Who are you bluffing, Apandi?

In his 2016 New Year Message, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said his RM2.6 billion donation and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals had been resolved and were no more issues in the country.

How wrong the Prime Minister had been.

Every day since the New Year’s Day for the past week, Najib’s twin mega scandals had hogged the news headlines, and there was not a single day when there were no multiple news items on the issue, especially on the Internet.

In fact, no other news story in the country could compete with Najib’s twin mega scandals in terms of their daily coverage, durability and newsworthiness.

It is not for nothing that Najib’s twin mega scandals were the reasons why Malaysia was ranked third for the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015” by ForeignPolicy website of Washington Post.

Najib’s twin mega scandals have repeatedly made history, though not of the sublime or honourable kind.

Apart from going international in catapulting Malaysia into third place as the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015”, they were featured prominently in today’s launch of the Legal Year 2016 in Kuala Lumpur, highlighted not only by the Bar Council President Steven Thiru but also by the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohd Apandi Ali.

Steven Thiru, representing the views of the Malaysian Bar that included representatives from the Sabah Law Association and the Advocates Association of Sarawak, demanded a stop to attacks on key institutions investigating the 1MDB scandal and called for them to continue their probe without interference while Mohd Apandi gave the lame answer that there was no interference in the investigations into 1MDB.

A most apt response by Malaysians would be to ask Mohd Apandi to “tell it to the marines”!

Apandi’s continued pretence that there had been no interference in the investigations into the 1MDB flies in the face of reality and does not sit well with his appointment as Attorney-General, which came about as a result of the sudden and shocking sacking of his predecessor, Tan Sri Gani Patail on “Day of Long Knives” on July 28 last year, when the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak launched his “purge” of the government involving the sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal as Minister for Rural and Regional Minister and the subsequent purges and punitive actions against recalcitrant key officers in various government investigating/enforcement agencies.