1MDB is no longer an issue
That’s because Anwar cannot fall if the rasuah issue is used against him. Malaysians don’t care about rasuah. But the sodomy issue can topple Anwar. Malaysians, especially Malays, are more concerned about where you poke your konek and don’t care how much money you steal.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
If ‘rasuah’ and ‘salah guna kuasa’ are important in any election, then Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Umno-Barisan Nasional would have lost the 1990 general election when Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Lim Kit Siang, Karpal Singh, Musa Hitam, Shahrir Samad, Manan Othman, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Semangat 46, DAP, etc., revealed Umno’s and Mahathir’s corruption.
Malaysians did not care. They were more interested in a strong economy and money in the pocket. The leaders can rob the country all they want, so long as there is some money left for the rakyat as well. And the Chinese admitted this openly and without any embarrassment and apology.
Malays, on the other hand, would talk about Islam sampai berbuih mulut and would condemn gays, and those who drank, gamble and ate pork. But perasuah is okay. Perasuah can even be the imam to lead you in prayers. And don’t ask me why because Malays are weird people, so do not try to understand the Malay mind.
Mahathir and Muhyiddin Yassin are condemning Najib Tun Razak and are saying all sorts of things about the 1MDB scandal. The 1MDB issue is not going to cause Umno and Barisan Nasional to lose any votes. If the voters vote for Pakatan Harapan, it will be due to other reasons and not because of 1MDB.
If Pakatan Harapan wants to beat Umno-BN in Johor, it must be for something else, not because of 1MDB. Umno-BN did not fall in 1986, 1990, 1995 and 1999 under Mahathir’s corrupt government. It did not fall in 2004 and 2008 under Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s corrupt government (which Mahathir himself exposed). It did not fall in 2013 under Najib Razak’s corrupt government — or even due to the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder. And the Umno-BN government did not fall in 2018 because of 1MDB.
Even PAS is not corrupt-free. Many PAS leaders are as corrupt as Umno leaders. The only good thing is that most of the corrupt PAS leaders have left the party to form Parti Amanah. So only a handful of them are still in PAS. Even back in the 1970s and 1980s there were many corrupt PAS leaders who sold out to Umno, and later left to form new parties such as Hamim and Berjasa.
So, unless they can give the Johor voters one very good reason why they should not vote for Umno and Barisan Nasional, expect the voters to vote Umno-BN. Just because of 1MDB alone is not enough. Even Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is still accepted as the Umno president in spite of the court cases he is facing.
Let’s not forget that Datuk Harun Idris won the Umno party election while he was serving a jail sentence in the Pudu Prison. This upset party president Tun Hussein Onn that he resigned as prime minister in 1981 so that Mahathir could take over.
Anwar Ibrahim is corrupt as hell and did far worse than what Najib is alleged to have done. If they call Najib ‘bapak rasuah’, then Anwar is atok rasuah, alongside atok Mahathir. But why did Mahathir use the sodomy issue to bring Anwar down instead of the rasuah issue? After all, Mahathir had all the evidence against Anwar.
That’s because Anwar cannot fall if the rasuah issue is used against him. Malaysians don’t care about rasuah. But the sodomy issue can topple Anwar. Malaysians, especially Malays, are more concerned about where you poke your konek and don’t care how much money you steal.
