Another Brick in the Wall

The frontpage of The Edge Daily reads above.

As much as Prof Jomo Sundrams wants Malaysian to forget about politics and return to it for the next general election, it is hard to divert public attention to the economic problem from the hottest, biggest and most revealing sex scandal ever.

Forget the law and court for a while, because as far as court of public opinion, Dato Seri Azmin is finish.

The video of Haziq admitting to the homosexual relation and clearer second set of video is shaping public opinion, and no denial and diversionary attempt by Azmin will be of any help. The report by an Australian media that the video was not altered and video of a videographer-blogger, 1Peluru sealed his fate from being the 8th Prime Minister.

Yes, lets take a break from the political scandal to ponder on the fate of the nation.

Subversion diversion of Kit Siang

To spin the political scandal by the call to rise above "gutter politics" in the manner done by Lim Kit Siang in Malaysiakini yesterday, it is no answer to our economic woes.

For one, it is politically motivated in nature.

The "gutter politics" talked about and been discussed in the public sphere is internal PH politics and not linked by any way to BN or PAS as acknowledged by PH leaders themselves. Kit Siang should be making the call on his fellow PH politicians.

Kit Siang's used the example of Venezuela, once one of the 20 richest country in the world but now "poor, backward, broken and bankrupt state" to make public realise the fate of Malaysia to come. But he refuse to realise the fiscal mess arised by Lim Guan Eng's single handed decision to cancel GST and gave a three month tax holiday.

It is not Kit Siang to not talk of 1MDB and kleptocrsy and he did so to blame for the nation's woes as he quoted the prison sentencing of Khadem al-Qudaisy and Mohammed Badawy al-Husseiny, who ran an IPIC subsidiary and squandered money paid by 1MDB to IPIC.

He politically redirecting blame to "MO1" and UMNO-BN without admitting his annointed Attorney General so-called attempt to recover the money through adversarial legal process will not do any better than one "MO1" had negotiated successfully with IPIC.

Tommy Thomas yet able to prove any wrongdoing by MO1. He is struggling with the low hanging SRC case and will likely falter at the more complex and difficult 1MDB case. Adding to woe, their hired prosecutor Dato Gopal Sri Ram is sickly with kidney failing and regularly on sick leave.

It should answer Kit Siang's complain of "the wheels of justice in Malaysia grind so slowly and tardily" because the Attorney General he insisted on is practically incompetent and kept delaying cases!

Kit Siang should discuss the Penang tunnel scandal and the Penang Transport Masterplan that is going to cost taxpayer some RM46 billion, more than the ECRL at atime of economic difficulty and massive budget cut for the common folks welfare.

If he dream of a Malaysia capable of doing a Hong Kong style demonstration, it will be to ouster PH for their incompetence!

He can blame others for the “gutter politics”, which rely on "lies, falsehood, intolerance and hatred hidden in the race, religious and royalty rhetoric of desperate and bankrupt political leaders who could even use religion to justify support for kleptocracy and falsehoods".

It is only misdirecting blame from himself. Over more than half a century, he lead DAP and was the subversion operator applying all those gutter politics.

Forget Jomo

Back to Jomo and his call to forget politics. Kit Siang cannot forget politics, can government itself forget politics?

At a Malaysian Economic Convention yesterday organised by Malaysian Economic Association and UM Economic Faculty, Jomo said the external situation is deteriorating daily. The rest of the report is available here.

After a year in power, heaven sake, Jomo only realised this?

In fact, it is beyond just US-China trade that affected Malaysia but the serious outflow of capital and investment out of the country compounded by decline in ringgit value and fall in commodity prices and buying orders was domestically driven.

For that matter, Najib was first to highlight the lowest ringgit level against Thai Baht and 200-250 pips away from 4.2000 against the US dollar while PH is beseige with the anal practises of Azmin Ali.

Worsening the problems are the pathetic foreign and trade policies of the new PH government.

In Jomo's attempt to re-direct public attention to the nation's economic woes, one journalist commented to yours truly that Jomo is practically saying his Chairman at the Council of Eminent Person and PM's Economic Adviser failed.

In a video that went viral, Dr Muhamamd Khalid confidently claimed there is no problem. All sorted and will be solved!

Jomo should acknowledge that it still goes back to politics because the instability in politics and unreliability of public policy is a major contributing factor to the nation's economic woes.

Telenor Axiata merger intervened!

In Rocky Bru's latest posting, he hinted the possibility of Telenor-Axiata deals may not happen. It could be typically another political U-turn in public policies. It means it is business as usual in Malaysia for politics to meddle in business and economic affair.

Rocky is not wrong to suspect so because Tun Dr Mahathir had earlier expressed reservation for the possible massive retrenchment from the Celcom-Axiata merger.

That was for public consumption but apparently, Mahathir was not briefed properly about the deal. Before anyone think it has anything to do with Tan Sri Vincent Tan, he sold his interest in Digi for quite a while.

Mahathir was only briefed that the Telenor-Axiata is a 50:50 venture at the operating level but at the holding level, Telenor has controlling interest. This will not fit in with his old school mindset.

However, why should IHH be sold to Mitsui and now the first mobile operator in the country and third largest to fall into the hands of a late comer and foreign control?

Who is to blame for the control of Axiata by Telenor?

GLCs was supposed to be the purview of Azmin Ali, but the appointment of Imri Mokhtar for Telekom CEO by Minister of Finance shows it is Lim Guan Eng that is both in charge and taking charge.

Azmin has been a disappointment as both Minister and politician in Mahathir's pact. Not that Mahathir's politics for the last three to five years take account of considerations beyond politic-for-politic sake, but the current political happening should not rule out this possibility.

It is known that Tun Daim played instrumental role in the restructuring of GLCs, thus he could be involved. A source said it was Daim who sealed the deal.

Mahathir has stepped into Telekom and appointed someone Chairman Dato Rosli Man preferred in Noor Kamarul Anuar Nurudin. Apparently, someone professionally familiar with Noor do not see Rosli Man preferred man as capable.

Guan Eng appointment was a better choice, but Mahathir is flexing power and applying politcal authority. Why couldn't Azmin flex?

Interesting enough, before Noor's appointment on June 13th, Telekom shares flew and went limit up before Raya. It made market players think foreign funds is back into the market. The Edge was even throwing the idea of Telekom returning back as a blue chip stock.

A seasoned market player believe it was China money that bought into Telekom and the reason was to spite at the "Jewish" Investment Banker for shorting the Malaysian market. They took quite a beating from the transaction cost of going short and capital loss to the tune of millions daily.

Rocky's posting reported from the Norwegian Woods, the title of a Beatle song about a bird or girl that had flown away. The Norwegian deal is off and it could it be a China deal in the making.

For one, the second page of The Edge Daily today reports Mahathir's defense of Malaysian oil palm.

Astro Awani's website reported Mahathir was going to use the Telenor deal to get Norway to withdraw their ban of Malaysian oil palm. Knowing Norway is part of the EU, they will have to decide as a group and the ban will remain.

Do not forget that Mahathir was laughed at for warning Malaysia will retaliate against EU for banning Malaysian oil palm.

This is geo-global politics at work. As potentially the 8th Prime Minister, will Anwar dare to do such move and upset a foreign country to safeguard Malaysia's economic interest?

It means Jomo should shut his mouth and what is happening is beyond him. The economic reality of Malaysia be it domestically and internationally is that it is tied up to political economy.

How could Jomo ask to forget politics?

Since the last posting on the alleged Azmin Ali-Haziq Aziz sex video, the question that this blog have been pondering over the hands behind the video release and distribution, Haziq's brevity to confess and brimming confidence as he came out of the police after a night of interrogation.

In her column last week, Joceline Tan saw in Haziq "seems to have gone into this high-stakes game with his eyes wide open". In fact, Haziq seemed like a well trained Matahari, a WW 1 spy doing for the German.

It means he has a handler, the term to describe those given charge to manage these so-called agents or operatives. Joceline described it as hidden hands. However, it is not an easy task to know and the best one could figure out is to analysis the outcome of the actions.

Both this blog and followed by Joceline's initial observation mentioned the possibility it is linked to Lathaefa Koya's appointment as MACC Chief Commissioner and transition of power from Tun Dr Mahathir to Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in which Mahathir's preference is to Dato Seri Azmin Ali.

The subsequent events seemed to lead to Anwar as the one to benefit the most from the video expose. One could see Azmin's people and supporters pointing their fingers to Anwar Ibrahim.

This is only an expected outcome after one reporter tipped off Azmin met with Mahathir before he flew off for London. He accused the leak to Anwar and Mahathir ask him why are you waiting? Go pursue!

Anwar?

Despite being the main beneficiary, the reaction of the first PKR's MPKT meeting was rather stunt. They could be acting and pretending to not know, but it seemed they were genuinely surprised by what happened.

One can sense from the reactions they were hated to be going in the same direction again to dwell and defend Sodomy 3. It is not about being in different direction from Azmin but the stigma of the party being forever known as Pee Gay Arr could destroy the party.

If Anwar was the hidden hands, he will face the wrath of Mahathir again. He has been careful not to be seen as forceful and not rock the PH boat.

DAP could be doing it, but not the interested party himself.

This is certainly a change in view from the earlier posting but if Mahathir can often change his stance after the excuse of seeing more evidence, there is nothing wrong in being truthful.

Mahathir?

If it is not Anwar, who else could it be but Mahathir.

This game is not for the normal mortal. It is the games of the Gods or the Malay say, Dewa-Dewa. If not Anwar, it would automatic point to Mahathir, not him per se but within his command.

That curiosity was responded by laughter from a senior political analysts. Naturally, why would he do a number on his current flavour as heir apparent?

More so, DAP's demand for a transition plan puts him in a spot and pushing Mahathir's back towards the wall. The unthinkable action is to knock off one's own allies. .

Nevertheless, there are possible basis for Mahathir to throw Azmin under the bus.

For the past few months, it has been rather quiet on the political party front. It leads to the believe that the planned abandonment of UMNO by its MPs to frog to PPBM has died down.

And, since attainng the PKR Presidency, Anwar has made initial effort to addressed the split in the party between the pro-Anwar and anti-Anwar. Part of the anti-Anwar group support Azmin. So Anwar approached all MPs that possibly is aligned to Azmin and could be supporting Mahathir to turn them over.

Azmin's forte is politics and he may have failed to deliver the number of MPs to support Mahathir. During the PKR party election, grassroot were talking about Azmin turned down Mahathir's request to take on Anwar for the Presidency.

Talk is it was a ploy to get Azmin to leeave PKR and join PPBM.

As Minister, Azmin is not a performer. Apparently, he did not shine and failed to prepare a plan to turnaround the economy. Both Azmin and Lim Guan Eng were unable to deliver of his request and had to be reminded of the assignment.

The plan ended up falling into old Tun Daim to do and it pissed the man.

The common argument to say Mahathir will not do that on Azmin is his defense on the video and other than Azmin, he has none to pick as successor.

However, there is a popular belief that Azmin was dumped by Mahathir to male way for PPBM's Dato Mukhriz. It is popular believe but this blogger viewed Mukhriz is not competent enough.

If one still believe Mahathir is still on top of his game and steps ahead of everyone, the conspiracy theory by Reggie Jessie believe it was his own doing. It was his way of making sure Mukhriz is the successor to Azmin and make Anwar over excited and over confident to do the stupid thing.

According to the theory, Mahathir had bought and paid over 65 of PKR, Amanah, DAP, Sabah/Sarawak and UMNO MPs at the going price of RM25 million. A rumour from a former UMNO state assemblyman, Anwar is giving commitment for US$5 million offer for non-supporter MPs.

There was a rumour heard before GE14 that PPBM had amassed RM1 billion war chest to buy over UMNO MPs in the event PPBM come short to be in power for Mahathir to be Prime Minister.

All this could happen when Mahathir return from the Bangkok Asean meeting tomorrow. It has to be sorted out before the next Parliamentary seating on July 1st. His press secretary already returned earlier.

According to a PKR state leader source, the targeted date for Anwar to assume the premiership is before August. He is expected to get the support of Abang Jo and GPS MPs.

Taib Mahmud?

In the earlier posting, it was speculated that Latheefa Koya would pursue Pehin Seri Taib Mahmud.

This is one of the Gods of politics able to silently do such a manouvre. By hitting at Azmin, it could be Taib Mahmud's subtle message to Latheefa. Known to be feisty, she may choose to ignore a norm and unstated agreement that Taib is not to be touch.

It does not matter that Sarawak Report's Clare Rewcastle is now friendly to Mahathir and Sarawak state election is coming up, he is one of the Gods of Malaysian politics in the same league as Mahathir.

Touching him could lead to the break up of Malaysia. The alleged corruption against him may have ulterior 's motive beyond the knowledge of others.

As a Santubong boy, in which the constituency is a PBB stronghold and Dato Wan Junaidi used to win by more than 20,000 majority, Haziq Aziz could be a Matahari planted into PKR to fix Azmin. This fit in with the claim by PKR that he has been in and out of PKR.

Another reason to suspect so is the manner Haziq anticipated and replied to every move by Azmin but as pointed out by Hishamuddin Rais, the confession does not jive. He was frolicking with Azmin in May and decided Azmin should be investigated by MACC.

It cannot be the work of any branch of government intel or special assignment units.

If Taib had OK the plan, it would have been timely as fingers will point to Anwar and it had long been anticipated something would happen after Raya.

However, it will not stop Latheefa and in fact, it could make her more determined. This ruled out one of the Gods.

Daim?

So it is not Anwar, not Mahathir, not Taib, could it be Daim?

Daim have been quiet and minding his focus on the economy of the country, whacking at Guan Eng and getting sabotaged by him. It would seemed he has distanced himself from politics.

Remember that in April, Daim requested 6 months more to deliver on the promise. By right, he has no time to play political games.

That is unless his 6 months promise meant to solve the political impasse of the PH government that hinders the restructuring and process of economic recovery policies. There seemed to be a lack in priority in the PH government with each Minister pursuing their own agenda and not in concert with the rest of cabinet members.

Daim would spot Azmin's incompetency. He has been more a hangers on than actually able to make hard decision and put together and implement plans. In Selangor, he became MB with the support of PAS and claim achievement from the effort of Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim.

While there could be motivation to throw Azmin under the bus, it would not make sense for him to do so just to replace Azmin.

What is the motivation?

Muhyiddin?

Since it is difficult to figure out what the Gods could have done, it could have been the work of the lesser gods.

Muhyiddin have the motive to do the number on Azmin. While he maintain a steady exterior and kept his narrative as consistent with principles, the now known manuvering of Muhyiddin against Najib means he is capable of throwing stones and hiding his hands.

For the month before Ramadhan, he was said to be returning lately at night ever so oftenly that the neighbours he passed through to his gate at Bukit Damansara could not stop noticing. Their concern have been his health condition.

It is said he is not accompanied by outsider, thus he could be more on social visits or conspiring with his factions.

However, to think he is conspiring something, it is over stating his politics.

After the open quarrel with Mahathir in the emergency PPBM meeting, he had no traction and support from the party and members to take on Mahathir, except perhaps the support among PPBM Johor.

That quarrel open himself vulnerable to Mahathir who will see him as a threat or as the Malay saying, gunting dala lipatan or scissor within the folded clothes.

One would not be surprise Mahathir will reshuffle cabinet to replace him at Home Affairs with Mukhriz and have the likes of Deputy Minister of Finance, Dato Amiruddin Hamzah to replace Mukhriz as Kedah MB.

It is laughable but Mahathir could go to the extent of challenging him for PPBM Presidency to oust him.

Muhyiddin may have given up and do a scorch earth strategy. PPBM is not supportive of Azmin but defensive of any attack on Mahathir. Only his man, Dato Rais Hussin attacked Syed Sadiq for defending Azmin.

Apparently ROS instructed PPBM to hold their AGM before mid-July or run risk of being closed up. The party was established in 2016 and it has yet do a proper AGM. Muhyiddin will be blame.

If Muhyiddin has a hand in Azmin's affair, he could be using some outfit with no attachment to Mahathir or his appointed man in Home Ministry. It explains for the rather sloppy execution, but would he?.

By doing so, it helps Anwar without him knowing. He could just crossover to PKR and retire in peace. It is not only Muhyiddin that is frustrated with Mahathir, Shafie Apdal too.

At the current juncture of his life, will he make such move knowing more could be exposed of the skeletons in his closet and Nika Gee affair?

Dissolve or not to dissolve?

According to Raja Petra's posting, Anwar has 140 and Mahathir has 40. If Mahathir does nothing, Anwar could be Prime Minister before Christmas or earlier. Omigod ... massive amount of funds will the country as no investors have any inkling of confidence with Anwar's management of the economy.

The only caution is it is not as simple as what was said.

Logically speaking, Mahathir could not single-handedly reshuffle cabinet without consulting with his fellow PH members of the Presidential Council. He cannot afford to risk PPBM hold on power to change MB of Kedah.

And, he must be willing to do something drastic like calling a snap election. Why would he do so when it is not to his advantage as UMNO-PAS could regain power with the UMNO frogs that joined PPBM serve the purpose to reinvigorate the party?

He could prefer to remain status quo as PKR and DAP is not willing to risk losing power so there will not be any move against Mahathir.

But then there have been a slight twist overnight when Papagomo asked whats wrong with supporting Mohamed Hasan working together with Mahathir for sake ummah unity. Apparently, a major UMNO leader left his state UMNO WA group at 3 AM. Jeng jeng jeng ....

It is expected Mahathir will be making moves upon his return and many drastic actions within the next 10 days including talk of massive buying of MPs. However, it should not be just for the non-supporter. The supporting MPs may want to be paid too, isn't it?

Its not so simple.

The above picture of Tun Dr Mahathir's staring posture at Dato Seri Azmin Ali in a meeting went viral.

It could be any meeting with government officers in Putrajaya, but the small room led to speculation that it is in Bangkok, where Mahathir attended an ASEAN Summit and Azmin is there too. The joke is Mahathir is pondering as to why Azmin would do such thing.

The common feedback received from friends across various political parties is Azmin is finished, kapish!

Mahathir is not likely to choose Azmin as Deputy Prime Minister or pass the premiership to Anwar. He reiterated the promise to hand over to Anwar in a Bloomberg interview with Haslinda Amin. However, the body language does not indicate so.

It is most glaring at 1:43 when Haslinda asked does he trust Anwar Ibrahim.

Contrary to his words on the need to put house in order first, it is unlikely Mahathir could continue beyond the end of the year after few instances heard of falling at official functions abroad.

In a letter to FMT editor, septuagenarean Yap Thang Kuan pleaded on Malaysians to Mahathir go and not burden him further to solve nation's problems following to the fallout from the alleged Azmin's homosexual tape.

Merdeka Center recent poll indicate Mahathir's popularity plummet to the 40 percentile. It is Yap's polite and subtle way of saying Mahathir should stop giving excuses and give way to others.

Lim Kit Siang's defense of Mahathir is not sincere too.

Successor

If Azmin was his heir apparent and had taken the same path as Anwar, Mahathir should be in a state of frenzy to talk and cut deals with other potential successors. Among PH leaders, some names may have been mentioned. Lets leave it to them to sort it out.

Aside from the quarrel, which is temporary and could be sorted out, Mahathir is not likely to pick Tan Sri Muhyiddin due to health reasons. Other than Anwar, none of the other leaders of PH component parties are PM material.

If it had been Lim Guan Eng, he would spend all his time spinning and deceiving the public than do any serious governing. Not only what he say is not believable, what he is still thinking is too.

It's a Ripley's believe it or not moment, but do not discount the possibility Mahathir is seeking help from UMNO.

His ego would not allow him to do it himself, so he sent out feelers. Past moves by certain UMNO leaders could be to establish back channel with PPBM in the event any need arise to talk. Something could be happening behind the scene as Azmin tried to contain the public conversation of his expose.

Among the narrative used to convince UMNO MPs to crossover was to neutralise DAP and fear of Anwar become PM (read CIA plant and DAP control). The same common interest could be used for Mahathir to draw out a new coalition and cajole a successor from UMNO to accept his new arrangement.

Raja Petra jumped the gun to viral this message:

Looking at how things are going, Dr Mahathir might have no choice but to appoint Ku Li as the new PM. Ku Li is the only leader with no sex or financial scandals and is acceptable to Tun Daim, Muhyiddin, PAS, Umno, DAP, PPBM, MCA, MIC, Gerakan and to Sabah-Sarawak parties as well.

It was echoed by Reggie Jessie.

Mahathir must have ran out of options to pass the baton to Tengku Razaleigh. For one reason or another, Anwar, Najib, Zahid and Ku Li are those he would rather handover power to Netanyahu than them.

Apparently, acting President Mohamed Hasan could be an option. His name turned up in Papagomo aka Wan Azri's LIVE You Tube discussion on ummah unity, which Pemuda UMNO is promoting.

Dato Lokman Noor Adam picked on Azri's willingness to commit a position to accept Mahathir to cooperate with Dato Mohamed Hasan for sake of ummah unity. Tok Mat have been known to have met Mahathir to plead for UMNO not to be dissolve.

It was brave of Azri to test the water but should have held back name calling and respect the diversity in view. It is high time for a reformed UMNO to allow public discource on the direction of the party instead of behind the scene manouvering which usually ended up decided before feedback is seek.

As oppose to Azri's aspiration for ummah unity, Lokman explained his stance based on the realpolitik and manouvering he believed is Mahathir controlling and manipulating UMNO. In his view, UMNO and PAS is able to win GE15 thus why the need to cooperate with Mahathir?

Rejection for return of Mahathir

Response from pro-UMNO facebooker opposed to the cooperation between UMNO and Bersatu. Mohd Izwan Abu Bakar blamed Mahathir for the decay and damage in UMNO. He questioned a mnouver blamed at Dato Khaled Nordin to throw out Dato Najib out of UMNO.

Mahathir's ins and outs of UMNO was raised.

Facebooker and SEDAR activist, Zam Yahya opposed cooperation with Mahathir to prevent UMNO reverting back to past crony capitalism. He raised the presence of Bersatu would complicate the seat distribution between UMNO and PAS.

One FB posting equate the presence of Mahathir to minority Jew dominating the world.

Najib has called for calm and sensibility.

The manner the issue has blown up could hurt Tok Mat in UMNO. He may have been former CEO of Cycles & Carriage Berhad and MB of Negeri Sembilan. The common view is he has never been a player in national politics.

He and won the Deputy Presidency of UMNO with the backing of Dato Hishamuddin Hussein Onn. It is a puzzle as to why Hishamuddin decided not to run and be part of the revival of UMNO. For Tok Mat to be PM, the Negeri Sembilan-der needs hand holding.

Since six months ago, Hishamuddin had quiet down, and the crossover talk died down along. If he still have ambition and no a need to only focus on his constituency, Sembrong, he could come back as Minister subject to the condition he survived Mat Sabu's dirt digging.

It is a matter of time for Zahid Hamidi to make his return, in which he should not be on leave in the first place. There seemed to be opposition for his return, claimed Jailani Harun but Tok Mat laid it to rest. Should Zahid Hamidi decide not to stand for get re-election, Hishamuddin could certainly seize the Presidency in any contest against Mat Hasan.

There is the likelihood the political senario has changed. Things are moving fast and situation is fluid. Past plans could make a return. As it is, there is an an UMNO from a state had to evade endless calls for appointment from PH agents. Is an offer coming?

Meanwhile, another active MP left the same WA group.

After the video of Tun Dr Mahathir hesitant body language went viral yesterday, The Star today reported a CNBC interview of Mahathir saying he will step down within 3 years.

Having Monday morning blues.

In between one doctor appointment to another doctor for mother at a hospital, the question that pops up is when do the 3 years begin?

If it is from last year, Mahathir would pass the premiership presumably to Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim within the latest 2 years time.

However, if the three years begin now, then Mahathir could end up finishing the full term.

At the last PPBM party convention, there calls for Mahathir to finish his term. Tan Sri Rais Yatim recently said there was no agreed date signed between Mahathir and Anwar.

It is not convenient to do a thorough analysis of the various news report now, but it does not take line by line analysis and looking through the sequences of events to reiterate Mahathir is not handing power to Anwar.

In The Star report, it is mentioned:

Mahathir had said that the government needs three years to reduce Malaysia’s debt from 80% of gross domestic product to 54%.

Mahathir said he wanted to bring the level of the debt down, which could mean he wanted to do it himself.

Anwar should be thankful that Mahathir is gracious to not want to burden Anwar to start his Prime Ministership with problems.

If any of Anwar's supporter was a fan of the British sitcom, Yes Prime Minister, they would realised at work is "salami tactic... slice by slice".

Mahathir used to be a fan of the sitcom.

In this case, Mahathir was hardly being gracious and may have did one on Anwar for saying the wrong thing.

This morning while waiting outside the doctor's office and reading news on the smartphone, there was a Malaysiakini report of now with Anwar PKR Info Chief claming PKR never demand for immediate transition of power.

Cute, Anwar got Lim Kit Siang to ask for a schedule and now Anwar is giving mixed signals.

For that mistake by Shamsul Iskandar. Mahathir seized on it.

The Star reported Dato Sri Anwar said the transition is a done deal.

Yesterday, The Star put up a frontpage of Haziq Aziz challenging Dato Seri Azmin to sue, in which his lawyer, N Surendran said will not.

Anwar was already brimming with confidence that he managed to corner Mahathir. He seemed sure that his time has come.

Today Mahathir fooled and outsmart him again. He went to the extent of saying Azmin is not so stupid to be embroiled in a sex scandal.

Is Azmin still in the running or just keeping Anwar at bay?

An excerpt in this blog's February 28th, 2019 posting entitled "Is NEAC 2.0 to endorse "jual negara", including TH's asset?" reads:

Felda and FGV have been forced to sell lands and properties.

Effort by new Felda Chairman, Tan Sri Megat Zaharuddin Megat Md Nor to put together short, medium and long term plan to revive Felda was hardly appreciated. The one research sensation economist insist to only to sell assets only.

Heard Megat given up and seeking to resign. Among the names to replace would be Dato Mustapha Mohamed and Dato Abdul Kadir Jasin.

The Edge reported 2 hours ago: Megat Zaharuddin resigns as Felda chairman. It is Edge daily headline for today. Will that mean Kadir Jasin could be the next Chairman of Felda?

Before this blog had a fighting chance of being a conversation piece, Astro Awani speculated the return of Tan Sri Bakke Salleh to Felda.

It does come as a surprise after reading the atrociously written letter to the PM revealed by Rocky Bru. How could he write a letter to PM in such a dry business manner without due recognition of the position of the person it was meant to be?

This is Malaysia Baru and it could be another new way things are done. Past expectation does not apply.

Why did Megat resigned?

According to Mahathir, he resigned due to ill health. Having Mahathir explained, it is hope it would squash any rumours and negative aspersion made.

Problem is it did not for Dato Seri Azmin. People are still pointing their finger at him. Mahathir said it is not the practise in Malaysia for politicians to resign on fake videos. And he did not believed Azmin would be so stupid. It is likely he did not complete his sentence and left it hanging. "Azmin is stupid ...!"

Hope he never intended to say Megat is a sick man. Megat statement was made not by him but on his behalf.

In The Edge report, Megat said in the internal memo:

“On April 10 this year, the government presented the white paper with a new model for the sustainability of Felda. With this transformation plan, Felda will soon be restructured to succeed in all the efforts by a new Felda.

“That is my journey and involvement during my service here, but my journey has come to an end. Hence today (yesterday), I want to announce my resignation with a heavy heart as Felda chairman,” said Megat Zaharuddin in the memo written in Bahasa Malaysia.

The conclusion in the White Paper came as rather surprise as it seemed not departing from the manner Felda does it business.

Mentioned is the priority to reduce the debt burden of Felda's second and third generation settlers. It is something selective socialist Lim Guan Eng would not condone and cooperate. He could witheld the cheque.

A Shell man turned banker like Megat would have resorted to make Felda self sustainable and operate in business-like manner.

However, that would be a departure from the nature of Felda as an organisation with socio-political roles to play. If that is not considered, PH could lose the Felda seats gained at GE14.

Plantation man Bakke could be a better choice than Tok Pa the PTD administrator-type and Kadir Jasin the media man.

It is a time of doing things and not of waiting for instruction and good communication or propaganda.

The term of reference or KPI or task to be given to the new Chairman is not known.

Will Felda remain in its social political role?

If it remained so, oh oh ... the CEO of Felda is a civil engineer, who as PKNS GM turned the social organisation into a corporate entity.

PKNS ended up building luxury and expensive condominiums, and stopped building low cost or affordable housing for the rakyat of Selangor.

But then again, under a crisis situation and urgency of achieving results, Felda should not remain conventional.

The White Paper should have emphasised on smart farming and not mention at the end. Articial Intelligence is needed to bring cost down and pass the savings to farmers.

Priorities are to bring cost down, new market to increase sales and take farmers out of 1970 level of income. Over time and at cabinet level, a strategy need be drawn up to increase oil palm prices.

Alas the White Paper was intended for Azmin to train the political gun and change public perception against Dato Najib but it bombed out in Parliament.

There was public outcry on the social media to the video FGV's Hari Raya gathering and Chairman Dato Wira Azhar Hamid joined dancing to the tune Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive".

The song is appropriate for FGV to inspire its staff after a RM1 billion net loss for FY December 2018 due to impairment and provisions. EBIT for first quaarter 2019 dropped by 19% from RM96 million to RM78 million.

Whatever Azhar said about becoming a high performance company and strategic shift, the current snap shot on CPO and strategic shift to durian may yet to be convincing. The party-like atmosphere was in bad taste to stakeholders and Felda settlers participating in the various Felda schemes.

The land FGV is planting on are leased land from Felda. Though it does not belongs to the settlers and Felda is a government agency, FGV should take into consideration the sufferings of settlers in the Felda schemes.

The poor results of FGV impacted Felda and the business model of listing FGV to generate revenue to finance social and economic programs are affected. With Lim Guan Eng's reluctance to allocate funds and resisted signing approved disbursement for Felda, the settlers are financially affected.

The price of oil palm is at the low end and farmers are earning way below RM1,000 a month and as low as monthly wage level of the 1970s.

Groundbreaking shareholders' activism

It may not be fair to Azhar, but the major shareholders of FGV rejected the fees for the Directors. Nevertheless, Azhar was willing to waive his RM600,000 Directos' fees, but request others Directors be paid theirs' totalling RM1.1 million.

However, the compromise proposal was still rejected at the meeting.

It is unprecedented in Malaysian corporate history and whether it is fair or not on the Directors, it is irrelevant and hair-splitting compared to the groundbreaking shareholders' activism move.

The important point here is that it is one positive step forward in shareholders activism. It is long overdue for shareholders to make their presence felt and not be "bought" by the generous food and freebies given by management at AGM/EGMs.

It did not involve the retired uncles and aunties yet, but it is hope shareholders will make their presence more and stop allowing themselves being bullied by major shareholders and told to sell their shares if they do not like how the company is run.

It is a mixed signal to re-elect the Directors but not pay them. It does put into question the ability and also the lack of sensitivity of Azhar for putting forward the proposal.

Why did Azhar not talk to the shareholders behind close door, at least the major shareholders before the proposed Directors' fees presented at the AGM?

Azhar said he was "clueless" and did not anticipate it coming. Its quite typical of professional corporate to take things for granted.

Sensitivity required

It shows the cut and dry accountant lacked human sensitivity to allow such an ostentatious Hari Raya party and present a proposal for Directors fee at a time the company had lost heavily.

After the message given by shareholders, MR reported him telling reporters, “It seems that all our efforts over the past year are not appreciated. That is our immediate feeling which may be wrong, but that is the feeling.”

He had announced a strategic transformation plan for 2019 and beyond. He announced new CEO and three new top management. There were various initiaves planned and explored such as palm kernel based products, discuss the landlease with Felda, plant 1,400 ha of durian and land located, plug leakages to save RM150 million a year, etc.

Azhar have been doing crisis communication plan to write to its shareholders, explained the transformation plan, promised timely updates, and giving hope the worst has passed, The new CEO had interviews to share his plans, discussed the landlease options, and giving hope 2019 KPI will be achieved.

Shares soared but it is not due to Chairman letter. Words in the market is China investors came in to buy fallen stocks like FGV and Telekom and shorties were given a rude awakening to cause shares to fly.

FGV is still shrouded in negativity from the politically intended White Paper on Felda presented in Parliament to shoot the decisions to list FGV and its investment. Yet the CEO insisted the listing was necessary.

The Edge called the mismanagement of Felda and FGV as the turkey of the year for 2018. It cannot be ignored. Azhar was appointed FGV Chairman on September 2017.

On another serious and matter, management seemed to not be concerned with threat of sanction by RSPO concerning involvement in "alleged forced labour, trafficking in workers, and providing dire living conditions for them, among other widespread illegal wrongdoings" arising from WSJ investigative report in 2015.

PM raised the question where have all the FGV money gone in Parliament. FGV board should have been aware of the scrutiny of both public and political leaders of Felda and FGV before seeking for Directors fee.

In the first place, how could a Directors accept their fees when shareholders are not getting any dividend. That was the position taken by the late Tan Sri Nasruddin Mohamed, former Chairman of MMC and popularly seek to be Directors of PLCs in those days.

Yesterday's media headline was Tan Sri Megat Zaharuddin resignation which look more like being booted out.

If this blog could have heard of it, do not tell us Azhar was not aware. Why did he insisted in putting forward such proposal as though it is business as usual as per the White Paper conclusion?

Azhar maybe surprise and hand no inklings because the accountant is too dry, obsessed with his so-called principles and lack sensitivity. It is as if he is not living in a world of humans.

A member of PPBM's MPT will not forget his insensitivity at MRT Corporation. Doubt he realised that the PPBM MPT is linked to one of the institutional shareholder that witheld payment for his services. Maybe it is payback time.

Maybe it is not time for the dancing Chairman to leave because he was not responsible for the mess at Felda and FGV caused by Tan Sri Isa Samad. Nevertheless, it is no more about looking at the past.

Both Azhar and the next Chairman of Felda should be more serious, urgent and sensitive at their job.

It is often claimed the quotation, "The law is an ass" came from the legal genius of British legal system, Lord Denning. Apparently, it is not.

The quotation, as Wikipedia puts it, means the law, as created by legislators or as administered by the justice system, cannot be relied upon to be sensible or fair".

In Malaysia, government MPs simply aye all laws proposed by government on the instruction of the Chief Whip, which under BN, was Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and subsequently replaced by Dato Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The law drafter may have given enforcement agencies too much power to the extent junior officers could abuse the law at will. However, the blame has to be the whip system, which insisted voting is done along party line and decided by party leaders.

This is all leading to concern and critique of AMLA or the civil forfeiture law.

It came about out the first impression of the first PC by new Chief Commissioner of MACC, Latheefa Koya to announce the civil forfeiture on 41 accounts alleged to have received illegally money from 1MDB.

The PC seemed to emulate the then US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch announcement on the civil forfeiture and investigation into 1MDB.

Latheefa's PC as groundbreaking. It was not. It was noticeable to see the handsome MACC Commisioner, Datuk Azam Baki momentarily aged.

In the meanwhile, Director in charge of AMLA, Muhammad Zamri bin Zainul Abidin was could not hold back his glee.

Zamri's wrong advise?

There have been gossips of Zamri, the former MACC Chief, Dato Shukti Abdul's trusted man.

He had allegedly applied AMLA to freeze accounts at will in the Sarawak's Operasi Gergaji, failed in his investigation resulting in MACC embarassing loss against Dato Mirza Taib repeatedly and Dato Latiff Bandi, pursuing Tan Sri Musa Aman on long debunked Michael Chia allegation, and in the lurch following Shukri's resignation.

This posting is not about Zamri repeating the same modus operandi to freeze accounts at will, but often ended up with nothing.

It is beyond Zamri, who seemed to have gained weight lately due to water retention, or life has been good. To gain attention of Latheefa, he was accused of illegally securing handphone evidence of a former Minister.

Although Zamri may have wrongly advised Latheefa to make himself relevant, this posting is about the problems of AMLA and more problems it created to public and economy.

The latest civil forfeiture against 41 individuals, political parties, and NGOs attracted critics, negative comments, and even sniggers and laughters at Latheefa.

Zamri's mamak survival instinct, but yet incompetent, will have bearing on Latheefa. Off course, she is still learning the ropes and acceptable to make mistakes.

Her announcement on the civil forfeiture and warning the 41 not to talk to the press are odd. It is usually done by AG or DPP. The law have yet been amended to separate public prosecution role from AG and allow MACC to undertake prosecution. .

At one Hari Raya open house hosted by a senior member of the legal community last week, civil forfeiture became the subject of conversation.

An ear witness sat quietly as a mouse as prosecutors and judges ridiculed and passed disparaging remarks in the manner AMLA was seen as abused, misinterpreted and enforced.

It only look bad at Latheefa as all this is happening under her watch. Guess that could be the concerned look of "aged" Azam. In a face saving statement, Azam told media there are more names and more will be slapped with civil forfeiture.

Politics

The political arguments against the latest civil forfeitures ranged from the use of AMLA as political tool, bankrupting UMNO, freeze of business accounts of bona fide providers of products and services, the postphonement of 1MDB case by AG to October, mentioned in SRC case of Arab donation banked-in Dato Najib's accounts, and need to establish it was 1MDB money and not Arab donation.

Bung Mokhtar claimed the move is selective prosecution. The recipients list have been an open secret for many years thus why 41 only and not 408 as once mentioned by Shukri.

Absent are the names of Dato Mustapha Mohamed, Dato Mukhriz, Tan Sri Muhyiddin, Dato Shafie Apdal, Dato VK Liew and LDP, Dato Madius Tangau and UPKO, Tan Sri Joseph Kurup and PBRS, Dato Rosol Wahid, Mas Ermieyati, former UMNO Bagan Serai MP and all the recipients that left for PH.

If all UMNO division heads received money, Zamri should have frozen the accounts of almost all the PPBM MPs that used to be UMNO MPs and the UMNO MPs that crossed over to PPBM!

For that matter, a tweeter posting claimed Tun Dr Mahathir received RM10 million and it was personally collected by English Channel swimmer, Dato Malik Mydin at Najib's home. There is a rumour going round claiming the total amount is RM30 million.

The civil forfeiture has politically backfired. Lim Guan Eng claimed that a media NGO receiveved money and that invited Gerakan to raise the name of Muhyiddin, Mukhriz and Shafie. What kind of leader is Mukhriz as then UMNO Kedah Liaison Chief to claim ignorance?

In Raja Petra latest posting, he wrote all politicians should not pretend not to know of the large amount of money used for general election. Everyone did it but only now UMNO kena because Mahathir dendam. He was no angel but a skillful operator.

It must have been unbearable for Latheefa that she had Azam Baki to reveal there is more and more will be charged under civil forfeiture.

That explained his discomfort during the Latheefa's PC, which is believed to receive Mahathir's blessing. Being 40 years in ACA and MACC, he could fathom the implication.

Civil forfeiture

It is timely to link back to a December 2017 posting HERE on a talk by an American attorney and former Harvard professor. Thomas C Goldstein on civil forfeiture at UiTM.

As taken from Bigdog HERE, the last para in DOJ's June 15 2017 press conference that revealed on the 1MDB debacle briefly and accurately described civil forfeiture action:

"A civil forfeiture complaint is merely an allegation that money or property was involved in or represents the proceeds of a crime. These allegations are not proven until a court awards judgment in favor of the U.S."

The AMLA criminal case against Najib is not proven but the legal treatment of the civil forfeiture case is different from the Najib cases.

Criminal cases require prove beyond reasonable doubt to be judge guilty. Civil cases is based on on balance probability. Both criminal and civil case require court judgement to prove guilt before any sentencing on the persons charged.

However, civil forfeiture is neither criminal nor civil in nature but quasi civil and criminal. It does not deal with the person but money and is meant to prevent illegally money suspected to have been obtained by criminal means to be forfeited to stop it from being taken out and evidence disappeared.

AMLA allows the investigating officer the power to freeze accounts of money from suspected criminal activities for few months.

Subsequently, the AG could freeze it up to a year, in which upon expiry, there must be a charge made against them. Failing which, it has to be releases as in the case of MBI International and Dato Hamzah Zainuddin should be answerable.

To extend the retention of the forfeiture, without the difficult task of getting the evidence ready for criminal prosecution is to do a civil forfeiture similar to the one done on the asset seized in Najib's home and Pavillion condominiums.

AMLA abused

That move on Najib is correctly done under AMLA law. So does on the 41 accounts, but it is unfair, insensible and politically motivated.

It denies Najib access and use of the money. Constitutionally, it is denying the rights to property and infringing human rights. Where are the human rights lawyers? Arwah already?

It is likely Latheefa has wrongly used AMLA for political purpose. Based on the suspicion it was to deny Najib the money for him to make any comeback or support UMNO's political operation, the civil forfeiture was abused for politics.

The reason is simply Dato Najib and Datin Seri Rosmah has explained and provided documents on each of the asset seized. Thus there is no reason to do so.

Same with the civil forfeiture on the 41. These accounts were frozen last year and it is due to be released. The civil forfeiture could have been used to deny money to the account holders. Again, the account holders have explained and provided evidence. Why the forfeiture if not for political expediency?

To camouflage the political intention, innocent businessmen selling products like Jakel had their bank accounts frozen. Those data analytics, public relation, media work etc. ended up getting their accounts frozen for bona fide services rendered.

Does that mean recipents like Kg Baru masjid, mini dams in the interiors of Sabah and Sarawak etc should be denied the facilities built?

Legally speaking, those Haj should also have their Haji title withdrawn. Closer to Mahathir's heart, the Langkawi fisherman should not go out to sea with 1MDB boats donated to them!

Such reckless and irresponsible application of AMLA by several agencies is believed to have frozen some RM10 billion money. That amount of money can be leveraged and lent out by Banks for at least 10 times for RM100 billion. If it is 20, that is RM200 billion.

Holding back the money will affect suppliers, salary and wages, company business operation, service providers, and all down the line.

Companies getting accounts frozen could defult on their loan repayments and Banks can start taking legal actions thus compounding the problem further.

Its impact affect on money supply could be more based on the economic multiplier.

Illegally applied

To the legal practitioners, civil forfeiture law is intended to stop money from criminal activities from dissipating away.

It is a useful too against corruption and illegal activities. Any CEO or Chairman could sellout from the mere threat of AMLA.

Genuine civil forfeiture can be justified. For the 41 cases, has Zamri and now Latheefa pondered whether the money meant for GE13 could possibly remain in those 41 accounts after GE14?

Frankly, it cannot be.

Any claims for electoral expenses are cleared and accounts closed within days after any elections - by-election or general election. No more money will be in the accounts after two general elections.

In the frozen accounts, the money are from new deposits and surely not from alleged 1MDB money.

This is common sense in which Zamri's usual legal reference, Tan Sri Gani Patail, would have advised. Perhaps the advise was on how to get around it.

The manner accounts were frozen is deemed illegal. MACC or likely Zamri is aware that the alleged 1MDB money have been spent and the frozen monies are not from questionable source.

If Najib is being charged for abuse of power and prosecution intend to send him behind bars for it, Latheefa and Zamri have commited the same.

Acting President, Tok Mat said UMNO will challenge the suit. They have legal grounds.

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Cambridge Dictionary explained the quotation "The law is an ass" also means "the legal system or a particular law is wrong or not good enough, and should be changed".

If one care to observe, lawyers dwell most of court time on the law. Judges interpreting the law or in Malaysia's cases, most judges tend to be lazy to interpret and rely solely on law precedents. The court hardly care whether the law is justified, fair or make sense.

If one hear any arguments to seek justice and fairness in court, it is only when their back is against the wall and the particular law does not make sense or impractical.

This time around it is not the rhetoric of justice but even the ass was broken. No offense Azmin.

The rumour of Dato Ahmad Zahid Hamidi returning from gardening leave and resume the UMNO Presidency have been going around for a few months.

It was long anticipated that there was sufficient time for politician-led MACC to slap him wiih additional 33 more charges related to alleged corruption involving RM42.76 million from Ultra Kirana Sdn Bhd in relation to the Overseas Visa System and One Stop Centre in China.

When he was charged last week, a friend texted to comment Zahid is gone. But when he made the long expected surprise yesterday, the impulsive comment from most non-politician observers is to question UMNO for accepting a tarnished Zahid back.

Is Zahid gone or back?

It depends whether one is talking politics or something else. Often the case, Malaysians wants to talk of politics but it is about something else. And when they talk about a subject, say corruption, what they actually is talking or end up talking is politics.

There have been many analysis and opinions on the return of Zahid such as concern on moral perception, number game between supporting Tun Dr Mahthir or Anwar. and handing over the presidency to Dato Mohamed Hassan.

Really, what is there to talk about? This is UMNO internal party matter and only for public observation but not concern. UMNO presidency does not determine national leadership. Yet the Mahathirites and Anwarista are competing for UMNO MP votes.

Will there be a vote of no confidence in Parliament?

Legitimate President

Zahid is the legitimate President, elected by the party and as far as party rule, he has not infringed on anything to warrant him to be expelled. The leave was not granted by anyone or group of people.

There was a political situation he needed to avoid by taking leave. Dato Hamzah Zainuddin demanded Zahid to withdraw or he crossover, but Zahid was elected so he took leave. He merely informed his deputy and the deputy agreed to be acting president.

Hamzah ended up still crossing over to PPBM. The demand was never genuine.

There was no reason for Zahid to be on gardening leave. There is no gardening leave for a political party president. When one takes a long leave, in this case is 7 months, the acting president will have to take charge and do what he think is best.

What the acting president thinks is best may not be viewed as best by the president. He may have acted wrongly or end up not doing anything. He is a former banker and businessman and the manner of his decision making is based on snapshot view, but that is how he is.

If anything goes wrong, the acting president should not be blamed. That is unless he made a decision unilaterally.

Expelling Najib and Zahid?

For instance, it was a sensible thing to do to clean UMNO of any corrupt practises.

Although many people out there including UMNO supporters are cynical and claimed how could those with soiled hands try to clean the party, attempt they did.

There was a failed effort by Dato Khaled Nordin to institute a constitutional amendment to expel members linked to corruption. Some say he attempted to have those charged for corruption removed of the party. But some say it is only for those convicted of corruption.

Which ever way, politics got in the way.

Khalid was seen as collaborating with the enemy for taking advise from a think tank based at Menara Ilham, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur and led by a Sarawakian.

And it was seen as a manouvre to remove Dato Najib and Dato Zahid from UMNO.

However, one could partly blame the former MB for "Johor Baru" for it. He seemed to be blaming everyone, particularly Najib, but himself, for his lost at both Parliament and state seat in Pasir Gudang.

The 87 charges against Zahid is already in court. Though many have judged him guilty, it will be for the court to decide. Personal opinion does not matter any more and discussion should end.

Court politics

However, the court process is not without its politics.

There is a criminal trial in which the prosecutor is a civil lawyer and judge is civil law judge doing for the first time an important criminal case.

For instance, the civil forfeiture against Najib and his wife has the suspicious intention to deny him access to asset and money. That is constitutionally wrong.

The civil forfeiture against the 41 names allegedly linked to 1MDB money has similar intention and an obvious case of wrongful application of AMLA and civil forfeiture. It is no more along the legally intended purpose of preventing money from criminal source dissipating away but political intention to inconvenient the 41, including one deceased!.

On the latest charge against Zahid, Ultra Kirana belongs to Khairy Jamaluddin money man, Wan Quoris Shah bin Wan Abdul Ghani or nic-named as Wan Badak in the UMNO circle.

Former MP for Bukit Bintang and Wangsa Maju, Wee Choo Keong made an expose of the one stop centre last year. However, his exposes got former MCMC Chairman, Dato Shahril Tarmizi and Dato Soo Ka Wei investigated, but no charges made.

It may have been politically convenient to charge Zahid. Similar to the movie The Untouchable on the indictment of Al Capone for tax evasion, there is a 555 bookkeeper's notes as evidence with names and amount due or paid.

There are 43 names, which could include Khairy Jamaluddin, and PPBM's Mas Ermieyati. Sufficient number to do a Friday prayer congregation, but Zahid was singly picked out. Does MACC have proof of the cheques and money trail?

There is similarity between this case and another case earlier, in which the Secretary from MINDEF operating Zahid's family foundation account erred and delivered him on a silver platter to the authority to save herself.

Words are Wan Badak did the same.

For Khairy to question Zahid's return and call for it to be referred to the UMNO Supreme Council, it does raises questions on his political motivation.

Opportunism lacking in comradeship and loyalty will ended up in the wilderness. He should learn from Zahid.

Position of Mat Hassan

Since it is all about politics and knowing well Tun Dr Mahathir is out to "kill" Najib and Zahid politically, it is better for Zahid to emulate Najib to die fighting than dying from doing guerilla warfare.

Mahathir may have overdone his vengence. His highhandedness could draw out public sympathy or at least, UMNO members' sympathy.

In the current openness of Internet and social media, his decades old game may not work. Every actions need a convincing justification that is seen free from political motivation and insidious hands.

As always Mat Hassan put his views well and it was reported by Utusan Malaysia, the return of Zahid would stop any effort to bounce leaders against each other. He had always welcome the return of Zahid.

Mat Hassan has been at the receiving end of various accusations. He was openly accused of confiding with Tun Daim and collaborating with Mahathir.

Over Hari Raya, PPBM leaders were talking about UMNO 3.0 or an UMNO-PPBM unity. Between them, it is said Mahathir will never pass the Prime Ministership to Anwar or Azmin.

PKR Malay leaders could not dare discuss Malay problems at their party convention. Yet Malay population is reaching 67%.

The position should only go either to PPBM or UMNO. Who will be at the helm: UMNO or PPBM or new coalition with UMNO and PPBM?

After a process of elimination, conspiracy theorist featured Mat Hassan highly as potential successor to Mahathir. He is viewed as "clean", well liked personality in public, and communicate well.

Over Zahid, Tok Mat has the edge in banking, corporate and business experience. It is the building block towards economic management skill much needed by the country in this tough economic times.

Lim Guan Eng proved a Minister of Finance could not be relied on to manage the economy. On that score, Mat Hassan credential is far better than Azmin or Mukhrz or even Anwar Ibrahim.

More so, coming from a humble rural background, "semangat Melayu" comes naturally.

In the past 7 months, one weakness of Tok Mat has been his lack of national political experience. Negeri Sembilan has only 7 divisions and yet he could not control all. He need sometime to expand his political horizon.

The PPBM people view it as a good thing. Coming from a small state, he need the hands of others to propel him upward. To them it means Mat Hasan can be controlled.

Challenges ahead

Zahid's return, despite the piles of corruption charges, help to divert such allegation from Mat Hasan.

He could unite and streamline the UMNO organisation in the face of a possible general election from a hung Parliament in the making.

Another game going on, which msy have passed Mat Hasan attention was the double dealing by certain UMNO leaders. From the crossover of UMNO MPs to PPBM, it is known of a comunication line between certain UMNO and PPBM leaders.

PPBM is not financially as sound as they are thought to be. The call by Vice President Tan Sri Rashid to raise money for the party from government contract may have been obstructed by Guan Eng.

It is also believed that there are certain hands creating other back channels between UMNO and PPBM that cooperate to keep both entities afloat financially.

Judging from the views of playmakers in PPBM, it means Mahathir will remain as official Government Adviser or maybe Senior Minister for life in the same manner as the late Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore.

Many are still in awe and believe the 94 year old could still keep cards up his sleeves. The way he seemed to be playing his it is as if he will remain Senior Minister should the ummah unity of UMNO and PAS win GE15.

If UMNO (Baru) is suspended or closed up by ROS, it would be an interesting situation. How will ROS act on PPBM who has yet to call for a proper AGM since its inception in 2016?

What will happen to UMNO money and assets? How will the 3.5 million dispora of members react? Where will they go since PPBM has membership only in the few hundred thousands and mass migration will threaten the position of the incumbent? Will they react negatively to Mahathir's high handedness by joining PAS?

At the time UMNO original was still in existence, Mahathir established UMNO Baru to later took over UMNO original asset. Look out for the possibility of UMNO Malaysia being established to replace UMNO Baru and takeover its asset.

This is all theory and speculative political talk. Since the Azmin incident and Zahid's return, things are not only fluid but it could be reaching a gaseous state.

Before going into any further possibilities, what will Anwar do? What move will exasperated Azmin do?

Frankly, politics is best discussed based on policies and genuine specific social, economic and political plan and programs for the country than power play that lack purpose, accountability, and ethical and moral fairplay.

Alas, only 20% of voters follow and understand current happenings, 1-5% knows what is really happening, and 80% of voters are only capable of asking what is in it for moi.

Khazanah Nasional is likely to convene its Board meeting today or anytime soon.

Three new members, including a Professor from China and a Malaysian involved in establishing China's US$500 billion Tencent will be introduced. Its the company Wee Choo Keong used to shoot Dato Siew Ka Wei with corruption allegation but no charges by MACC yet.

Nevertheless, it is making sense of the China link buy that pushed prices of Khazanah related counters last month or two.

There is a long list of decisions allegedly accused as "jual negara" deals to be made. One particular deal is Tan Sri Jamaluddin Ibrahim's wet dream for Axiata-Telenor merger.

Mahathir not told the truth?

Since Telenor will have majority control, its more accurate to refer as Telenor-Axiata deal.

In last month's posting, "Kit Siang cannot forget politics, Political economy Malaysia cannot be without politics", it was mentioned Tun Dr Mahathir is not pleased for not briefing him truthfully of the merger.

A "surat layang" or poison letter entitled "Nasi banyak lemak-lemak" against Jamaluddin and his trusted CEO from Maxis's days, Mohamed Idham Nawawi is making its round.

The letter acknowledged that piece of information.

At Maxis, the complain among Malay staff of Jamaluddin is his "nationalistic" character. It is now proven wrong as he is more "multi-national"-istic.

Going to the Board meeting, Jamaluddin and Idham will not be comfortable with exposure they were involved in the campaign Hebatkan NegaraKu video for BN by GLC CEOs.

However, the letter's accusative questions of Axiata shares, property and resort sales to Axiata vendor need to be substantiated with evidence. It only works in the days of Mahathir's letter to Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1969.

Pre-merger bad news

The letter reminded its readers of the bad news hogging Axiata prior to the Telenor-Axiata merger. To quote the letter:

In 2018 alone, there was a RM 5.0B net loss due to huge write off and impairment involving overseas units. In 2019, RM 2.2B payment due to taxes for the Nepal operation which will take Axiata into the red. Share price has gone from RM 6.40 to a low of RM 3.80.

In Japan, such a performance would demand management to commit harakiri or worse, a Mishima's honourable Sepaku. In Malaysia, the letter claimed GLC heads "can still walk around with their heads held high and paid millions in salary".

Nepal fiasco

Questions should be raised of the Nepal tax fiasco:

... why is the buyer (Axiata) paying the tax for the transaction when it should have been the seller? Didn’t the contract put in place protect Axiata from such things? Were there not an indemnity clause, which is quite standard, put in place?

The letter writer did some digging to a Nepalese businessman by the name Satish Lal Acharya.

He used to be a local partner in the Nepal transaction with a 20% stake in the deal and a quick search on the internet raised questions on his business ethics. More questions asked:

... why a company like Axiata using a shady character to do this transaction? Is that why the contract was so poorly written? Was there a side arrangement between Jamaludin and Satish on this deal? Did the Axiata board of directors with Chairman Azman Mokhtar condone this ??

From there, the letter released the bomb on the big bang announcement of the merger. More questions...

... why now? Why announce when the due diligence has not even started? Is this to divert attention away from Axiata’s poor performance and the boo boo in Nepal? Is this a diversion to hide from what the Nepal deal could potentially expose?

Jamaluddin lied?

The letter accused Jamaludin of lying to the employees too for saying this is a “merger of equals" when the equity is Telenor 56% and Axiata 44%.

Jamaludin told them they are not losing their jobs but will be offered VSS. In the meanwhile, Telenor is busy cutting jobs everywhere.

The letter commended Mahathir for his concern and referred to him as beloved. Questions are raised of Jamaluddin's "nationalism" and "multi-national"-ism:

... what is Jamaludin thinking about when he is willing to sell his soul to Telenor? Is he again kow towing to the mat sallehs like how he has been doing all these years? Is this about saving him and giving him a bigger job and to hell with the employees? Is this a cover up for the shady Nepal deal so that it gets buried under the merger? What will happen to Celcom employees who will surely lose their jobs?? These are people who voted for the change in government. What has happened to Khazanah who seems to have lost their voice?? Is Datuk Shahril in cahoots with Jamaludin?

CEO Idham, dubbed as Jamaluddin's favorite band boy, was questioned for spending millions renovating his floor, private office, private bathroom etc. at a time employees are facing a bleak hari raya

Malaysia Baru...? Hahaha

The letter asked are we not in Malaysia Baru era? Didn’t we vote for a change?

Well... we didn't vote for Malaysia Baru. Nevertheless, change for better is fine.

If the government is truly Malaysia Baru, Khazanah board should investigate the authencity of the claims before making any decision.

With a poison letter making a return albeit electronically, its Malaysia Lama 1969. Hahaha...

The above picture was viralled by Raja Petra and reached one Whass App (WA) group.

For the benefit of the Malaysian cabinet, it is a social media platform, where a group of people could share with each other information in the form of text, image, video and url links.

It is useful for discussion with and getting feedback from other cabinet members before making any surprise and stupid statements to media or on social media that is in conflict with the policies of government.

If Tun Dr Mahathir keep viraling pictures of his meetings with Lim Kit Siang into WA Groups, it means the path of the nation is determined by them too.

Kit Siang should also be made Adviser to the Government or Senior Minister together with Mahathir for both to have veto powers to dictate and direct the nation without the need for Parliament or Cabinet.

Tommy Thomas re-appointment

In his WA message attached to the image, Raja Petra wrote:

Many are asking what the meeting with Dr Mahathir today was about considering Kit Siang is not a member of the Cabinet. It was to discuss the extension of the tenure of Tommy Thomas who is soon retiring. Before GE14 it was agreed that PPBM will decide who gets to be the MACC chief while DAP will decide who gets the AG’s post.‬ Kit Siang wants to make sure that agreement still stands.

The tenure or dismissal of Tommy Thomas is among the indication Mahathir need to do to convince UMNO MPs in the teens to crossover to PPBM and PH to secure two third majority.

It would be a notion that would awake the long asleep little Kit to stand up in his pant. However, elder Lim knows it will be the end for Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

For DAP, Anwar's premiership was the chance to tighten their grip on government. As "Superman" Hew puts it in his ceramah, Mahathir has outlived his usefulness and be left to meet his maker.

It must be a meeting of the minds to look at various possibilities and arrangements to serve the expressed purposes and unstated motives of both parties.

"Tun" Kit Siang, "Tan Sri" Guan Eng

Now, 45 minutes is too long for discussion between elderly leaders, which does not require much words to understand each other's position and intention in mind.

It is heard Kit Siang is in a bit of dilemma but of the positive kind. It goes back to the reason for addressing him as "Tun".

Apparently, both Kit Siang and son, Lim Guan Eng are in the upcoming DYMM Seri Paduka Baginda Yang Di Pertuan Agong Birthday honours list. He could be honured with a Tunship and an educated guess would be Guan Eng to be confered a Tan Sriship.

Some Malays maybe unhappy to see DAP leaders conferred with such honours, but on the other hand, they could get more upset and view it as a royal insult should the Lims reject.

Few years ago, Kit Siang proposed to the DAP Central Committee and unanimously accepted as party policy for leaders, MPs and ADUNs to not accept any honours while still in service.

It was a reaction to former Selangor Speaker Datok Teng Chiang Kim for accepting a Selangor Datokship.

The Lims could accept the honours, but principally, they have to retire. Both have no such plans. "Tun" Lim is in a bit of a wee wee and may have seeked the help of Tun Mahathir to whisper to Agong not to do so.

Is that all or it there more, Azmin?

And, many was to quick to jump to the conclusion Tun and "Tun" have came to an understanding to dump the older sodomite. and save Malaysia from the wrath of Allah on Sodom and Gomorroh.

Teoh Beng Hock video?

Apart from that, "Tun" Lim is caught in another dilemma in the making.

Since this morning, a Chinese Youtuber viraled a video of brutality during interrogation by Malay enforcement investigators.

Forgotten the Mandarin and Cantonese learned decades ago in college and at Brickfield's YWCA due to lack of practise.

A Chinese friend said he was being told it is a video of Teoh Beng Hock being beaten up by MACC investigators prior to his mysterious death. The Chinese friend can't read Chinese too.

Personally, the beaten fella does not look like the late Beng Hock. The officers are in uniforms, which is not likely MACC IOs. This blog would defend MACC against such slander.

If it is true, the Lims can't afford to be quiet. They have to speak up, do candlelight demonstration, and riled up the Chinese against MACC or enforcement agency's brutality and abuse of power.

It will annoy the Malays because all the officers in the video are Malays and they could be defensive or sensitive.

However, that is hardly the problem as it had always DAP's nature and strategy to weaken Malays by provocstion. Most recent was by a DAP Johor ADUN on royal car license plate.

Even Malay DAPs are programmed to provoke Malays and defend Chinese DAP's provocative behaviour.

It is provoking the Kerala born Chief Commissioner of MACC that worries Kit Siang. A furious Latheefa Koya could reopen file on Jalan Pinhorn bungalow, Penang tunnel and start investigation on the still counting RM46 billion Penang Transport Master Plan.

This was not a matter discussed between Tun Mahathir and "Tun" Lim yesterday as it only viral among Chinese today.

BNM Forex fiasco

Nevertheless, the subject of BNM forex loss scandal could have been discussed yesterday.

The police announced that the BNM forex lost investigation have been NFA'ed as in no further action.

The reason cited was lack of evidence. It is certainly quite a chore to dig up documents to trace each and every forex transaction made over few years some more than 25 years ago. Understandably it is an insurmountable and back breaking task.

However, someone linked to a legal person of authority claimed there is a case and that means there are proofs!

Let it be! Let it be! Change the PH government and BNM forex loss mystery can be legally unravelled. Not time for Hanif Khatri to rest on his laurels yet.

Kit Siang was asked at a function. He said cultural event is not the approproiate to comment on the BNM forex loss fiasco he wrote about.

Raja Petra messaged:

Lim Kit Siang refuses to comment on the RM31.5 billion Bank Negara forex losses scandal and says that the allegation is merely a political conspiracy. Lim first raised the allegation in Parliament in 1993 and also demanded Anwar Ibrahim's resignation for lying about the matter.

Tengku Razaleigh pressured on to say RCI recommendations should be implemented. For the principle of consistency, Kit Siang cannot remain silent but urge the same.

That made him blew his top with Ku Li.

There is a book entitled Crisis! Crisis! Crisis! that is waiting its time to be published. For the moment, Kit Siang is in a Dilemma! Dilemma! Dilemma!

A future book and even a Hollywood movie in the making.

Keanu Reaves as Guan Eng and Lucy Liu as the Tan Chai Ho. Ming Na Wen as the infuriated Betty Chiew who threw an ashtray at Keanu's forehead.

Rummaging through the unread yesterday's The Star this morning, three news item related to the the current Parliament seating caught our attention - tabling of lowering the voting age bill, asset declaration motion, and draft bill for PCMC in final stages.

Despite claim it is infested by DAP inflitrators, The Star remain a BN-owned newspaper.

There was a cross deal in the market on Media Prima and it turned out UMNO sold their minority stake to Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar.

That is a confusing situation. Is he still with Tun Dr Mahathir as his NGO office at Yayasan Bokhari is still in operation and seldom used for press conference? Or he still maintain relation with UMNO?

Media Prima is controlled by a fund managed by Morgan Stanley. It is speculated the fund is Tun Daim's.

Lowering voting age

On the tabling of a bill to lower voting age to 18, there seemed to be agreement on both side of the political divide except for PAS.

The priority should be for registering some 4 million unregistered citizen over lowering the voting age.

That is quite legitimate.

UMNO's position is agreeable but Dato Ismail Sabri placed one condition which is for automatic rergistration too.

This bill cannot get passed without a two third majority. Government side will need the opposition to back this bill as it constitute a constitutional amendment.

Unlike the TH restructuring where was no briefing given to opposition, there is effort from government side to brief opposition.

According to The Star:

The country records about 500,000 births each year and lowering the voting age to 18 from the present 21 means that everyone who is 18,19 and 20 years old would be able to vote.

This means that up to 1.5 million more voters will be eligible to vote in GE15 if the proposed amendment is passed.

Malaysia’s population is currently 32.75 million and if the amendment is passed, it would also mean that more than 50% of the country’s citizens will be eligible to vote in the next general election.

It could mark the end of the dinasouraic gerontacrasy, but will it?

The government side as argued by Syed Saddiq, claimed Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world to still have minimun age of 19 and above. But what about GST?

Among the young, their view is still mix. Some of the youth interviewed by Star cited felt 18 year old lack of awareness, knowledge and inability to understand to make the right voting choice.

Impressionable

Analyst say it is too early to detect the effect, thus why make such a change without understanding its effect?

Believe it is understood and the 18 year old voters is seen to be easily swayed by rhetorical, unrealistic and emotional factors.

My personal experience is from seeing American 18 year old back in college 40 years ago during the Carter vs Reagan Presidential election.

Malaysian 18-year old generally have yet to reach their level of political maturity.

Politics, governance and citizenry are taught in US High School, but not in Malaysia. Our civic classes are too basic that they hardly understand anything about governing, public interest and current affairs.

Malaysian 18-year olds understanding are coloured by their teachers, peers and family than individual ability to make fair personal assessment.

Yes it is not fair and they have to be given a chance. And agree that it is a process to maturity. Consider it as s challenge.

However, that process not only applies to 18 year old but the adults and the GE14 proves it. Will government do anything about it?

Voting comes with a sense of responsibility. This is in no way saying 18 year old are not responsible. Are 18-year old today ready to assume responsibility?

On that matter, my late dad assume more responsibility in his early teens and mature fast due to circumstances than any present day adults.

Today, 18 year olds are still dependent on parents and not many had the experience of managing their life and finances.

One hardly find Malaydian teenagers saving money to get somrthing or for their tuition fees from summer job as the American teenagers do.

Even that, few of freshman dormitory mate voted for the American Communist Party just for the fun of it.

In his letter to The Star, Dhesegaan Bala Krishnan felt voters apathy will dampen any expectation.

Since Najib mentioned security on the asset delcaration issue, the same applies to politicians meeting and influencing the impressionable teenagers to talk politics.

Let Husin Lempoyang ecpress his concern.

Asset declaration

Dewan Rakyat passed a special motion to require all Members of Parliament make an asset declaration.

It was debated with basically all MPs together with the oppositions supported the bill but the opposition having their own reservation. The louder "aye" from the government side carried the motion.

PAS has their own unique reason on the manner the wording is made:

Dato Najib raised the issue of other incomes, already available government bodies to check for anything dubious and security threat for making such declaration. Those having possession of the declaration could be a source of threat.

There was issue raised on Minister not making their assset declaration as promised in PH manifesto. There are declaration made not believable.

DAP Jelutong MP, RSN Rayer has a large monthly income but unbelievably no asset.

The intention is to address corruption related to lawmakers is fair but in the land of adhoc Malaysia, many actions and law passed are not thought through that it is only a facade of effort for public consumption but hardly an effective measure.

A seasoned observer of politics shared an od story of an uneducated Menteri Besar. He hired an unschooled but cunning assistant. He went out state and set-up business ventures by having a royal with a lawyer/politician husband. Sorry ... they are famous people and names are to be withheld.

From there, they would bid or get offered projects from within the MB power. The proxy prospered and helped finance the politics of the MB. And he is not the only proxy of the MB.

By having the asset declaration, the astute political observer said, this sort of set-up will flourish when the new law is passed. Instead of having to end corruption, this short sighted policy will only proliferate into wider network of corrupt activities.

Is it really to eradicate political funding related corruption or meant to target a particular group, raised Dato Hishamuddin Hussein Onn?

Half measure

This is still half measure to cleanse the funding of politics. Why not do away with restrictions and remove the need for big budget campaign funding?

Reduce campaign funding by government providing access to faciliteis for gathering, impose fair media coverage by owner, and providing funding. No side will have undue advantage.

This blog has written of it many years ago.

Corruption by lawmakers are seen as only 41%. Local council, civil servants, yax collectors and police are more rampant.

The survey view of corrupt judges is 33% snd men of cloth at 31%. Still to high!

IPCMC

After the much brouhaha over the years and media set-up by SUHAKAN, the draft bill for IPCMC is in the final stages.

Not much is revealed except it will be different than the EAIC.

IGP, Dato Hamid Bador is agreeable to IPCMC and an interview of his last month incapsulate hsi positon to clean the police force of weeds.

But sir ...

The gambing syndicate in the country do not exist any more. There is but only 10% left. In one underground talk at the last Chinese New Year festivity, we were made to understand that one corrupt OCPD even offered and gave discount to local syndicate but was refused.

They have gone online and servers are all parked abroad. The gambling game has left the station...

Anwar met the Agong in May 2018, then Acting Sultan of Pahang

UMNO Veteran Club Secretary General, Datuk Mustapha Yaakub posted in his Facebook yesterday evening. He heard Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim is short by 4 seats and sufficient to pressure Tun Dr Mahathir to resign in the current Parliamentary session.

In another posting, he wrote without referring to anyone, though he hated a person for destroying the Malays, he wish he die in Iman and Allah forgive his sins.

This morning a source close to Dato Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi confidently claim he is short by 3 seats. When asked if Zahid signed any Statutory Declaration to support as claimed by most political columnist, he gave an emphatic, NO!

Except perhaps Dato Nazri Aziz, he affirmed UMNO is neither supporting Anwar nor Mahathir and will remain steadfast with the opposition coalition of BN and ummah unity with PAS.

This evening an important source of information claimed Anwar has the number and is ready to meet the Seri Paduka Baginda Yang DiPertuan Agong with the Statutory Declarations of MPs already signed.

When asked in jest will it be on September 16th, the source said this is for real. It is only a matter of when he will seek the audience with Agong?

So everyone read Zahid wrongly?

One can never know what politicians do beyond our eyesight, but beyond the eyesight of most analysts, there are information analyst are not privy too.

More so, the analysis of most University lecturers tend to be dependent on official statements and media reports. Its like forecasting share price with last years results.

Zahid pro-Anwar or pro-Najib?

The source confidently said Mahathir's reading is right. Though Zahid is a long time friend of Anwar, his loyalty is to Najib.

He put in crudely, "Friendship aside, orang sembahyang tidak boleh sokong orang semburit."

The source close to Zahid confirmed the same information.

Among the reasons cited to speculate Zahid remained loyal to Anwar was that he was never adversarial towards Anwar and PKR and even extended help. Upon release from prison, Zahid gave Anwar the benefit of the doubt and believed he would have repented this time.

However, Zahid changed his view after Anwar's trip to Turkey in July 2018 which was reported by the media for spinal surgery and Lim Kit Siang came to visit Anwar.

He only said Anwar did not change.

Immediately upon winning the UMNO Presidency, Zahid decided the way forward for UMNO was to strengthen itself by befriending PAS.

During the garden leave, Zahid had been instrumental in forging the cooperation into a cohesive understanding from the leadership to reach the grassroot level.

Mahathir's overkill

When asked how did Anwar managed to get the numbers, both sources blamed it on Mahathir for his overkill and repeating the predictable.

He continued to make enemies and quarrel with everyone - both against opposition and friends within Pakatan.

Mahathir lost support he already had in hand due to his high handedness. He lost potential support that could have turned his way due to his refusal against reforms promised in the manifesto.

The last straw was Latheefa Koya's move few days ago. It did not heed the statement of Dato Nancy Shukri.

MACC mives by Latheefa to pile up more charges against Zahid up to 87, 41 AMLA cases, double jeopardy charge against Riza Aziz and failing AG cases on the SRC trial and postphonement of 1MDB case against Najib is building up a perception in public that it is all political persecution.

Though the tax bill against Najib is a separate issue from Latheefa, the negative perception is set in stone.

Desperate?

Mahathir is known to be cryptic in his statements. However, the statement below is seen to have desperation written all over:

The common response is to rewind back his words against UMNO. Generally, the anger by both Malays and UMNO members towards Mahathir for destroying UMNO is reflected in the comments in the You Tube posting here.

It make no sense for Mahathir to expect UMNO members to join smallish PPBM. Tan Sri Anuar Musa cited reasons Malays will not join Mahathir's PPBM. Zahid and Asyraf Wajidi clearly stated staying put with PAS.

There are those who view Mahathir's words as threat to abolish UMNO. Then, both PPBM, PKR and few other parties will be devlared illegal together.

It would then be the same poison pill play to declare the original UMNO illegal.

This time around voters will punish Mahathir and anyone associated with him in the next GE for such highhandedness and abuse of power.

There are sources who believed Mahathir has registered UMNO Malaysia and will repeat his past episode of UMNO Baru seizing assets of the original UMNO.

Losing his grasp

Mahathir's recent comment to appeal the ICJ's decision on Pulau Batu Putih is a clear indication he is forgetful and losing his grasp. The Malay say nyanyuk or senile.

Immediately upon assuming the Prime Ministership, his first few order of business was to cancel the appeal already submitted.

The window of opportunity for appeal has passed a year ago. Pulau Batu Putih will forever be Pedra Banca. Mahathir is losing grasp and Anwar saw that. Anwar will not go all the way but play it cool.

Nevertheless, there are still diehards adamant Mahathir could still pull a rabbit from behind the ear with the lever of power in his hands. The old dictator has not lost his touch and is merely berlakun nyanyuk (acting senile) to be underestimated.

To each, their own view and interpretation. The right answer is only when the event unfold itself.

As it is, this blog had warned that the 45 minute meeting between Kit Siang and Mahathir recently may not necessarily be about Anwar's game is over.

During Ramadhan, this blog wrote about Kit Siang led an entourage of DAP leaders to meet Mahathir at his home and requested he announced the schedule for the power transition. Kit Siang is not easily swayed by events.

Heard over the grapevine that the schedule for power transition has been set but not announced. There was a meeting held with Mahathir involving Dr Wan Aizah, Kit Siang, Mat Sabu and Tan Sri Muhyiddin to discuss and finalise the matter.

For the public consumptiion, it will be tamed down and told the planned transition remained on course as agreed and will be decided within a year.

It puts into perspective the speech by Mahathir in Johor. He had came down to meet PPBM Johor leaders for the first time after the controversial appointment of new Johor MB. But Muhyiddin was not there.

However, there was a call to urge the top three position of Chairman, President and Deputy President of PPBM not be challenged.

Interesting time .....

Keeping cool

In the meantime, Anwar's speech at University Malaya is so relaxed and confident. It is not about if but when. It is already signed!

However, the RM1 bet with a Seremban PKR friend is not necessarily in his favour yet. In one year, Mahathir will keep on trying. He has long planned to dissolve Parliament than give the position to Anwar.

Will Mahathir dare with this talk of Anwar already have the numbers and ready to meet Agong?

Vehicles were going in and out of Mahathir's home till 3 AM

Saturday night's posting claiming Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim got the numbers and could request an audience with the Seri Paduka Baginda Yang DiPertuan Agong caught the attention of social media and blogosphere for a usually quiet weekend.

It had Malaysia Today, Third Force, Malaysia Chronicle and PKR blogs reposted the article. The hits for the posting was in the 5 figures. Not bad in times blogs are not attracting as much readers as Facebook or other social media platforms, so the claim.

It certainly gave the Anwar supporters a hard-on. That should worry both females and males.

However, the bigger worry was the posting could hardened the arteries of Tun Dr Mahathir. The old man had long resigned to the fact that his time should have come during his second heart surgery at IJN. It is his rich children, proxies and cronies that are now worried.

Sources close to a security personnel were saying vehicles were coming in and out of Mahathir's home in Seri Kembangan, near Palace of the Golden Horses till the wee hours of 3 AM last night.

Counter propaganda

Not sure whether it was medical personnel, but the Mahathir camp were churning out counter propaganda to neutralise the impact of the posting like these two "cheap" fake Statutory Declarations.

Both Dato Zahid Hamidi and tan Sri Muhyiddin have since denied.

Zahid Hamidi went on to issue a statement to state he will not take a position for UMNO single handedly but as a team. He is no Mahathir.

Though denying the SD, the apparent boycott by Muhyiddin and most of Johor PPBM Division Head of the the meeting with Mahathir in Johor may have made him a target. Wonder whether he has any ulterior motive to update Police investigation on the viral Semburit video.

It is obviously an amateurish job which may have come from Azmin's Team or even within UMNO still comfortable with Mahathir and view his proposal positively.

Against that backdrop of such effort, one former UMNO Division Head was told by one of PM's Political Secretary, believed to be Zahid Md Arip that Mahathir had 126 seats in hand.

One can give only too much credit to claims made by Tan Sri Isa Samad's former staff at Felda who was saved from being charged by the court for finding his way into Mahathir's office. What will be his fate should Mahathir leave office?

Felda Selancar disaster

The least Zahid Md Arip was ensure there were sufficient crowd and arrange Felda settlers to stay on for Mahathir's speech at the launch of the Hari Peneroka at the Felda Selancar, Muazzam Shah, Pahang yesterday.

The settlers did not.

In his speech earlier, Azmin said Felda will rise again and confidence restored. Felda will rise under Pakatan Harapan. He received booed from the crowd but went to agitate the crowd further to say Felda will not be made a political tool any more.

Azmin did not make life easy for Mahathir to speak.

Repeating a past scheming

According to The Edge report, some 10,000 settlers were expected to attend national-level launch. The preparation was for that size but the video showed it was barely filled.

As political secretary and one familiar with Felda, Zahd Md Arip should have known the political significance of such an event. There was supposed to be a new excitement for the settlers.

FELDA new Director General, Dato Osman Omar told The Edge of a new initiative to be announced to enable settlers to generate more income and stop relying heavily on oil palm and its unpredictable market prices.

It was a slightly different method from the past was to be introduced involving long-term lease method. But it turned out to be an old idea, very old idea indeed...

Actually, the Russian Revolution had long introduced the commune system of agriculture in communist Russian. Raja Petra commented:

Malaysia will be merging thousands of small FELDA lots into one huge commune farm like what Russia and China did after the Communist revolutions. That would end individual land ownership and create community ownership, which is where the word Communism comes from.

RPK further commented on what is really happening:

Tun Razak created FELDA, what the UN FAO called the most successful land scheme in the world, to give land to the landless. The Pakatan Chinese now want to turn the Malays back into landless Malays.

Osman Omar would have learned of the Russian Revolution 1917 in Form 3 the year he sat for LCE in 1974. The commune system was adopted by communist countries and it failed. Yet FELDA wants to adopt it?!

A similar concept was introduced in Ijok, Selangor but what happened was the management company convinced the settlers to part way with their lands to a developer in exchange for homes and cash. Many more than 10 years nothing happened and it reached a stalemate.

The Selangor government sold the land to a developer for cheap when one consider the price of land has rose significantly in he area. Someone could have squandered away with some money and settlers should be getting RM1 million each are only getting a RM300,000 home years down the road.

Property sales in the area have plummeted and developers are facing a hard time to sell. With sales, settlers are going to get screwed again.

Even China have done away with the commune system. The natives of Sabah and Sarawak have been fighting against NCR communal land title, which does not help in promoting land ownership among landless natives.

None was lost yesterday. FELDA announced loud mouth Chef Wan as a Felda Icon. RPK commented cynically:

Chef Wan was named the 2019 Felda Icon. Meanwhile, thousands took to the streets in London to celebrate LGBT rights in the London Pride 2019 gay parade.

His mulut is real cabaior was it misspelled the way around?

In the meanwhile, a picture of Siti Nurhaliza, her husband and Azmin viral at the same time yesterday. Could the singer, now married with a daughter, be attending the Felda launch to draw crowd to the event?

She could be singing:

Siti Semburit pandai menyanyi...
Menyanyi lagu, menyanyi lagu Putera Mahkote

That will not help Azmin. His big fan already lost hope in him.

How does the number stake up?

What happened at the Felda Selancar certainly indicate both Mahathir and Azmin does not stand a chance of staying around any longer. However, what happened at grassroot does not usually translate to what is happening in the corridors of power.

Lets look at the numbers. The above infographic puts PKR at 50, DAP 42 and PAN 11.

According to a poster claimed by Azmin's Team as viraled by Anwar's Team, 45 are with Anwar and 5 only with Azmin. Before taking into account Azmin's Team version as told to The Star's Phillip Golangai as having 16 and the 50/50 will shift to Azmin upon him being selected DPM, assume Anwar's Team from PKR is 45.

Contrary to earlier talk of 8 DAP MPs will give their vote to Mahathir in the event of a vote of no confidence, DAP is solid 42. That make sit 87.

And contrary to Joceline Tan's claim Mat Sabu is getting close to Mahathir, all 11 of Amanah will go to Anwar. They have struggled long and hard, thus will not be dissuaded from the promise land of seeing Anwar become PM.

Joceline is an observer of politics, but a political watcher's view, who heard Mat Sabu's expressed his position in front of Mahathir's loyalist that should there be a conflict between Mahathir and Anwar, Amanah will remain brother-in-arm with DAP and Anwar. That makes the number 98.

Warisan is with Anwar. Though Dato Shafie Apdal is son-in-law of Dato Shuib Lazim, a close friend to Tun Daim Zainuddin, he has swayed to Anwar.

The common view is Mahathir entered Sabah and betrayed their pact with Warisan. A source claimed it was Warisan that betrayed the understanding with Bersatu for swaying towards Anwar. It is something the suluk Shafie is capable of doing. That makes the number now 107. Is the promise land of 112 to difficult for Anwar?

With Muhyiddin at loggerhead with Mahathir, what is the chances of him to remain supportive of Mahathir?

Muhyiddin was instrumental in bringing in the like of Maszlee Malek or Wan Saiful, whose Islamic ideology leans towards IKRAM and political leaning more Amanah than UMNO-syle PPBM. One should ponder on Syed Saddiq, who was brought into PPBM by Muhyiddin. The young man would find Anwar more appealing than Mahathir.

Muhyiddin had parked substantial number of people aligned to him to be MPs. Some will not dare to come out in the open against Mahathir. But some dare vote against him especially when the chips are down.

Is it not possible for Anwar to reach the promise land of 112 from the few PPBM members dare to cast against Mahathir in Parliament? Or from Sabah and Sarawak.

So where will Zahid Md Arip get 126 for Mahathir, his boss?

Supposed the PPBM and Independents are solid for Mahathir, the number is 29.

There are 37 UMNO MPs, 1 MCA and 1 MIC, but the official stand is BN will remain Ta'awun with PAS. The 39 BN plus 18 PAS to make 57 cannot be with DAP or PKR that is in cahoot with DAP.

Mahathir must get PPBM to leave PH to get that 57 seats support. He could make the number 86 seats, 26 seats more.

It take some convincing and promising to get 23 GPS and Lain-Lain MPs. He cannot get all but only some of them. Suppose he got all of them by promising the sun, sky and everything else in between he has no plan to privatise. It is still only 109 and still fall short of 126 seats.

This means Mahathir need to get 17 UMNO MPs to join his side.

To quote Malaysia Chronicle (in exchange for quoting this blog), Mahathir could move in for the kill but why would a party, whose 6 months membership drive could attract attract more new members than the whole PPBM membership, will want to join PPBM?

Whoever is courting UMNO MPs, Tan Sri Anuar Musa reminded that as a group, UMNO's position is clear. It will not work with the side that is working together with DAP.

In the meanwhile, Sarawak is said to remain undecided or in a wait and see mode. Judging from Dato Nancy Shukri statement, they would prefer BN if Najib is still Chairman of BN or PM.

One will never know where they will swing since the popular believe is Abang Jo is close with Anwar and Pehin Taib Mahmud was then close to Mahathir. Sarawak GPS should vote the side that could believably offer more benefit to Sarawak.

As far as Sabah is concern, before or after, they will be with the winner.

So which side really have enough number of MPs supporting them?

-------------

It reminded of a past political arguments on membership in Indian parties some years ago,

Someone made the effort to compile the numbers. As he added up the membership of Indian political parties and Indian members of mixed race political parties, he was perplexed with the total that seemed more than the population of Indian in the country.

If both sides have got their SDs signed and compiled (not the fake SDs that had Zahid signed on the day he announced his return to the Presidency), there is likelihood that boths sides believed each have got the numbers because few MPs signed SDs with both sides.

If the money is US$5 million and half to be paid upon signing the SD with balance upon delivering of vote in Parliament, tolak halal haram, it is not a bad idea to be bought. Payment will be in off-shore accounts beyond the jurisdiction of PDRM, MACC and LHDN.

It is not a bad idea to take the half payment from both sides. That add up to a whole US$5 million. The balance will be a bonus.

If that is the case, Agong will pening to see many duplicate SDs. His highness should just tell the Speaker to do a vote of no confidence. Otherwise, allow Mahathir to dissolve Parliament and return to the people to settle it with GE15 once and for all.

Quite sure, the public must be puzzled with the move by Tun Dr Mahathir to call for Malay unity and called upon all Malay parties to join PPBM.

Many Malays including among the intelligentsia Melayu failed to realise that Malay unity is a myth that is not achievable. It is political cliche seldom used by Mahathir to draw support. In the practical sense, majority of Malay is united under UMNO-PAS cooperation. Mahathir is just drawing on straws in desperation.

Yesterday after the PH Presidential Council meeting, Mahathir said not to form new Malay parties but join existing ones. Why is he focused on Dato Ibrahim Ali's Putra and Dato Ezam Md Noor's Negara?

He went on further to say PH cannot accept new component parties. UMNO and PAS members can join PPBM or Amanah, instead. Is he kidding to wish PAS would join PAN?

It does not make sense.

Nothing doing Mahathir

Basically, other component parties of PH have blocked Mahathir from drawing on the strength of other Malay parties by getting them to join PH and strengthen his position.

In the mean time, Dato Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi made it clear yesterday that UMNO will not be in cooperation with DAP or any other parties that is in bed with DAP. It is the same line expressed by Dato Mohamad hassan, Dato Khaled Nordin, and Dato Dr Asyraff Wajidi.

Only Dato Hishamuddin Hussein Onn and Khairy is asking UMNO to look at Mahathir's offer positively. How could a party leader look positively at a preposition to close up his own party to join another smallish party?

If they are not willing to stick through and through with UMNO and ummah unity, Hishamuddin, Khairy and their block of MPs should join PPBM.

EGM manouvre

If Mahathir and the Mahathir leaning does not make sense, the move by Mahathir for PPBM to call for an Extraordinary General Meeting does not make sense too.

PPBM had never held a constitutionally acceptable Annual General Meeting since its inception at end of 2016. It has announced an AGM to be held soon but why suddenly the idea of having an EGM?

It is an open secret that PPBM intend to implement a Satu Ahli Satu Undi (One Member One Vote) System or SASU in short. But to call for an EGM immediately and before the scheduled AGM means Mahathir is sasau and up to something.

One can bet one month salary and win to claim Mahathir is angry with the recent boycott of his meeting with PPBM Johor head. Imagine, the venerable Chairman came all the way and only 7 out of 25 PPBM division head turned up. Muhyiddin was not present and was in KL giving update on the investigation on the semburit video.

When Mahathir is angry, he will take action. If he had read this blog and it is not likely, but his media people may have, he will finally confirm what he already suspect that Muhyiddin had been parking his people as division heads and MPs/ADUNs everywhere.

Long held intention

Happy days upon being approved PPBM registration

Actually, he does not need to read. He is aware but postpone his action to await a more timely situation.

Before the general election, Muhyiddin was at loggerhead with former PPBM Vice President and founder, Dato Hamidah Osman.

She complained to Mahathir of Muhyiddin moves which disrupt the grassroot members and newly set-up branches and divisions.

Back then, Perak MB, Dato Seri Faizal "Peja" Dato Azumu was in cahoot with Muhyiddin.

Muhyiddin action resulted in members leaving the party in the thousands and branches and divisions closing up.

Hamidah was fed-up and felt betrayed. Her relentless effort and sacrifice to set-up PPBM was hijacked by Muhyiddin.

She was instrumental in going all over the country to garner grassroot support and making the links with other political and community leaders for PPBM.

Mahathir sent for Sufi to talk to the sister, Hamizura Osman, the other half of the dynamic Osman sisters.

Sufi asked Hamizura to persuade Hamidah to come back. He told Hamizura to deliver Mahathir message to Hamidah to be patient. "We" will defeat Muhyiddin during the party election.

Can always check with them. But it is expected they will deny.

It all make sense to implement SASU. Muhyiddin is not a popular leader, and difficult to smile. By nature, he is serious and stiff, thus could not be warm and friendly to win the people who meet him. Maybe he is shy.

If every member is allowed to vote, Muhyiddin does not stand a chance with even the likes of Mukhriz with his goody two-shoes image.

Sources claimed the EGM is expected to be held within this month. Wonder is there sufficient time to legally call one?

Senile pressure to quit

If this were to happen, Muhyiddin will likely find some trouble issue, perhaps Mahathir's version of 1MDB, as excuse to warrant him to quit PPBM.

Immediately, the likes of Maszlee Malik, Wan Saiful and his own men holding MP position will come out in the open to migrate to Anwar Ibrahim.

Again, it does not make sense but since Mahathir worked hand in hand with DAP, politics in Malaysia has reached an unprecedented state of nonsense. It is this nonsense that made the country directionless and heading for a major downfall socially, economically and surely politically.

As said in earlier posting, Mahathir has reached the level of senility that is becoming obvious. It is not like our mom and pop beginning to forget things, becoming senile and even suffering from dimentia.

In their moment of senility, common folks talk of petty and inconsequental matters. Orang pandai like Mahathir still sound pandai when they are nyanyuk. It takes a keen observer to notice he is forgetting things and his actions incomprehensible.

Under such extreme political pressure and running the risk of getting knocked out again, Mahathir is opening new front to fight. The first knock out actually came from Dato Najib but Mahathir resorted to the extreme, un-gentlemenly, and out of sense action to ally with Anwar and DAP.

Mahathir is about to get knocked out again and yet he wants to reduce his number of friends.

No worry, there will always be that unschooled loyalist, who will find something to marvel over Mahathir's nonsensical political moves. Even during our days of supporting Mahathir, it was puzzling to see some journo-blogger finding his mere loyar burok statements as brilliant.

What so brilliant about deceptive statements just to win an argument but has no long lasting impact? The Indra and Indi at your neighbourhood bar can do better.

One is not talking yet about Mahathir's other loyalists like Kelab Che Det, Ratu Naga and Parpukari. Among them, there is one claiming to be a blogger but could hardly write a sentence without retyping several times in such stressful manner.

It's Tun Dr Mahathir's 94th birthday today. Believe in 2 days, it will be Tun Siti Hasmah's.

Do not know exactly cause have not being invited for any of their birthday bash for few years. Not sore cause it is a conscious decision.

Till today, our position have not been proven wrong in any fair and untampered court of law. While the court of public opinion is increasingly becoming agreeable to what we view of them.

As told to a friend of more than 40 years, we had the foresight to anticipate the present disaster for the wrongful decision the majority had made.

Nevertheless, at such a very late age and still holding on to the highest executive position, it is a feat no mortals other than Mahathir could have thrive.

Certainly he must for the gruelling task in hand to clean up the mess of his own doing.

Need reminding

For the nation sake, the officers at the Prime Minister's Office should heed the wife's advice to keep reminding him of the things he should do, the salient points for any discussion, meeting, and press conference, and also past decisions he already made.

Wonder whether he is forgetting things as he did on the statement to appeal the Pulau Batu Putih.

Perhaps, it is to avoid the seldom occurance of U turns. One U turn itself is one too many. Not too mention more than three dozen.

This is not 1980s Malaysia where public swallow everything that Dato Kadir Jasin spit in the media. In this age of Internet openness, media should gauge the public mind than try to force on them.

These days, the Kadir that could spit for others to swallow can't be reliable in his own suggestion.

The person he suggested for an important position in government turned out incompetent, reckless and disastrous in the making.

It will look bad on both Mahathir and the other Tun which Kadir is working for.

Mahathir, as told by the friend of more than 40 years, could lose attention by the third matter raised by officers in attendance. They have ten in the list to brief.

On two occasions, a reliably informed source said he took a break for the loo during cabinet meeting to only not return but gone home.

Happy birthday

Replicating Raja Petra's wishes from here:

Happy birthday, Tun, and many happy returns of the day. With sincerity and humility, I pray for your good health and hope you will remain as Prime Minister until GE15, if not at least for another two years.

Tun, there are times we agreed and there are times we disagreed. And there are times I worked for you and times I worked against you.

During the early part of your term as 4th Prime Minister, we were a student and then entered the job market.

We were still absorbing the happening in the country as a young adult and guided by the ideals picked up at University.

Over time and more of your financial scandals and failures turned up, we begin to form an opinion of you. Though you are capable of impressing a young man like us then, something was amiss.

Media made you to look impressive but the decades of promises and intentions were not quite fulfilled.

You could talk of ideas and launch efforts, but it could not prolong and had limited success. The ones that succeeded could not last on its own strength.

The financial crisis of a doing that originated from you came in 1998. Dato Seri Anwar became a useful blame to deviate the public of your own wrongdoings.

By 2003, you retired.

Gave a try but no sincerity

Then we heard of your speech on the root of the Malay, which had always been our long held view, to feudalism.

It was at a breakfast do after Dato Mukhriz's victory the day earlier as the elected UMNO Youth exco member with the highest votes.

Since you are retired and supposedly have no vested interest, we were attracted to the idea to support your plan to give honest independent feedback to government.

You could be the channel to contribute our own views.

Unconsciously and slowly we got dragged into UMNO's factional politics and the rest is history for Pak Lah.

But come 2015, you wanted us to support you to bring Dato Najib down.

Not again. Why must it be you all the time to keep bringing others down?

Enough is enough. Not only we are not going along, but we are going to resist you, come what may.

We lost a lot of friends. Najib people could not trust and were not comfortable with us. But what do we care. We only have ourself to answer.

Dignity in defeat

We won the battle from within, but you had to stretch it beyond the gentlemenly confine. At the end, we lost and BN became an opposition.

As for Najib, he is in and out in court daily while at the same fighting to expose the fallacy of your government.

One year after that historical defeat, with pride and confidence, we could declare that we were right.

The much anticipated to happen hss happpened and the worst is yet to come. The lies concocted to blame the previous government such RM1 trillion debt have made public realise you are leading a dysfunctional government!

Your greatest lies on 1MDB has yet be proven. The SRC trial is only showing to all how wicked you are. No Kadir Jasin spin can put wool over the public.

Jho Low or Nik Faisal has long been known to be the culprit. But the accusation of Najib is far from proven.

Four years ago you could not explain how RM42 billion went missing and you still could not today with the power in your grasp.

Unless so, you are piling up sin by the day. We will not be misled to the path of hell taken by others.

Beginning of a humiliation

As for you, the event at Felda Selancar 3 is a reminder in this earthly presence that it is the beginning of public realisation of what actually is wrong with you and your intentions.

They are saying it out loud that you have turned senile and losing grip with the people.

On your birthday, we are in awe of the Bernama report as per the extract from RPK posting:

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who turned 94 Wednesday (July 10), has described his late mother, Wan Tempawan Wan Hanapi, as the most influential individual in his life.

“She brought me up, she taught me the way I should behave, the things I should do,” the Prime Minister told Bernama Radio in a special interview to mark the happy occasion.

Please Tun, spare her soul. At 94, no blame should be of others but yourself.

Pencenlah and allow the country to move forward.

Your so-called innovation is actually a regression. Pejuangan tidak akan selesai dengan landasan dan niat yang salah.

Your children can fend for themselves.

Hamka berkata ...

Rezeki tu bukan bermakna kamu dapat apa kamu nak. Tapi bila kamu terima apa yang Tuhan anugerahkan.

Kamu belajar tentang sirah. Tahu Mariam tak berkahwin tapi dapat anak. Itulah rezeki dia.

Kamu tengok pula sirah Aishah. Kahwin tapi tak dapat anak. Itu pun rezeki dia.

Allah hantar Musa kerumah Firaun sebagai anak angkat untuk membawanya ke syurga. Tetapi tetap juga Firaun menjadi manusia paling celaka yang memilih neraka.

Allah menghantar Nuh untuk menyelamatkan kaumnya tetapi anak isterinya sendiri derhaka dan enggan terima dakwah baginda.

Pelajari lah sesuatu dari kisah kisah seperti itu. Sungguh. Kamu akan faham bahawa rezeki masing masing tidak sama. Semua ada pro dan kontranya!

Orang yang ada suami, ada isteri, ada anak ni bermakna ada tanggungjawab juga. Mudah mendapat pahala. Tapi mudah juga mendapat dosa.

Yang tak bertemu jodoh, yang tak dikurniakan zuriat pun satu rezeki juga. Rezeki terlepas dari tanggungjawab dan risiko nak menjawab dihadapan Allah nanti.

Jadi, sebelum kamu terus mengeluh tentang itu ini, kamu kena faham dulu konsep rezeki. Ada, tak semestinya untung. Tak ada, tak semestinya rugi.

Kamu dapat apa yang kamu nak, tak semestinya kamu boleh terus bergembira. Kamu tak dapat apa kamu nak, tak semestinya kamu tak boleh bahagia.

Takdir Allah ni misteri sifatnya. Entah-entah airmata redha yang kamu titiskan dalam mengharung kecewa itulah yang menghanyutkan kamu ke syurgaNya.

Justeru, Rezeki tu bukan bermakna kamu dapat apa kamu nak. Tetapi bila kamu terima apa yang Allah beri.

Kamu hanya akan bahagia kalau kamu terima dengan redha.

Alfatihah buat Hamka.

The interviews of Dato Mukhriz with Nikkei Asia Review and Dato Husam Musa with Sinar Harian opened a new front for the silent war between Tun Dr Mahathir vs Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim for the coveted position of the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Dato Seri Azmin's ambition could be considered to have found a conclusive ending.

It could be Anwar's camp ploy to take the succession narrative from himself to the choice of the next Deputy Prime Minister.

On Thursday July 11th, Nikkei Asia Review published their interview with Mukhriz with the title: Mahathir's son ready to inherit Malaysia's political legacy.

Mukhriz took a swing at Anwar thus indicating he is in the running against Anwar.

A former Minister from Pak Lah's day remarked, "It's finally out in the open."

It means this blog is right to say Mukhriz is not competent for the highest position in the country, but was wrong to not believe his father has plan for Mukhriz to be a Dato Najib to Tun Abdul Razak.

The former PMO officers and those close to former PM Najib correctly read Mukhriz as Mahathir's heir apparent.

The PPBM insider that tipped off neither Anwar nor Azmin is Mahathir's choice as successor is now proven right.

Whether it was planned such or a change of plan from the Four Point Hotel, Sandakan, it will only be clear in later days.

In the meanwhile, AMANAH Vice Presiden, Dato Husam Musa had suggested Tan Sri Muhyiddin as running mate of Deputy Prime Minister to Anwar.

In the interview with Sinar Harian yesterday, he said their combination is the best for the power transition as Anwar's Prime Ministership is considered a done deal and the Deputy has to be from another party.

Husam offered PAS to join PH but it is likely just him building a new political narrative and strategy against PAS. PAS is ot likely to accept and comfortable to talk with PAS breakaway leaders.

Nevertheless, Husam's statement could turn the political situation within PPBM into a frenzy and hasten the rivalry against Muhyiddin and his presidency.

Though it is heard that there is a middle ground reached for next week's PPBM EGM to decide on the Satu Ahli Satu Undi (SASU) proposal, the intention has sounded alarm to the Muhyiddin camp.

They are aware and wary of intention to threaten his presidency.

Muhyiddin was the intended Deputy Prime Ministership for Anwar (had he succeeded Mahathir as fifth Prime Minister) and Pak Lah. However, it was Najib that took him in as Deputy.

His name could not have cropped up out of the blue but planned. But does Anwar has plan for Muhyiddin to succeed him or merely to cause disruption in PPBM?

It is to early to assume the Mahathir vs Anwar rivalry is over and his threat is Najib and Zahid.

One thing is sure, Muhyiddin is now confident his health condition is under control.

The government may want to engage directly with the settlers to get their support — convince them that the merger exercise would, in the long run, benefit them. They have nothing to lose. - Salleh Buang

The Sunday Times yesterday published an article by their columnist on legal matter, Salleh Buang entitled Merging Felda plots the key.

There was hardly any arguments to convince the public that amalgamation of smallholders land to be managed but that became the title.

In fact, the above quote was the key takeaway of Salleh's article. He was dwelling on the legal ownership of settlers' over the land and hardly expressed his agreement.

One can assume that Dato Abdul Kadir Jasin loyalist and NST acting CEO, Mustapha Kamil Mohd Janor has started the public relation exercise for Felda amalgamation after the disastrous launch on Hari Peneroka past week.

Can Azmin be trusted?

Dato Seri Azmin Ali denied he was "booed" and his boys were saying settlers left the hall early to eat.

Obviously, it is unbelieaveable and an amaterish attempt at crisis management. More so, he has been booed and sabotaged before to promote the amalgamation shareholders' land.

Azmin was reported by media somewhere that we (the government) are going ahead. Few days later, Azmin gave assurance government's plan will not affect their ownership. That is the key problem and Salleh saw that.

It does not help to have Tun Dr Mahathir and Chef Wan commented on the prospect of oil palm and insulted settlers as lazy.

It was Mahathir's conscious decision as fourth Prime Minister for Felda to focus on oil palm, but today he is talking as though Dato Najib made a wrong decision to focus on oil palm.

As far as Chef Wan, read the Myth of the Lazy Natives and if he has intelligence more than the vegetable and spices he cook, then he has a chance to get out of a colonised mindset.

This is the age of Internet openness and free flow of information. Azmin should not assume the settlers are not aware of what happened to the settlers of Selangor's copycat of Felda program in Ijok.

And, Azmin must face to the questions and scepticism of the public on the plan to amalgamate smallholders' land. He cannot shy away fro Parliament to avoid embarassment of the Sandakan video.

Why Civil Engineer as Felda CEO?

Any decent Felda settlers may wonder as to why Azmin appointed a Civil Engineer, with background in property development, project management and construction.

The state government entity under his charge was only playing lip service to the social role of the agency to provide law cost housing (later changed to affordable housing) for the public.

Unless second or third generation Felda was involved in the infrastructure development boom of the 90s and 00s, they would not have known of happenings in PROPEL.

The new Director General of Felda then forsaken the social role of PKNS, thus why was he then chosen to lead a social agency?

The quarrel then between Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, when he was MB of Selangor, and Azmin, who was in pursuit of the position, culminated in Dato Osman Omar not being extended his contract.

Khalid received public condemnation for PKNS's luxury condominium project, Datum Jelatek, in which PM's Political Secretary, Abu Bakar Yahya led a group of demonstrators.

Is Felda going to go big into property development?

If so, it would seriously be a strange move after one monster known in PPBM circle as DMK hustled and forced former Felda Chairman, Tan Sri Megat Zaharuddin to stick to CEP directive to liquidate investment and abandon any plan to make Felda into a short-, medium or long term self sustainable outfit.

Megat is a Shell man that has multinational exposure, then taken in by Dato Najib to be Maybank Chairman, and is certainly capable of preparing a plan for Felda.

Not only Megat may have run afoul with the one research sensation economist, talk is Azmin's choice of CEO was running in a different direction from the Chairman.

Why Daim's sudden interest in agricuture?

The Felda settlers may not remember this pieces of political past and knowledgeable enough on corporate matters.

They may not be curious as to why Tun Daim was suddenly talking about agriculture in June. It is too glaring that Dato Ahmad Talib wrote a piece to ponder on the sudden change in Daim.

Daim was talking about the way forward is agriculture as though for the past 40 years Malaysians have not realised the high food import bill, need for food security and lack of government will to upgrade agriculture to mechanisation and modern farming.

It was a surprise to the public as to why Universiti Pertanian Malaysia was turned into Universiti Putra Malaysia and may have lost its strength in agriculture.

Tun Abdullah Badawi had realised it earlier than Daim but was not allowed to develop it further. Hs advisers too were not keen to move it.

Clearly, Mahathir neglected the agriculture sector and was so obsessed with manufacturing without seriously developing a manufacturing culture. It was purely copy paste manufacturing taking advantage of low cost labour.

He was still at it and was only given a rude awakening upon assuming the Prime Ministership again. The world had changed and he could only realised it when Dyson rejected Malaysia's offer. High labour cost Singapore was selected.

Mahathir's argument in favour of manufacturing over agriculture then was an acre of land for factory provide more jobs and is more productive than an acre for farming.

His idea for agriculture was purely commercial cash crop and ignored the trend of rising food import. Policy makers were saying it is cheaper to import.

Ahmad Talib was right to be surprised because Daim's interest had always been in the area of finance, capital market and financial assets such property. His idea of investing in industries is to be buy distress asset for cheap with all known business risk mitigated and revenue guaranteed.

Daim hardly is interested in businesses that require in-depth knowledge and wide range of skillset. Infrastructure development or public projects is his rojak on weekend, but not businesses that need long gestation period.

Issues or opportunity?

As Ahmad Talib pointed out, "Daim’s approach was simple — identify the issues quickly and take immediate remedial actions."

What is the issues or opportunity he had identified to want the country to "revert backward" to agriculture? As Daim pointed out, result from the return to agriculture is a long term move. Why is it he is willing to wait?

Leopard never change spots. It may have found a new prey but pretending to look the other way.

It is not normal for Daim to attend social events with large crowds. Recently, he attended Azmin Ali's Hari Raya gathering at his home. Joceline Tan interpreted it as Daim lending support to the Azmin, but he is not still in the clear yet.

The timing with the announcement and launch to amalgamate the Felda small holders land is impeccable. The Raya gathering was just before last week's launch.

One need to remember that it was only in April that Daim managed to finalise the new route for ECRL. He talked about savings but it did turned out so.

The route, originally planned to start at Gombak to cater for east coast passengers and stopover at Bentong as potential new daily commuter centre, was re-routed to Putrajaya and KLIA to Mentakab via Semenyih.

Was it meant to benefit some land owners along the new routes?

Anthony Loke said then that land owners along the route will be compensated. It is obvious and no need for mentioning. Was it to preempt something?

MCA President, Dato Dr Wee Ka Siong raised a question on whether there was side deal to sell land to China's CCCC. MIDA could only deny no MOU for exclusivity of land determined or granted.

New terms for the ECRL was also criticised heavily in the current Parliament seating.

Amalgamation ploy

The idea to amalgamate land and manage it as estate management is not new. It has been attempted under various public and private initiatives. ECER had introduced the Agropolitan concept and successful model can be found in Sabah and Sarawak.

However, the problem lies in the current brutal cutback undertaken by Lim Guan Eng on advise of Tony Pua. Participants may not achieve the desired level of monthly income to sustain living. Mahathir promised the land amalgamation would increase income.

An attempt to do so for rubber in Kedah many years ago found themselves burdened with the huge with initial capital outlay.

Felda have been doing such estate management activities under their subsidiary, Felda Technoplant Sdn. Bhd. However, it is not as profitable and made only RM2 million a year despite revenue in the hundreds of million.

For Felda to undertake such a massive exercise involving a million acres of land, do they have the money to do so? Will the DAP-controlled Ministry of Finance play ball to commit money to such social program they would deem as benefiting only Malays?

The exercise to undertake the amalgamation may take a long time. If the plan is to plant durians, coconuts, pineapples and bananas and Felda is still at a planning stage, then it will be, but another "warm, warm chicken shit" (literal translation of Malay proverb hangat, hangat taik ayam) plan or ploy.

Agricultural reform of Felda on massive scale cannot be undertaken by a Civil Engineer, not trained in agriculture using purely his limited agriculture knowledge from growing up in Rengit, Johor.

Oil palm estare management have to meet RSPO requirement. Estates have given up trying to RSPO. Higher cost RSPO oil palm not taken up and ended up selling at non-RSPO prices.

Felda is doom to fail as rising social expenditure is crossing path with declining productivity.

However, this amalgamation plan could be designed to fail. The suspicion is the land amalgamated will only be along the ECRL route. By then, the management company will end up selling the land to developers. The Ijok story will repeat itself.

Former Selangor MB, Dato Dr Khir Toyo is right to described it as drying up the ocean to pursue a whale.

By the way, the lawyers appointed to handle the Ijok matter were Rasiah Sivarasa, and Latheefa Koya of the firm Daim & Garmany for the settlers, and N Surendran for the state.

Sure, freedom of speech, but are we ready and able to tolerate, if not accept, statement to refer to the President as Hitler or in our case, on the Prime Minister or one's Party President?

The initial impression of Dato Nazri's opposition to the appointment of Dato Najib as BN's official Adviser was him containing any criticism against Dato Zahid's decision and his good friend from Pemuda days, Dato Najib.

It made Khairy's opposition limited to his "I am not comfortable at where I am" quote. When Nazri speak, others would move aside. None could match Nazri in being frank thus will not get their desired media coverage.

However, this may not be the Nazri that is loyal to the President and known in the past for his role as designated barking dog. This is a macho Nazri speaking on his personal capacity and known in limited circle as not having tolerance of man under queen control or weak leadership. He has more than a wife and even his latest addition has controversy of her own, but he is very much in control.

Nazri's spat against Najib's appointment is a common example of Malaysians attitude towards freedom of speech.

No first amendment

Whenever news came out of someone got arrested or when charge in court and found guilty, the discussion of freedom of speech comes out.

More so these days, in which media is being curbed and the only avenue to vent out is through blogs, social media and online portals. The arrest and court decisions involving expression of views online will bring out the same discussion on freedom of speech.

These days, media is being curbed by editors getting regular calls of verbal directives to the point of harassment from someone at the PMO and claiming to talk for the PM or his CEP Chairman. It maybe partly true but more often it could be made up from their own initiatives or the Malay say, memandai or trying to be clever.

Whenever freedom of speech is discussed, the more liberal Malaysians tend to speak within the context of the US first amendment, where the government is prohibited to pass any law that deny freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly and petition government.

However, it is a different case in Malaysia. There are such rights spelled out in the constitution, but there are laws that govern the rights, against denial of the freedom, and also the exceptions to rights. As Tun Dr Mahathir used to explain, every rights given in the Constitution is balanced with a counter balance.

In not so many ways, one can brutally say whether it is in the practical sense or legally speaking, there is no absolute freedom in Malaysia in the same manner as the US. The freedom of speech has a line not to be crossed.

Salleh Buang's January article in NST put hate speech as the line not to be crossed. "Hate speech is when we say things that are offensive or harmful, targeted at a particular person or group of people".

Malaysian can be an emotional lot. Quite often, they are incapable in articulating their views sensibly and to hear views differing in preferences from their own. To rebut Mahathir's call for Malay unity by accusing him as the cause of Malay unity, the only response his fanatics like Kelab Che Det could do is to call the person as "kurang ajar" or rude and a challenge to rumble to ensue.

Since there is such a law against hate speech and promises of reform to offer more freedom by the PH government, as Salleh claim, he has yet to see it happening, the Attorney General is obliged and must carryout the law.

Irrespective of the concerns of Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim or Lim Guan Eng or the small pockets of Malaysian called the "Bangsar" liberals, the court has made a decision and the law requires that Wan Ji fulfill his sentence for his hate speech against the Sultan of Selangor.

Anwar, Guan Eng and the Bangsar liberals will have to amend the law and constitution to change or clarify the definition of hate speech because requesting any party to hold back or ignore court decision is unlawfully and unconstitutionally interfering the affair of judiciary.

Freedom in Politics

That is as far as public order is concern but now, Nazri's spat against Najib's appointment as BN Adviser is politics.

While the view of Nazri as reminder and check and balance is certainly most welcome, does the political participants and interested public have the maturity to talk of the issue objectively without bringing in personal issues, deviating from the boundaries of the subject, and political antics?

Seldom they could not be rational enough to contain their disagreements on differing views. It is the reason UMNO elders prefer not to prolong open debate within the party and express their reservation "through proper channel".

Freedom of speech in politics seldom ended up with no ending and causes split and perpetual animosity. It will inhibit the party's political operation and conclude with losses at elections.

Often than not, there is no maturity and fair views are pushed aside for their speculated intentions and the politics rather than substance.

Not many dare admit it is fair for Nazri to question the choice of Najib as adviser for reasons he is responsible for the loss of BN, personally tainted, and blew his chance thus time to step aside. The spat is seen as putting BN at a standstill from moving forward.

However, it is not Nazri without being blunt as he laced his criticism with revelation Najib wanted to be BN Chairman instead of Adviser and reminded Zahid he is not Najib's political secretary any more. He lost the plot.

If only Nazri could refrain from such a habit at his senior age of 65. He invited negative responses to exposed for his friendship with Guan Eng and involvement as arranger for the failed and controversial Penang Tunnel project and getting paid fee.

In the first place, friendship should be separated from partisanship. Secondly, Nazri has no direct responsibility to the tunnel project to be deemed as accepting corruption or kickback. But the message is a personal attack to say you are equally tainted.

Nazri was picked on for his inconsistency to now loudly to Tun Dr Mahathir as "we will stick with PAS, but you should come back to UMNO" but last year, campaigned against UMNO working with PAS. To be with PAS, they are opposed to Anwar as Prime Minister.

It is a weak argument to pick on as Nazri could say he is abiding with the leadership decision and grassroot agreement to be in a coalition with PAS.

However, Nazri may have no argument to support his personal stance to vote for Anwar in the event of a vote of no confidence against Mahathir. Dato Mohamed Hassan has expressed support for Mahathir, but Zahid has returned to assert UMNO's stance to not vote any party working hands in glove with DAP.

Consistency is the essence of credibility in politics. DAP's counter argument on any matter will primarily dwelled on this and quick to accuse hypocrasy on any slight hands of inconsistency.

Politicians' consistency seldom lies in their personal objectives and priorities. They could be seen as inconsistent because the real basis of their argument are not digestable to the public and are best not revealed.

Nazri and Khairy's antic may have their own political motive, plan and ambition. However, they could not be accused as doing a Hamzah Zainuddin before crossing over. Nazri made it clear PPBM is not interested in him. Same with Khairy, but both have been known to have inclinations and close to personalities in PKR.

For that matter, there are quarters making unsubstantiated accusations that both Zahid and Najib have preference for Anwar as both could be saved from prison terms. Could Anwar possibly - legally or politically - promise that?

Civility

Political discourse must remain sensible and polite. It should stay away from getting personal, losing its objectivity, and any claims should be substantiated. Party members and leaders are expected to adhere to party discipline and some level of code of conduct.

Off course, disciplining party members for freedom of speech, especially critic towards leadership, is not politically correct. A debate within the same party has to take account of impact on public perception and avoid unnecessary disclosure of back room happenings. The freedom of speech within a party require civility and sensibility.

It is adolescence of Nazri to blame Najib for his own "pondan" remark against Robert Kuok and justified it as Najib started it. He had the choice to not support Najib's remark against Robert Kuok and from uttering the word "pondan". It does not matter that Chinese vote were waning.

If done in a civil manner, no dissenting voice should be condemned. Calling Najib as in-denial and demand his resignation cannot be considered civil in Malay culture. It should not be done to shame anyone.

The problem with Nazri is he seldom lost track of his main objectives and get sidetracked with such antics as challenging the party leadership to sack him.

Najib may have instances of getting carried away but he remain a gentleman who could apologise for saying words not in his usual self. He is not habitually a rude person or a Lim Guan Eng, meaning liar. And he has taken Nazri's critic in stride, polite and professional. One cannot take that away from Najib as he is in a class by itself and better foresight.

Nazri rudely downplayed Najib's BossKu programs as only attracting kids. Come next election, youth or young voters will feature more than 50% of voters.

The last general election shows Khairy's arrogant ways is not appealing to the youth. He is now 40, no more youth by neither Syed Saddiq's standard nor Johor state government's definition.

Nevertheless, it is a blessing that Nazri and Khairy that took up the issue. If it is not lost in translation, sometimes UMNO needs someone gung ho, stubborn and crass to send the message. It is their own failure to deliver the criticism in such crude manner. It would have been more dignified had the debate be more civil.

Though Najib may have failed, sometimes one could learn from bankrupt entrepreneurs on how to evade the potholes in business. He certainly have much to advise BN. For one, no former Prime Minister has ever faced such challenge after their term is over. The politics did not end with his election loss.

Naturally, the argument against it is Najib could advise without having to be official Adviser.

Whatever Nazri's argument to insist the decision to appoint Najib as BN Adviser should have been discussed at the UMNO Supreme Council prior to the making such announcement, there are many ways to skin a cat.

If Najib had intentions to make a comeback, Nazri and Khairy can express his reservation but they lack the credibility for being silent on Mahathir's comeback. Even if it is part of Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor's grandplan, a big if indeed, it is up to the members to decide.

Nazri and Khairy could stop his comeback by making themselves more relevant as opposition to criticise the weakness or government, or expose the leakages of government or champion the plight of the people.

If they fail to do so and upstage Najib's consistent effort, they have only themselves to blame. As it is, Najib is torchbearer in the fight against the current government that is appealing to the people and converting PH voters to BN, Insya Allah.

Nazri and Khairy do realised the realpolitik that there is no right or wrong answer in politics. Those in power are empowered to make decisions. They will make the decisions that offers the right balance to the criteria they determined as necessary. Live with that.

Relax lah, Chief ... baru Penasihat. It was Mahathir who said, one must accept the advise of British Adviser. Najib hanya Penasihat Melayu.

That was the commotion yesterday when Dewan Rakyat Speaker, Dato Mohd Ariff bin Mohd Yusof made a decision to not send Minister of Finance, Lim Guan Eng to the Select Committee for disciplinary action.

This is odd because Pasir Salak MP, Dato Tajuddin Abdul Rahman was reprimanded for calling Deputy Speaker "pondan" and remarks against a Minister in Parliament.

Unlike Tajuddin, Guan Eng's "rompak" statement has more far reaching impact on the economy and country.

The PAC, with the majority from PH concluded that the RM19.4 billion of GST refund is not missing.

At the August seating in 2018, Guan Eng made the accusation in Dewan Rakyat that the GST refind funds dirompak or robbed by the previous BN government.

Taken by force or deprived?

The full video of Guan Eng speaking with gusto in the August 2018 parliament session can be heard below:

Do not miss the one below:

According to the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, the meaning of rob are

Transvertive verb

1a: (1) to take something away from by force: steal from, (2) to take personal property from by violence or threat;
b: (1) to remove valuables without right from (a place), (2) to take the contents of (a receptacle);
c: to take away as loot : STEAL rob jewelry

2a: to deprive of something due, expected, or desired
b: to withhold unjustly or injuriously

Intransvertive verb

To commit robbery

There is no stealing, no act of force, removable of valuables without right or taken away or any act of robbery.

The conclusion no money is missing encapsulate those meanings.

Tommy Thomas lifeline

The DAP MPs and politicians are adamant there were robbery.

Guan Eng did not give a good argument for the GST refund claimants as being deprived of something due and it is unjustly withheld.

He said it was used for a different purpose, which again is not the argument by Attorney General, Tommy Thomas.

Nevertheless, they were holding on to the opinion of Tommy. Like in the Jalan Pinhorn bungalow corruption case, Tommy gave Guan Eng a lifeline.

A six month suspension may deny him from delivering the budget and lose his Ministerial position.

The Star reported:

It’s a violation of the law, says AG

NATION

Tuesday, 16 Jul 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The former administration’s move to direct all the Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue into the Consolidated Fund account is a violation of the law, says Attorney General Tommy Thomas (pic).

Thomas said this was against Section 7 of the Financial Procedure Act 1957 and Section 54 of the GST Act 2014.

“This was a breach of fundamental trust law principles and trust accounting requirements.

“The (previous) administration’s practice to channel the GST revenue into the Consolidated Fund account is a neglect to Section 54 of the GST Act which assures that taxpayers will receive their refunds if they qualify,” said Thomas in a letter dated Oct 9, 2018, to the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) proceedings on the missing RM19.4bil GST refunds.

The letter is contained in the PAC report.

He said that although criminal liability on breach of trust was not discussed, the issue is “open to a criminal investigation by the police”.

Meanwhile, Opposition lawmakers want the issue over the “missing” GST refunds to be debated in Parliament by this week.

Their request will be formally made through an emergency motion after the Parliament’s PAC found that RM19.4bil of the GST credit refund was not missing as claimed by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

“This means that the Bagan MP (Lim) had misled and lied to Parliament.

“He has gone against Standing Order 36 and we want the matter to be debated and he should be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee in the current Dewan meeting,” Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob told reporters at a press conference in Parliament yesterday.

He said it was crucial for the motion to be debated during the current Parliament meeting as Lim’s allegations that the RM19.4bil was “robbed and stolen” had cast a bad light on the previous administration.

“The allegations are serious and cannot be forgiven,” the Opposition chief added.

Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong, who was present at the press conference, said they had no problems accepting the PAC’s criticism on the procedural aspect on how the GST fund was handled.

“We can accept the PAC’s criticism but to say it was stolen is wrong,” he said.

Dr Wee also noted that the Auditor-General had confirmed that verified GST credit refund of RM5.06bil had been refunded following request by the Customs Department.

He also said that the Attorney General, in his response to the PAC, had not once mentioned the word “stolen”.

Dr Wee noted that he had raised the issue over Lim’s allegations in the Parliament’s Special Chambers but received no proper response.

Meanwhile, Pakatan Harapan lawmakers lauded the PAC investigations, claiming that this was confirmation that the tax refunds had been stolen and misused.

Kota Melaka MP Khoo Poay Tiong said the PAC investigations confirmed that there was a shortfall of RM19.4bil in the GST credit refund. He insisted that the money was “stolen” after it was redirected to the Consolidated Revenue Account although meant for the GST Refund Account.

“This is a clear admittance that the money for GST refund was stolen because it is in effect taking and withholding money from taxpayers by force,” he said.

Khoo said he agreed with Thomas that the GST refund issue was still open to criminal investigations.

Bandar Kuching MP Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen said that channelling the GST refunds into a different account was a criminal breach of trust that warrants criminal investigations.

“The PAC findings clearly proved that the underlying fact is that a law was broken and the Barisan government had dipped their fingers into the money regardless of the justifications,” he said.

On Aug 8 last year, Lim had raised the issue over the RM19.4bil missing GST refund credit and said the money had been stolen by Barisan.

This prompted a heated debate with several lawmakers calling for the matter to be investigated by the PAC.

Another media coverage by MMO here.

Consolidated Fund

The establishment and administration of the Consolidated Fund accounts is made under Section 7 of the Financial Procedure Act 1957:

When GST is paid by businesses as collected from sales, the GST Act 2014 require the money be paid into the Consolidated Account. See Section 54 below of the act:

The amount to be refunded is ascertain as per section 57 below:

Basically the allegation made by DAP MP from Bandar Kuching is wrong and unsubstantiated. The channeling of money into a different account under the Consolidated Fund is required by the GST Act.

A clear case of commenting without reading the Act.

Same act of ignorance by the DAP MP from Kota Melaka. The amount meant for refund is hardly amount to RM19.4 billion but RM5.0 billion as said by BN MP from Air Itam. Again, RM19.4 billion is not stolen as in being taken away by force.

To say it is robbed as in being unjustly deprived, it is not correct and arguable. It could be the reason AG did not commit to say a criminal act has been performed. He took the safe play to leave it to the police.

If he intend to make life miserable for the previous BN government to pick on procedural matter, it will likely be done via police. There are unsubstantiated rumours that IP submitted by MACC or Police is pre-prepared from the AG office.

With the GST Act dissolved, whats the point?

Wrong legal opinion

Nevertheless, one should realise that the GST refund had been administered in accordance with the prescribed law.

Tommy Thomas made his allegation purely based on Section 54 (1) to (4) of the GST Act, but accidently or conveniently was silent on Section 54 (5). It is in CAPITAL LETTERS below:

5) NOTWITHSTANDING SUBSECTION (2) AND THE PROVISIONS OF THE FINANCIAL PROCEDURES ACT 1957, THE MINISTER MAY AUTHORIZE THE PAYMENT INTO THE CONSOLIDATED REVENUE ACCOUNT IN THE FEDERAL CONSOLIDATED FUND OF ALL OR PART OF THE MONEYS OF THE FUND.

With the authority of the Minister of Finance under the GST Act, is it really a procedural mistake, as mentioned by Wee Ka Siong, for the then government to apply the discretion to keep the money due for refund under Consolidated Revenue Account or any of the other two accounts?

The DAP MPs will not say yes, but they are not likely to say no. If they are arguing, they will divert their arguments on other matter.

The fact is the administration of the GST was done in accordance with the FPA 1957. Najib obeyed the law and in general, with few exceptions, the Malaysian GST law is similar to that of Singapore's.

If there was a delay as Najib claimed, it is to avoid government cashflow problems. An extract from NST below:

However, the committee (PAC) said Najib and former Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Irwan Serigar Abdullah concurred that the former prime minister had acted in accordance with Section 54(5).

Najib explained that he had acted on the accountant-general’s advice and in accordance with Section 54(5) when he decided that all GST revenue would be channelled to the consolidated revenue account.

“This was to prevent potential cash flow problems for the government.

“If there was a pressing need in terms of expenditure involving the needs of the rakyat, we likely used the money to fund projects.

“It is a cash flow problem because of the demand by other services for the government that we need to settle, and also development expenditure,” he said.

Guan Eng made allegations then that the GST refund was misused to pay for 1MDB, a convenient political scapegoat of PH.

3The likelihood it is delayed to ensure sufficient reserves to pay for government monthly expenditure.

Fundamental trust law principle?

This leads to Tommy's opinion there was a breach in the fundamental trust law principle.

Probably he viewed money held in trust account should not be used for any other purpose but what it is meant to be. However, there is only RM1.5 billion money in the Consolidated Trust Account and it was not used.

The money to pay should already be available but it is not, thus no trust money was used for other purpose including 1MDB as claimed by Guan Eng.

It could mean the unqualified accountant Minister did not understand the Consolidated Accounts and jump to the wrong conclusion upon seeing the balance of RM1.5 billion in the trust fund and dishonestly sensationalised it as "robbed" for 1MDB.

Sources from within MOF claimed both Tony Pua and Guan Eng received explanation from officials but were adamant to mislead the public by cooking up a political lie against the previous BN government.

Be that as it may, several lawyers were of the opinion Tommy could be arguing along the legal principle that specific laws (in the subsections of any section of the law) should take precedent over the general law.

Herein lies among the weakness in the GST law drafted.

It would not be sensible and prudent practise in government financial administration to prioritise the paying of refund than paying its overhead. Failing to meet its overhead will limit government's smooth operation.

There is likelihood that the GST law may have specified the time rebate should be paid out. It is not quite practical as Section 57 clearly mentioned the payment of the rebate need to be ascertain. All the RM19.4 billion applied for rebate may not qualify.

It is believed that the application for refund just before the general election was exceptionally more than the usual trend. That leaves one to suspect many possibilities including promises for delivering votes.

The practise of Customs with respect to GST vis-a-vis Inland Revenue Board vastly differs. Tax paid to IRB goes into a trust account and within a prescribed number of days, it is transfered to the Consolidated Accounts.

There are many more weakness in the GST law that it makes one wonder whether the then Solicitor General slackened her work or was distracted by the adjoining door to the Attorney General's Office.

Then AG, Tan Sri Gani Patail may redirect blame to MPs for passing the law. But then, BN MPs had to follow the directive of the then BN Chief Whip, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin without question.

Why is it they are all on the PH side now?

Guan Eng's fiscal mismanagement

MOF made an announcement to zerorise GST and gave a 3-month tax holidays. There was attempt to deny responsibility but it happened within days after Guan Eng's appointment as Minister.

They could not be any cabinet endorsement of the decision because the full cabinet appointment by Tun Dr Mahathir was only completed on July 17, 2018. The likelihood is Guan Eng made the decision on his own.

The refund could have been made had Guan Eng be more patient and not try to satisfy some campaign whispering promise without pondering a bit more on the implication of such actions. The tax holiday disrupted government cashflow and affected the refund claimants.

The GST rebate accusation was a way to pull wool over the public eye together with the "rompak" accusation and RM1 trillion debt lie. The sudden and hasty decision to abolish GST resulted in the messy public accounts, massive social spending cutback and firing of government staff.

Government was saddled with the commitment to pay rebate in which there was no new inflow till more than half a year later.

On top of the GST rebate of RM19.4 billion, government is denied RM15 to 18 billion for the tax holiday and without GST cash inflow till SST collection come back on stream (@RM1.2 to 1.5b a week)

Dato Najib estimated in his FB a deficit of RM50 billion in revenue. With RM82 billion Petronas money "ripped off" ("dijarah") on top of the normal RM25 bil annual contribution, the cashflow shortfall for 2018 could be more than RM50 bil and effect carried over till 2019.

Government kept selling assets on pretext of bringing debt down, but yet government continued to borrow from abroad which now saw an increase in debt by RM100 billion.

As a result, the government's credibility at the international level was severely damaged.

Dato Dr Asyraff highlighted the 10 devastating effect of Guan Eng's reckless decision on GST in his facebook, which affected the stock market, bond market, commodity market, debt level, government's corporate assets and economy.

Escaped discipline

Guan Eng should be diciplined for his misdeeds.

Despite opposition willingness to withdraw application to bring him to the Select Committee he was adamant and remained arrogantly stubborn.

Mahathir's lawyer, Hanif Khaitri asked he be gentleman about it:

Alas, there is no action taken because Speaker's decision is final. Guan Eng will not face the disciplinary committee.

The opposition MPs could only walkout in protest, But that is realpolitik or reality of politics. The truth is determined, not by the facts or evidences presented, but by the number of seats.

The PH MPs would argue in private that we are in power and it is our turn to abuse the process.

This time the abuse is more blatant. There is a conflict of interest since the House Speaker's son is working in Guan Eng's office. When asked in Parliament, Ariff made no denial and admit it. He claimed he acted independently.

Knowing his partisan biasness since his days in the bench, was he fair and independent?

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