 and Umno-Barisan Nasional got wiped out. And one of the reasons was 1MDB. In fact, that was the main reason followed by the Pakatan Harapan election manifesto and its fake promises — which it could not deliver, of course.
Umno supported Perikatan Nasional to form the government on 1st March 2020 thinking that Muhyiddin would offer Najib, Rosmah and Zahid a pardon
It was because of 1MDB that Najib sacked Muhyiddin. It was also because of 1MBD that the voters sacked Najib. And it is going to be because of 1MDB that the courts will send Najib to jail. The only way Najib can save himself, his wife and his cronies from long jail sentences would be to do a deal.
And that opportunity presented itself when the Pakatan Harapan government collapsed in February 2020. Neither Pakatan Harapan nor Perikatan Nasional had enough majority to form the new government. Both Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional would need Umno.
However, because of DAP, Pakatan Harapan’s door was closed to Umno. The only open door was Perikatan Nasional. Hence, like it or not, Umno had no choice but to support Perikatan Nasional to form the new government on 1st March 2020.
Since then, though, Pakatan Harapan has also opened its doors to Umno. So now there are two doors open to Umno — Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional. And that is why, since mid-2020, Umno has changed its mind about working with Perikatan Nasional and now wants to work with Pakatan Harapan.
The bottom line is Perikatan Nasional refuses to drop the criminal cases against Najib, Rosmah and Zahid. Pakatan Harapan, on the other hand, is prepared to pardon Najib, Rosmah and Zahid from all their crimes. That is all there is to it. All those other excuses as to why Umno cannot work with PPBM is merely meant to sanitise what is actually najis.
