UMNO has today changed its character that the first four UMNO Presidents, Onn Jaafar, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Razak Hussein and Hussein Onn will not be able to recognise or endorse

UMNO has today changed its character that the first four UMNO Presidents, Onn Jaafar, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Razak Hussein and Hussein Onn, will not be able to recognise or endorse.

None of them will countenance Malaysia becoming a kleptocracy with it infamy world-wide, let alone “kleptocracy at its worst”.

In 1979, at the UMNO General Assembly, the then Prime Minister, Hussein Onn warned that Malaysia will be destroyed if its leaders are “dishonest, untrustworthy and corrupt” and expressed the hope that the Bank Rakyat scandal would be a “bitter lesson to other government institutions and agencies including companies and subsidiaries set up by the Government”.

But Hussein Onn’s warning were not heeded, and last week, an UMNO leader who was the sixth Prime Minister, went to jail to serve his 12-year jail sentence and RM210 million fine.

From a RM100 million Bank Rakyat scandal in 1979, we have graduated to a RM50 billion 1MDB scandal three decades later.

That Tun Razak, Najib’s father and the second Prime Minister of Malaysia, was always conscious of being correct in his role as Prime Minister and to avoid any hint of abuse of power and breach of trust has become legendary with the “swimming pool” story that Razak’s youngest son, Nazir, recalled in his book “What’s In A Name” (page 51), where Nazir wrote:

“When we were all still young my brothers and I once trooped into my father’s office with a request to make: we asked him to build a swimming pool in the grounds of Seri Taman. My eldest brother Najib was the ringleader, corralling the rest of us to make the case, standing in front of my father’s desk in his study. My father listened to our proposal carefully and then calmly dismissed it. ‘How would it look,’ he asked, eyebrows raised, ‘if the Prime Minister spent public money on building a swimming pool for his family?’”

Razak would not spend public money on building a swimming pool for his family, but Najib left behind not a world-class great country but a world-class RM50 billion 1MDB scandal.

According to the Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz, as at June 30, 2022, the 1MDB debt stands at RM32.08 billion. Between April 2017 and May 2022, the government channelled financial assistance in the form of loans or advances totalling RM10.85 billion via the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Minister of Finance Incorporated (MoF Inc) to pay off 1MDB’s debt commitments and interest.

As at June 30, 2022, 1MDB’s total funds recovered amounted to RM19.28 billion in various foreign currencies, including the United States dollar, Singapore dollar and Australian dollar.

Najib is facing another four ongoing criminal cases related to 1MDB and corruption, which would have caused considerable grief to his father, Tun Razak if he was alive today.

Horror of horrors, the country beginning to see the unravelling of a new 1MDB scandal – the RM9 billion littoral combatant ships (LCS) scandal (which may end up costing more than RM11.145 billion to complete all six LCS as calculated by the Ambrin Report of the Investigating Committee on Procurement, Governance and Finance report on LCS).

Another area which the first four UMNO Presidents will not be able to recognise or endorse are the attacks on the rule of law and independence of the judiciary by the present UMNO leaders.

In the early decades of nationhood, Malaysia produced Lord Presidents who were juristic luminaries, like Suffian, Azlan Shah and Salleh Abas, then there was a void when the doctrine of separation of powers and the principle of independence of the judiciary came under a cloud, but the jailing of Najib last Tuesday marked a new era where the Judiciary showed that it would not be overawed from playing its independent role under Lord President Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat.

The first four UMNO Presidents would never attack the independence of the judiciary in the way it was attacked by UMNO leaders on Saturday night.

Is Zahid trying to save himself or Najib in demanding for immediate general election and a campaign to pardon Najib?

As Najib is facing another four criminal trials, is there going to be a “pardon” campaign for every conviction?

Zahid spoke of his concern about the erosion of the integrity of the judiciary and that Najib’s SRC International case would soon to referenced by Commonwealth nations as an unfair trial.

When did Zahid started to worry about Malaysia’s adverse reputation in the world whether about the independence of the judiciary or Malaysia’s kleptocracy?

For a start, if Zahid is concerned about international opinion, is he going to explain why, as Defence Minister in July 2011, he had overturned his own decision as recommended by the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) to contract six Dutch-made Sigma LCS and chose the Scorpene manufacturer’s six French-made Gowind LCS within three days without consulting the Navy, the end-user – the major cause of the RM9 billion LCS scandal, the new 1MDB scandal in Malaysia?

Najib and UMNO have committed four abominations in Malaysian politics which the four UMNO Presidents would never do, viz:

• The RM50 billion 1MDB scandal and other scandals in the Najib premiership;
• The Malu Apa BOSSku campaign after UMNO was toppled from power in 2018;
• The condonation of corruption like the 1MDB scandal; and
• The insidious attacks on the judiciary.

Will UMNO ever return to the nation-building principles as spelt out by the nation’s founding fathers in the Constitution and Rukun Negara, as UMNO is now neither serving the interests of Malays nor Malaysians, but only UMNO-putras?