And Dr Mahathir cannot accept this. Dr Mahathir cannot accept that he lost and Najib won. And this is why he went on a rampage. The RM2.6 billion was supposed to be the nail in Najib’s coffin. But that did not happen. And now Dr Mahathir has nothing left to use against Najib. And with the 1MDB also getting settled it is game over for Dr Mahathir and the anti-Najib group.
The anti-Najib forces are beginning to lose the plot and that is making them quite desperate. Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was not supposed to have lasted this long. He was supposed to have been out half a year ago. But 2015 is about to end and Najib is still Prime Minister.
The whole problem is that the issue was a non-starter in the first place. It was skating on thin ice and hoping that the ice would hold. But it did not and they ended up plunged into the dark and cold waters to face a death by drowning.
It was a risky platform to use. Political funding has been the way Umno does business since Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad took over as Prime Minister in 1981. Anwar Ibrahim, who went into Umno in 1982 kononnya to change Umno from the inside, ended up playing the same money game and turned the Umno money culture into an art form. Anwar perfected what Dr Mahathir started.
So, raising the issue of political funding is like the madam of a bordello or brothel preaching the immorality of sex outside marriage. If there was no sex outside marriage then there would be no sex workers and no ibu ayam. The sex trade is big business so why would prostitutes want to advocate its banning?
During the pre-Najib days Umno obtained its funding through privatisation and through donations from Chinese tycoons — who made their millions or billions through the patronage of Umno and Barisan Nasional. Basically Umno fed the cows and made them fat before they milked those cows’ tits. It was a marriage made in heaven. I make you rich and you share that wealth with me.
And through that Umno accumulated an estimated RM100-200 billion in various forms of assets, investments and even cash reserves. And because of the 1987 crisis when Umno was deregistered and all its assets and bank accounts frozen, Umno decided to no longer place its wealth under the name of the party but under nominees and proxies.
These nominees were the key officials of the party such as the President, Deputy President, Treasurer, and so on, plus the many proxy business partners of Umno — Chinese, Indians, as well as Malays — many who are now household names in Malaysia and all over the world.
This reminds me of what Dr Mahathir said back when Muhyiddin Yassin was the Menteri Besar of Johor. Dr Mahathir said that Muhyiddin was his richest minister. That was most puzzling because everyone knew that Tun Daim Zainuddin was the richest minister. So why did Dr Mahathir say that Muhyiddin was the richest minister?
Well, the reason was because whatever Muhyiddin owned was his while what Daim owned was not all his, only some of it was. A bigger portion of Daim’s wealth actually belonged to Umno.
The only problem was, and which was the reason for the fallout between Daim and Dr Mahathir, was that when Dr Mahathir wanted Daim to return Umno’s share of that wealth to the party — said be to be about RM60 billion — Daim refused to do so. According to Dr Mahathir’s boys, Daim sailang everything and parked the money overseas in African and Latin American banks.
And that taught Najib one very important lesson, which Dr Mahathir learned the hard way. Never trust nominees and proxies. When you park the party’s wealth under their names there is no guarantee they would return it when you want them to. The other problem is what happens when they die — like a number have (so far I have counted five ‘high profile’ deaths). How do you get money back from a dead man?
So when Najib managed to get his hands on US1 billion he needed to make sure that he had control of that money, which was to finance the general election plus for all sorts of political activities. To put it under the party was a problem. Putting it under nominees or proxies does not solve that problem. So he decided to put it into his own bank account, which would then be free of complications and encumbrances.
Najib then spoke to Bank Negara and got their clearance. So Bank Negara knew about the money and knew about where the money was coming from. They also knew what the money was meant for.
Dr Mahathir knew that the only way to bring Najib down is to squeeze him dry of funding. Without money Najib would not be able to finance Umno. Umno itself has no money. And the towkays who used to finance Umno during the time of Dr Mahathir were not going to finance Umno unless Dr Mahathir says so. And Umno’s nominees and proxies would not hand Najib any money because they are answerable only to Dr Mahathir.
So if Najib wants money he needs to look outside the normal circle of funders, who are all Dr Mahathir’s people. And somehow Najib managed to do that. His funder was from outside the country, the Middle East to be precise. And this pissed off Dr Mahathir big time. Najib is now fluid and not as broke as Dr Mahathir had hoped for. And that is why Dr Mahathir is so worked up about the RM2.6 billion. With RM2.6 billion Najib would be able to win the general election — which he did — and he can continue to fund Umno.
So that is what the RM2.6 billion is all about. It is not that Dr Mahathir thinks that the money was stolen from 1MDB. Dr Mahathir knows it was not. Muhyiddin and all the others also know that it was not. They all know it came from the Middle East. But they still spun the story that the money was not a donation from the Middle East but was stolen from 1MDB because there are many stupid people in Malaysia who would believe this due to the fact that they are blinded by their hatred for Umno and resentment of Malay political power.
Now MACC has confirmed that this is true. The MACC officers plus Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi have separately made trips to the Middle East to meet the donor and to see the evidence. But has this stopped Dr Mahathir, Muhyiddin and and the anti-Najib group from continuing with the allegations? They continue saying the same thing even though it has now been proven that the allegations are not true. They still pretend as if they are not aware where the money came from and therefore there is a suspicion that the money was stolen from 1MDB.
Najib can, in fact, turn around and ask Dr Mahathir where is RM100-200 billion of Umno’s assets, investments and cash? It is not in Umno’s bank account. So where is it? Whose is holding that RM100-200 billion? Can Dr Mahathir explain?
Can Dr Mahathir also explain why he said that Muhyiddin is (or was) his richest minister? How did Muhyiddin become Dr Mahathir’s richest minister? And where is all that money? Is it in Malaysia or Hong Kong or Singapore (or some other country)?
The truth is Dr Mahathir did everything he could to bleed Umno and Najib and to make sure that Umno and Najib would be denied funding. But then Najib managed to navigate around this roadblock and obtain his own funding without depending on Dr Mahathir’s generosity. And Najib survived the funding embargo.
And Dr Mahathir cannot accept this. Dr Mahathir cannot accept that he lost and Najib won. And this is why he went on a rampage. The RM2.6 billion was supposed to be the nail in Najib’s coffin. But that did not happen. And now Dr Mahathir has nothing left to use against Najib. And with the 1MDB also getting settled it is game over for Dr Mahathir and the anti-Najib group.
Raja Petra Kamarudin
