Najib's integrity pledge a mockery?
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MP SPEAKS Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has presented me with a dilemma.
Is the Election Integrity Pledge proposed by Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) worth signing when Najib signed it with such aplomb, contempt and cynicism after his four-year premiership witnessed corruption in Malaysia plunging to its worst depths in the nation's 56-year history?
In Najib's four years as prime minister, Malaysia's Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) plunged to its lowest ranking in 18 years, from 56 in 2009 and 2010 to 60 in 2011 and 54 in 2012.
Compare
this with the country's 23rd ranking in the first TI CPI in 1995, 37th
in 2003 when Dr Mahathir Mohamad stepped down as prime minister after 22
years of authoritarian and corrupt rule and the ranking of 47 in 2008,
after five years of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's "Mr Clean" premiership.
It is incontrovertible and undeniable that corruption under Najib's four-year premiership is the worst under any prime minister in the nation's 56-year history.
Apart from being worse than the Mahathir and Abdullah eras, no one has ever suggested that corruption under the first three prime ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Abdul Razak Hussein and Hussein Onn were ever more serious than under their successors.
Questionable presence of Taib Mahmud
What makes a meaningful signing of TI-M's Election Integrity Pledge even more questionable is the presence of the Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has put Malaysia on the international radar of anti-corruption campaigns.
This was especially so after the allegations in the ground-breaking and explosive report by the Swiss-based NGO Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) last September, which estimated the assets of Taib Mahmud's family at US$21 billion (RM64 billion), with the wealth of Taib himself put at a whopping US$15 billion (RM46 billion), making him Malaysia's richest man and outstripping tycoon Robert Kuok, who has US$12.5 billion.
Najib
not only failed to show any seriousness or commitment in the battle
against corruption by setting up a royal commission of inquiry into the
BMF report to clear Taib's name, and, even more important, to vindicate
Malaysia's reputation. He as good as directed the Malaysian
Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to leave the BMF report alone by
publicly dismissing its allegations of grand corruption against the
Sarawak chief minister.
If the Sarawak chief minister was present at Najib's Election Integrity Pledge signing ceremony yesterday, why was the Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman, another Barisan Nasional leader who has put Malaysia on the world radar in international anti-corruption campaigns, absent?
In my speech in Parliament on the 2013 Budget last October, I had spoken about the "test of the trio" as to whether there is real political will in the Najib administration to combat "Grand Corruption" by VVIPs, in which I had named Taib, Musa and Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail.
But there was only complete silence from Najib on the "test of the trio" in the battle against "grand corruption" in Malaysia.
What credibility and legitimacy could Najib's signing of the Election Integrity Pledge inspire and generate when the 66th Umno general assembly last December was such a dismal failure as far as fighting corruption and ensuring election integrity in the 13th general election are concerned?
A month before the this Umno general assembly, China's outgoing president and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary of the Hu Jintao warned at the 18th CCP Congress that corruption could trigger the collapse of the Party and the fall of the state.
This theme was taken up in the first speech of the new Chinese Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, who denounced the prevalence of corruption and said officials needed to guard against its spread or it would "doom the party and the state".
China improves in checking grant, but we regress
There was more reason for Najib than for Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping to give priority to the grave problem of corruption as in the last two decades, for China had been making measurable progress in the battle against corruption while the reverse was the case for Malaysia.
In fact, if the trend of China's improvement in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the past 18 years (1995-2012) and Malaysia's regression continues unchecked, China will be placed in a better position than Malaysia in the TI CPI in being internationally regarded as being less corrupt in less than five years.
But the 66th Umno general assembly only provided further evidence that although Umno and the BN have become synonymous with corruption in Malaysia and the four-year Najib premiership, Najib is only good at mouthing anti-corruption slogans but totally lacking the political will and commitment to root out corruption, especially grand corruption involving political and government leaders.
This
was why the Umno general assembly presented the sad spectacle of Sabah
Chief Minister Musa Aman successfully performing the "disappearance" act
despite valiant efforts by the media representatives on a look-out for
him to respond to demands by Sabah Umno delegates that Musa explain the
scandal of the RM40 million "political donation to Sabah Umno" that
involved him and the Sabah timber trader Michael Chia.
There was also the spectable of the backing out and silence of Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, coupled with the failure of Najib to respond to the serious allegations of integrity on a RM100 million defence ministry project in 2005 raised by businessman Deepak Jaikishan, which implicated the prime minister's family and which is also related to the high-profile and long-running Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case.
It was also at this Umno assembly that some Sabah Umno delegates told online news portals that although they fully supported Musa, they were in the dark about the RM40 million "political donation" to Sabah Umno and they wanted Musa to personally explain the issue.
However, there were also Sabah Umno delegates who dismissed the controversy on grounds that the RM40 million donation was pittance compared with the millions Umno dished out during elections - with one Sabah Umno delegate revealing that in the Putatan constituency in his home state, Umno would have to spend up to RM6 million during the election.
With
26 parliamentary constituencies in Sabah (and Labuan) and at the
average of RM6 million per constituency, the total election expenses
would exceed RM150 million at the parliamentary level - which would more
than double when the election expenses for the state assembly
constituencies are taken into account.
With Umno-BN spending at least RM300 million in Sabah, another RM300 million in Sarawak, and similar election expenditures for the 165 parliamentary seats and 441 state assembly seats in the 11 states of the peninsula, we are looking at the Umno-BN coalition spending billions of ringgit in the GE13 to retain power and recapture two-thirds parliamentary majority at the federal level, as well as regain the four Pakatan Rakyat states of Penang, Kelantan, Selangor and Kedah, and maintain its unconstitutional rule in Perak.
With Umno-BN set to spend billions of ringgit in GE13, what is the use of Najib signing TI-M's Election Integrity Pledge? I will discuss with Anwar Ibrahim and Hadi Awang whether, under these circumstances, there is any purpose in our signing the TI-M Election Integrity Pledge.
LIM KIT SIANG is DAP national adviser and the MP for Ipoh Timor.
Is the Election Integrity Pledge proposed by Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) worth signing when Najib signed it with such aplomb, contempt and cynicism after his four-year premiership witnessed corruption in Malaysia plunging to its worst depths in the nation's 56-year history?
In Najib's four years as prime minister, Malaysia's Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) plunged to its lowest ranking in 18 years, from 56 in 2009 and 2010 to 60 in 2011 and 54 in 2012.
Compare
this with the country's 23rd ranking in the first TI CPI in 1995, 37th
in 2003 when Dr Mahathir Mohamad stepped down as prime minister after 22
years of authoritarian and corrupt rule and the ranking of 47 in 2008,
after five years of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's "Mr Clean" premiership.It is incontrovertible and undeniable that corruption under Najib's four-year premiership is the worst under any prime minister in the nation's 56-year history.
Apart from being worse than the Mahathir and Abdullah eras, no one has ever suggested that corruption under the first three prime ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Abdul Razak Hussein and Hussein Onn were ever more serious than under their successors.
Questionable presence of Taib Mahmud
What makes a meaningful signing of TI-M's Election Integrity Pledge even more questionable is the presence of the Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has put Malaysia on the international radar of anti-corruption campaigns.
This was especially so after the allegations in the ground-breaking and explosive report by the Swiss-based NGO Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) last September, which estimated the assets of Taib Mahmud's family at US$21 billion (RM64 billion), with the wealth of Taib himself put at a whopping US$15 billion (RM46 billion), making him Malaysia's richest man and outstripping tycoon Robert Kuok, who has US$12.5 billion.
Najib
not only failed to show any seriousness or commitment in the battle
against corruption by setting up a royal commission of inquiry into the
BMF report to clear Taib's name, and, even more important, to vindicate
Malaysia's reputation. He as good as directed the Malaysian
Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to leave the BMF report alone by
publicly dismissing its allegations of grand corruption against the
Sarawak chief minister.If the Sarawak chief minister was present at Najib's Election Integrity Pledge signing ceremony yesterday, why was the Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman, another Barisan Nasional leader who has put Malaysia on the world radar in international anti-corruption campaigns, absent?
In my speech in Parliament on the 2013 Budget last October, I had spoken about the "test of the trio" as to whether there is real political will in the Najib administration to combat "Grand Corruption" by VVIPs, in which I had named Taib, Musa and Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail.
But there was only complete silence from Najib on the "test of the trio" in the battle against "grand corruption" in Malaysia.
What credibility and legitimacy could Najib's signing of the Election Integrity Pledge inspire and generate when the 66th Umno general assembly last December was such a dismal failure as far as fighting corruption and ensuring election integrity in the 13th general election are concerned?
A month before the this Umno general assembly, China's outgoing president and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary of the Hu Jintao warned at the 18th CCP Congress that corruption could trigger the collapse of the Party and the fall of the state.
This theme was taken up in the first speech of the new Chinese Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, who denounced the prevalence of corruption and said officials needed to guard against its spread or it would "doom the party and the state".
China improves in checking grant, but we regress
There was more reason for Najib than for Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping to give priority to the grave problem of corruption as in the last two decades, for China had been making measurable progress in the battle against corruption while the reverse was the case for Malaysia.
In fact, if the trend of China's improvement in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the past 18 years (1995-2012) and Malaysia's regression continues unchecked, China will be placed in a better position than Malaysia in the TI CPI in being internationally regarded as being less corrupt in less than five years.
But the 66th Umno general assembly only provided further evidence that although Umno and the BN have become synonymous with corruption in Malaysia and the four-year Najib premiership, Najib is only good at mouthing anti-corruption slogans but totally lacking the political will and commitment to root out corruption, especially grand corruption involving political and government leaders.
This
was why the Umno general assembly presented the sad spectacle of Sabah
Chief Minister Musa Aman successfully performing the "disappearance" act
despite valiant efforts by the media representatives on a look-out for
him to respond to demands by Sabah Umno delegates that Musa explain the
scandal of the RM40 million "political donation to Sabah Umno" that
involved him and the Sabah timber trader Michael Chia.There was also the spectable of the backing out and silence of Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, coupled with the failure of Najib to respond to the serious allegations of integrity on a RM100 million defence ministry project in 2005 raised by businessman Deepak Jaikishan, which implicated the prime minister's family and which is also related to the high-profile and long-running Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case.
It was also at this Umno assembly that some Sabah Umno delegates told online news portals that although they fully supported Musa, they were in the dark about the RM40 million "political donation" to Sabah Umno and they wanted Musa to personally explain the issue.
However, there were also Sabah Umno delegates who dismissed the controversy on grounds that the RM40 million donation was pittance compared with the millions Umno dished out during elections - with one Sabah Umno delegate revealing that in the Putatan constituency in his home state, Umno would have to spend up to RM6 million during the election.
With
26 parliamentary constituencies in Sabah (and Labuan) and at the
average of RM6 million per constituency, the total election expenses
would exceed RM150 million at the parliamentary level - which would more
than double when the election expenses for the state assembly
constituencies are taken into account.With Umno-BN spending at least RM300 million in Sabah, another RM300 million in Sarawak, and similar election expenditures for the 165 parliamentary seats and 441 state assembly seats in the 11 states of the peninsula, we are looking at the Umno-BN coalition spending billions of ringgit in the GE13 to retain power and recapture two-thirds parliamentary majority at the federal level, as well as regain the four Pakatan Rakyat states of Penang, Kelantan, Selangor and Kedah, and maintain its unconstitutional rule in Perak.
With Umno-BN set to spend billions of ringgit in GE13, what is the use of Najib signing TI-M's Election Integrity Pledge? I will discuss with Anwar Ibrahim and Hadi Awang whether, under these circumstances, there is any purpose in our signing the TI-M Election Integrity Pledge.
LIM KIT SIANG is DAP national adviser and the MP for Ipoh Timor.
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