Some of the personalities who have taken up the cudgel on behalf of Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in his spat with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad are not doing the Prime Minister any favour.
In fact, in their haste to be the champion they have amplified what is truly wrong with the nation, and that they are actually the very people who had caused the illness to become virulent. What makes it worse is that for these personalities, in spite of such magnitude, it provides them an opportunity to become relevant or remain so, or both.
Take Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim’s recent “attack” on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, describing the former prime minister’s criticisms on Najib as “irresponsible, unjustified and unethical”.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) advisory board chairman said Dr Mahathir should stop criticising 1MDB unless he can back allegations with proof.
Prior to his latest outburst, Tunku Aziz had, in a column in response to Dr Mahathir’s continued pressure on Najib to answer several allegations leveled at the 1MDB, decided to refer to some financial scandals allegedly committed during Dr Mahathir’s 22-year leadership.
It is quite amazing that Tunku Aziz had chosen such a path in dealing with Dr Mahathir’s criticisms of the 1MDB.
In the first place, the 1MDB issue was first pursued relentlessly by a local financial daily and report after report of alleged financial mismanagement were published. The financial daily is still at it.
Then, a vice chairman of an Umno division decided to lodge a police report, followed with reports upon reports lodged to the police, Bank Negara and the MACC against 1MDB and for Tunku Aziz to respond to Dr Mahathir’s with a retort of financial scandals during his rule is very infantile if not silly.
Is Tunku Aziz admitting that there is merit in Dr Mahathir’s criticisms of 1MDB but because there were scandals during Dr Mahathir’s tenure, then the 1MDB is of no consequence?
Or is he declaring that he is an advocate of two wrongs making one right?
But Tunku Aziz isn’t the only one who seems to waddle into the 1MDB scandal with a similar approach. Enter Ezam Mohd Noor, former Parti Keadilan Rakyat Youth chief who once claimed to have six boxes of evidence of the Barisan Nasional Government’s wrongdoing after his mentor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sacked from the Government and Umno.
Ezam had left PKR, joined Umno and has since forgotten about the six boxes of evidence and today decides to accuse Dr Mahathir of bailing out his son in the 1998 financial crisis. This was raised to defend the accusations of wrongdoings in the 1MDB.
Instead of proving that there was nothing wrong in the 1MDB dealings, he instead tried to point out that there were a lot of things wrong with what Dr Mahathir had done during his rule.
If both Tunku Aziz and Ezam had felt strongly about Dr Mahathir’s mismanagement, they should have made it their cause previously and not used it only when they need to defend another scandal.
(Tunku Aziz was declared a towering Malay when he joined the DAP and immediately made its vice-chairman. He had joined the DAP because he shared the same values and ideals with that of the DAP. About four years later, the shared ideals and values were shredded and he has become a staunch critic of the party instead).
While Tunku Aziz and Ezam seem to believe that they have a game-plan in defending Najib in the 1MDB, another defector from PKR, Datuk Seri Zahrain Yassin in defending Najib had actually committed a disservice to the Prime Minister.
In wanting to justify accusations of the Prime Minister’s lavish spending, Zahrain said Malaysians need to realise that Najib was of “bangsawan (blueblood)” background and inherited much wealth.
Either his mouth had moved faster than his brains or he truly lacked awareness of what is going on and his mission was to defend and defend at whatever cause as Zahrain had obviously missed out that Najib’s siblings and he himself had denied of inheriting any wealth given their father Tun Razak’s austere lifestyle when he was the Prime Minister.
The question is why Zahrain decided to raise the issue of inherited wealth when Najib and his siblings had publicly denounced it as it was an insult to their father’s legacy?
Last but not least is Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s challenge to Dr Mahathir to take on Najib in Pekan in the next general election or the Umno polls if the former Prime Minister felt he was strong enough or a lot of support.
While it is a wonder how such thoughts could have been hatched, it is again doing a disservice to the Prime Minister as the issue is not about Dr Mahathir’s popularity or having more support that Najib.
It is about an issue that seems to have taken its toll on Umno and Barisan Nasional’s popularity, something no less than Deputy Prime Minister and Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had publicly declared as a factor which caused them the votes in the recent by-elections.
Simply put, if Dr Mahathir’s concern over the issue is not to be entertained as it came from him, is it still of no consequence when Muhyiddin too had shared his fears on the consequence the 1MDB may have on the party and the Government.
It seems to be so as moves are being made to “expose” Muhyiddin’s scandals of the past.
So the principle of ‘two wrongs making one right” does prevail, even among towering personalities caught up in their own Tower of Babel.-Malaysian reverse
