GAME CHANGER HANGING: THE NOOSE FITS THOSE WHO PULLED NAJIB’S STRINGS

Deepak’s allegations pertain to Najib’s family, that he had paid an undisclosed sum for the premier’s intervention to allow him to come in as a party in a RM100 million defence ministry project in 2005 when Najib was the Defence Minister –  stitching a deal with a Selangor UMNO Wanita leader’s company where he would participate as a third party in the project.  As Najib is not only around but chief of the pack in UMNO, he should respond as whatever Zahid could say would only be hearsay with neither credibility nor legitimacy.

Secondly, the Deepak connection with the high-profile and long-running Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case. Deepak has expressed regret of his involvement in getting private investigator P Balasubramaniam to make a second Statutory Declaration which reversed an earlier one linking Najib to murdered Mongolian Altantuya. Deepak said in interviews that he got involved in Bala’s case to help “the family of the prime minister”.  Again, Zahid’s response to Deepak’s allegation cannot be satisfactory as only Najib is in a position to respond with any credibility.

Thirdly, this is an acid test of Najib’s UMNO Presidential Address yesterday which had asserted that Pakatan Rakyat should not be given a chance to win the 13^th General Election as UMNO/Barisan Nasional could  boast of great success in governing Malaysia in the past five decades – one of which is the “efficacy of national institutions”.

The sordid Deepak/Bala/Altantuya scandals are shameful testimony, not to success but corruption and subversion, of the “efficacy of national institutions” as  Malaysia would not have reached such a sorry pass in the Altantuya murder case if various national institutions, whether the Police, the Judiciary, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the Malaysian Press had maintained and upheld their integrity, independence and professionalism.

In 2009, Bala claimed he had been paid RM5 million by Deepak to retract his first statutory declaration.

Husam, who is also a Kelantan state exco member, said Deepak is a businessman not a politician per say, so the damaging statement made ahead of UMNO AGM must be a calculated move.

Against the backdrop, Husam said UMNO has a better chance of surviving in the election if they could let go Najib.

“Letting go of Najib before election can raise some hope on UMNO to continue its survival, under a new premise of a prime minister, it usually brings a new hope,” said Husam.

For Deepak Jaikishan to come out in the open and drop bombshell on prime minister Najib Razak and wife Rosmah Mansor ahead of UMNO’s 66th Annual General Assembly, he must have received assurance of his safety discreetly, claims PAS vice president Husam Musa.

Besides Najib, UMNO vice president Hishamuddin Hussein, who is also the Home Minister is also facing similar situation.

Former inspector general of police Musa Hassan had accused Hishamuddin of meddling in the police’s affairs and investigation yesterday.

Musa said Hishammuddin had violated police protocols by giving instructions directly to junior police officers and a district police chief without his knowledge.

“So, I highlighted to him (Hishammuddin) Section 4 (1) of the Police Act (1967, which says) that the command and control of the police is by the IGP and not the minister.

“Of course, I cannot be rude to him as (he is) a minister. I talked to him nicely. He didn’t like it,” said Musa as quoted by Malaysiakini.

UMNO has postponed its party election again this year to avoid rocking the boat ahead of what perceived as the most challenging general election for the party in history.

Should UMNO party election has taken place, Najib and Hishamuddin will be both seen as an obstacle and a threat to deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin if he decides to take on Najib as UMNO president or retain his party position.

Meanwhile, PAS vice president Mahfuz Omar said UMNO delegates should take the opportunity to ask Najib to come clean on Deepak’s allegation.

“Najib must explain whether Deepak and Musa is part of Muhyiddin’s game to pressure him to quit, or is it the truth?” said the Pokok Sena member of parliament.

“I am convinced, Deepak will not make statement if he did not receive any guarantee from anyone. This means, there’s internal party behind Deepak’s movement,” said Husam in a statement today published in his blog today.

Controversial carpet trader Deepak Jaikishan today made a startling prediction: Barisan Nasional will suffer a big loss in the upcoming general election, all because of a goalkeeper called “Rosmah”.

In a cryptic SMS sent to the media, the well-connected businessman used a football metaphor and named “Rosmah” as the sole Umno goalkeeper who would fail to stop Pakatan Rakyat from scoring big.

Deepak said he was referring to the speech given by Umno Kelantan delegate Md Alwi Che Ahmad who drew the analogy of Umno being like the “red warriors”, the committed and hardworking football players of the state.

The Kelantan opposition leader was quoted as saying that “Umno players” are winnable candidates and are able to score goals.

“The party’s president want the best players to score goals… winnable candidates” he reportedly said.

Deepak, however, laughed off the suggestion, saying that he found it amusing as the Kelantan players actually belong to PAS.

“I refer to the Umno Kelantan speech & his anology of kelantan’s champion footballer’s ‘red warriors’ as d criteria for ‘winnable candidates’,” he wrote.

“Najib is indeed an excellant striker & a winnable candidate in Pekan but unfortunately Umno’s only goalkeeper today is Rosmah & she has her hands full catching the billions coming her way that she won’t have the time to stop PKR from scoring goals in parlimentary seats.”

The man, who has previously admitted to being close like a sibling to Rosmah Mansor, the wife of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, then made a startling prediction in his text.

“GE13 will be PKR 123, seat Rosmah RM26 BILLION, BN 99 seats. A prophercy that will happen.”

Asked about the meaning behind his SMS, Deepak said: “You have a winnable candidate who can win his seat, but this is not the presidential election. If he wins and the others lose, there is no point.

“I fully agree that we should have winnable candidates. I’m saying that, yes, Najib can win in Pekan, but you have so many players and you only have one goalkeeper; this goalkeeper is not interested in catching the ball, but in catching billions,” he told FMT.

“You can win that one Pekan seat. But you are going to lose 120 other seats because your goalkeeper is not trying to catch the ball the opposition is trying to score.”

The past week, Deepak has resurfaced after some period of silence, giving several media interviews in which he claimed he regretted getting private investigator P Balasubramaniam to retract his first statutory declaration (SD) concerning murdered Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Balasubramaniam’s first SD had linked Najib to the murder, while the second one reversed it a day later. Balasubramaniam subsequently went missing.

In the interviews, Deepak said that he got involved as a favour to a “female friend”.

Deepak also spoke about a land dispute case, involving him, a Selangor Umno leader and the Defence Ministry, which Najib had then helmed.

Deepak has accused Najib of receiving “contributions” from him for the former’s intervention in the land deal but is upset that the premier now refuses to aid him in resolving the dispute.

He also talked about a fall-out with Najib’s family after his involvement in the Altantuya matter.

Subsequently, Deepak has also claimed to have been forced out of 26 companies that he was a director in. He said that he was also harassed by government agencies and had several government-linked contracts cancelled.

Mahathir is increasingly setting the agenda for political parties. To their extreme discomfiture, he has made a habit of riling the two national political parties who think they alone have a monopoly over Malay voters – PKR and the PAS.Coming back to this charge of someone appropriating what is not theirs, among everything in politics Those of the faith and the superstitious are both agreed that the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) on a window pane from Oct 8 at the Sime Darby Medical Centre (SDMC) in Subang Jaya was, in retrospect, an ominous portent of things to come, and probably heralding a situation which would get a whole lot worse before getting better. And this is also written all over the face of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. It spells BIG TROUBLE!

The visitation, read together with Cambridge University physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking’s long-held observation that “the only predictable property of the universe is chaos”, does not portend too well for the immediate future in Malaysia’s politics especially with a General Elections around the corner.

There are as yet no indications when the long-awaited 13th General Elections will be held, fuelling suspicions that more than some serious mischief-making might be afoot on the part of the beleaguered ruling Barisan National (BN) coalition.

One theory making its way along the political grapevine is that Umno has surreptitiously entered 300, 000 illegal immigrants in the electoral rolls in seats lost by small margins to Pakatan Rakyat, the Opposition Alliance.

Umno’s Department of Dirty Tricks under Opposition scrutiny

The party’s Department of Dirty Tricks reportedly swung into action on the phantom voters the moment former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was hounded out of office by his immediate predecessor Mahathir. What Badawi refused to do at Mahathir’s bidding, Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak has been more than willing to carry out in order to keep his head and his job. Mahathir is a specialist in padding the electoral rolls with illegal immigrants, having engineered the same heinous feat in Sabah over ten years to drive the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) from power.

What Mahathir took ten years to achieve in Sabah is being done in Peninsular Malaysia in less than four years.

One reason is that at 87 years, time is not on Mahathir side. He wants to put his son, Mukhriz, at least in the Deputy Prime Minister’s chair before the grim reaper comes for him to fetch him for the devil to whom he has long sold his wretched soul in emulating Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic programs, via administrative laws, for use against non-Muslims particular in every aspect of life. The Muslim underclass suffered as well since opportunities meant for them didn’t come their way as widely trumpeted by government media and the sycophant mainstream media.

Mukhriz has been charged with ensuring that no one incarcerates his father in his last days, drives him into exile in his native Kerala in southwest India, or becomes mincemeat in the hands of historians or a vengeful government and mainstream media. Mahathir knows that too many people, and still not enough, are thirsting for his blood.

Mahathir setting the stage for massive electoral fraud

Already, to set the stage and prepare public opinion, Mahathir is claiming that the Opposition will cry foul when they lose the next General Election. Najib meanwhile is hysterically stepping up the hype almost on a daily basis, making empty announcement after announcement, to mask his party’s nefarious plans to cheat its way back to Putrajaya for yet another eternity. Umno politicians are beating the drums of war and claiming that, thanks to Najib’s “sterling performance in office”, the party stands poised to win back its long-held and abused two-third majority in Parliament.

BN might be planning to indulge in massive electoral fraud not only to win back the Opposition-ruled states but also to regain the coveted two-third majority in parliamentarians to resume its favourite practice of gerrymandering of the electoral boundaries. It’s gerrymandering coupled with Opposition disunity, the abuse of the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA), strangle-hold on the mainstream media, abuse of government media and machinery, and fraudulent use of postal, civil service and Felda votes which has kept the BN 55 years in power.

The Opposition is unlikely to take any attempts at even more brazen attempts at electoral fraud lying down, especially any sinister move to take away their strongholds in Kelantan, Kedah, Penang and Selangor and prevent them regaining Perak lost in Umno machinations involving corrupt legislators and an even more morally bankrupt Istana.

For starters, they have their logistics network in place to forcibly prevent any attempt by Umno to bus in phantom voters to the polling stations and/or ferry them around from booth to booth. However, there would be problems for the Opposition if the Election Commission, police and army are in cahoots with each other to protect phantom voters and ensure they vote for BN. Indeed, even violence cannot be ruled out if Opposition supporters conclude that they are being robbed of victory.

Next GE may see a replay of 1969 nullification of Opposition victories

Any violence would only play into the hands of Umno which would not hesitate to call off the GE and declare a state of emergency as in May 1969 when supporters of the Opposition and Umno turned on each other and precipitated race riots which drew the Malay Regiment into supporting one side. Ironically, it was Najib’s father Abdul Razak who emerged with blood on his hands in 1969, along with Mahathir and Selangor Menteri Besar Harun Idris, the two other conspirators in a tragedy which still continues to haunt Malaysians.

Adding fuel to the rumour mills is Najib’s open admission not so long ago, upon returning from a trip to London, that he “can easily do what his father did — i. e. declare emergency, call off the General Elections and suspend Parliament — but would not do it”. The fact that Najib is even thinking about it is telling in more ways than one. It remains to be seen whether history would repeat itself all over again.

Clearly, the Opposition cannot afford to meekly allow the Sword of Damocles to plunge into its head while it dilly rallies at untying the Gordon Knot to claim Putrajaya. Like Alexander the Great in history, poised at the western gates of Asia, the Opposition needs to cut through the Gordon Knot with one mighty blow of the sword. Any other measure would not work.

Opposition needs to take firm stand on electoral fraud

For starters, the Opposition needs to take a firm standing in public on the alleged 300, 000 phantoms in the electoral rolls in Peninsular Malaysia.

Keeping on the better safe than sorry side, it should demand iron-clad assurances from the EC and proof that the electoral rolls are squeaky clean.

Alternatively, in the ashes of defeat, it must resign itself to turning Dataran Merdeka into another Tahrir Square, unless it wants to fast forward and unleash a People’s Revolution before what may turn out to be a suicidal GE for it. When the electoral process fails, as in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria in recent months, a People’s Revolution is the only way to change a government which refuses to go quietly.

The Opposition needs to take firm and concrete steps to ensure that it doesn’t suffer the tragic fate of Joseph Pairin Kitingan and PBS in 1994 and the Opposition in 1969.

Equally important, perhaps even more, Mahathir and all those who have blood on their hands must not be allowed to escape the punishment that awaits them in this world for their heinous crimes against their victims, the people, and the nation in the eyes of the Almighty.

Umno president Najib Abdul Razak has long known how to use his own variant of what economists call the ‘multiplier effect’ to enhance his image. During elections in the state, NaMo as he is popularly called by his admirers inspired the creation of the ‘Najib mask’, which his supporters sported in their thousands, thereby creating myriad spitting images – the PM’s critics will find the term particularly apt – of the self-styled strongman of umno who likes to compare himself with Obama.

Barack Obama’s recent re-election is credited to a ‘Mandalisation’ of America, diverse interest groups — African-Americans, Hispanics, gays, women’s rights organisations, college students, medical patients — voting strategically for their preferred candidate. Obama thus reflects an amazing idea of America, a bustling chemistry of political life, bolstered by the world’s most powerful — and free — pop culture.

Obama’s career shows how politics is not cooked up in exclusive lobbies and legislatures, Lutyens’ buildings and gilded meetings, power breakfasts and Power Point presentations. Instead, politics is created everyday by us, through movies, music, humour and books, parents, lovers, strangers and foes, food and fashion, abilities and dejections, grief and strangely beautiful hope. This politics of dreams and realities, powered by ordinary people, created Obama, a particularly American triumph — and one that India is unlikely to see for some time.

There are three levels to Obama’s success — the personal, the political and the pop-cultural. Personally, Obama is a brilliant being. Benefiting from a fine education you don’t need money to buy but a state combining with enterprises of excellence, Obama has described his early angst with lucidity. Born of a white American mother and an African father who vanished early on, Obama was left with what Salman Rushdie elsewhere calls ‘a father-sized hole’. After years of not fitting in properly anywhere, Obama found a key through community work, an American ideal stemming from Protestant roots around service, giving his personal quest the social answer — how to be.

Politics aided him. ‘Politics’ in Obama’s America was more than coteries on Capitol Hill or saber-rattling between a Free World and an Iron Curtain. Politics also meant the right to dignity in life, the right of an African-American to ride on a bus, the right of a woman to earn like a man, the right of a student to question a war. As Obama matured, so did several quests, America’s civil rights agitation, women’s rights movement, gay pride groups, all becoming icons of a nation shrugging off prejudices even its Founding Fathers had. Several of these movements are around the same age as Obama. Little wonder the demographic dividend of America’s ‘Mandalisation’ worked for him.

With poll fever gripping Malaysia, the Besih have cried ‘Foul’ to the Election Commission, asking it to investigate the source of the guesstimated 40million Sabah holographic tamasha is deemed to have cost. The claimed price tag has been pooh-poohed by UMNO spokesman who is quoted as having said that the whole show had cost no more than 100 million.
Quibbling about costs aside, and about where the funds came from to cover those costs, the holographic hoohah shows that Najib hasn’t lost his innate knack of grabbing the publicity limelight, by hook or by crook. His detractors might well say that the gimmicky exercise underlines their charge that the PM is all image and no substance, and that his repeated claims about the development the Malaysia has achieved thanks to his ‘Vibrant ‘ investment melas are belied by the reality on the ground, which is that most of the promised funds have yet to materialise.
Najib fans, however, will argue that by using innovative technology to multiply his electoral outreach, Najib has once again demonstrated his can-do, will-do credentials which, in the eyes of his supporters at least, have earned him the reputation of a miracle-worker.In a democracy as diverse as ours, a successful politician must be one who can be many different things to many different people. And in that sense, for a politician the ability to be in many different places, saying many different things, to many different people is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Indeed, NaMo’s example might inspire other politicians to project themselves as multi-purpose leaders through the use of holographic imagery during election campaigns.Such NaMo-inspired holo-campaigns might be particularly apt in Malaysia where the electoral promises made by politicians inevitably turn out to be holo, which is the preferred pronunciation in Pekan and elsewhere of the word ‘hollow’.