By: Dennis Ignatius
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has astonished everyone in Malaysia by sneaking into his budget presentation a few lines about formulating new legislation to allow home detention as an alternative punishment for selected offenses. It sounds reasonable, and it may well be needed, but the manner in which it was done – inserting a few lines about house arrest in a budget speech but not mentioning it in parliament – suggests that some other agenda is at play.
But Malaysians are not easily fooled. It was immediately seen for what it is – a plan to mollycoddle Najid Razak, a man who has been found guilty of high crimes against the nation and whose trial for various other offenses is still ongoing. It reeks of political opportunism, a blatant attempt to appease the Bossku crowd. That the prime minister has not moved to immediately quell speculation that the disgraced former prime minister could be one of the prime beneficiaries of the proposed legislation has only served to heighten suspicions.
In the relatively short time he has been in office, the prime minister has done many things which many have found troubling, but this goes beyond the pale. It undermines the sterling efforts of the previous Pakatan Harapan administration and former attorney-general Tommy Thomas and his team to bring to justice a man who has done so much harm to the nation. It’s a cynical manipulation of the justice system and of parliament, a callous disregard for the principles upon which our nation was founded.
By signaling special treatment for Najib, who is serving 12 years in prison for his role as one of the architects of the 1Malaysia Development scandal, which cost the Malaysian treasury an estimated US45.4 billion, the prime minister has also effectively undermined his own credibility as well as his commitment to fighting corruption and the abuse of power. It is sheer hypocrisy to go around posing as an anti-corruption crusader, giving lofty speeches about the evils of corruption, and then conniving to allow one of our nation’s most corrupt politicians to avoid completing his sentence in a prison where he belongs. This is morally wrong, a new low for Malaysia.
His actions will now strengthen the perception that his war against corruption is a phony one. His Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission ruthlessly hunts down and harasses his political adversaries but gives free passes to equally corrupt politicians aligned with him. The misdeeds of his opponents are expeditiously investigated with a fine-tooth comb while the transgressions of those closer to him are papered over and allowed to fade from view.
The whole move to clear a path for Najib to evade further prison time also raises troubling questions about the inordinate influence that the United Malaysian National Organization now exerts over the unity government. Indeed, the government has begun to look and sound more and more like former UMNO administrations. Reformasi, on which Anwar paved his path to power, has been tossed out the window; it’s all about pleasing UMNO now.
UMNO leaders are conferred privileged positions; even Najib’s daughter has been appointed director of MATRADE, the national trade promotion agency under the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI). As well, they are given free passes from criminal charges, and their previous misdeeds covered up. With this proposed law, those who are unfortunate enough to be convicted of crimes will now be able to serve their sentences in the luxury of their own mansions – waited upon hand and foot, hold court, and entertain their supporters – instead of sitting in a prison cell where they belong.
Why is the prime minister bending over backward to appease UMNO at the expense of all those who voted for him? Is all this part of some Faustian bargain that was hatched in secret?
The prime minister is now embarked upon a “regressive” agenda that cannot and must not go unchallenged. Let’s see if our MPs – especially those from DAP, PKR, and GPS – who have long talked a good game about reform and ending the culture of impunity will have the courage of their convictions to put a stop to this foolishness.
Dennis Ignatius is a former Malaysian ambassador and a regular contributor to Asia Sentinel. He blogs at dennisignatius.com.
Comes as no surprise. If convicted criminal Najib Razak is allowed house detention to serve out his sentence, we will know Anwar Ibrahim has zero principles, despite his self-professed claims to the contrary, and that he has at minimum enabled Najib the criminal convict Razak to enjoy the luxury of "imprisonment" in his luxurious home. And If Najib the criminal convict is given a pardon by the so-called king, who himself is of dubious character, we will know Anwar will have masterminded this too. Then it will be a case of Anwar Ibrahim not having the testicles to stand as a principled man but one who has abused the power of his position and of office. This, too, will come as no surprise, given what the world knows of the racist, corrupt politics (or political economy) of Malaysia under Malay tutelage (not that it would change under Chinese or Indian guardianship, for "Malaysians" are generally racist and corrupt anyway). If Najib is set free Anwar Ibrahim has no standing to be a called a "statesman" (not a single Malaysian politician, whatever his or her ilk, can claim that self-aggrandizing throne). A so-called reformist, Anwar Ibrahim has sold out those people in Malaysia who had believed in him to turn Malaysia around from its decades-old hideously racist and corrupt dogma and manifestations). All Anwar Ibrahim has done, since his elevation -- by din of the last king's choice (but not wisdom) -- was bend himself over to his UMNO alliance chiefs who have had him over the barrel in the real political stakes as his lilly-livered PKR continuous fails to get traction amongst the Malays and hence weakens Anwar Ibrahim's testicle-less political legitimacy, especially as that country heads for its next general elections. The rub here is that neither does UMNO made any inroads to winning over the hearts and minds of Kampong (village) Malay-Muslims. One thing is certain: if Najib the convicted criminal is set free from prison, and then pardoned for his swindling crime, PKR is so damned, and so will UMNO, which will see its position in Malaysia slide into the proverbial old Kampong Jamban (toilet) where, frankly speaking, PKR, UMNO, Perikatan Nasional and PAS suitably belong. Anwar Ibrahim, the douchebag without testicles, has sold out the country. This is not atypical. After Tunku Abdul Rahman, Hussein Onn and Ahmad Badawi, three former prime ministers and all Malay-Muslims, every other Malays prime minister has sold the people of Malaysia down the river for their own political -- and personal financial -- gains. Anwar Ibrahim, by any measure, is a rank Malay-Muslim two-headed, two-tongued snake.
There is no 'abuse of power'. A subjective term to describe the use of power when one does not like how power is used. Anwar isthe Pied Piper of Hamlin. A chameleon. A creature of necessity and opportunity. The bitterness and complaints against Anwar's decisions don't come from the informed or the educated, but from the bowels of society,those who held out against all good advise and the writing on the wall and followed him into the abyss.
It was David Ben Gurion who said: ' in politics there are no permanent friends. Just situations'. The Bersih, the Malaysian Bar, the non Malay followers of 'Reformasi', and the Pakatan find it hard to eat crow now after placing all their eggs in the Anwar basket.
Anwar does not owe them anything. Nothing at all. Not then, not now not in the future. Those who are bitter about how Anwar has turned coat on them now know what it must have been for the Najibs and Mahathir of this world when they were in power.