Mahathir is finished. And to add insult to injury he has been stripped of all his dignity and has lost all moral values. Even worse is his family has been brought down into the gutter together with him. The Mahathir name is no longer the name of a statesman but the name of a pariah. The defeat and loss of power is not as bad as the defiling of the Mahathir name. There is no longer any Mahathir dynasty. Mahathir will be remembered as the man who sold himself in the pursuit of power and revenge and turned prostitution into an art form.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was very sure he had a winner in his hands. He was guaranteed that the 1MDB issue is extremely strong and can easily bring down Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. With what Mahathir thought was RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money disappearing into thin air, there was no way Najib can survive the onslaught. All they needed to do was to reveal to the world that Najib stole RM42 billion of the rakyat’s money and Najib will fall faster than the three years it took for Mahathir to oust Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
But first they needed to sabotage 1MDB to make sure it really does get into trouble and suffers a serious cash flow problem. They cannot expect the ship to sink all by itself. They need to sink the ship. So they torpedoed the IPO and got Bank Negara to block all bank loans to 1MDB. Without sufficient funding even Apple, Facebook or Google will fall. Funding is the essence of business success. America was built and the west was won on borrowed money and public share issues. So were the earlier conglomerates of the British Empire. Banks and public share issues make the world go round and without funding 1MDB is assured of destruction.
So that was how the 1MDB saga started. First Mahathir arranged all his ducks in a row and then he fired the shots. That was in 2013. And when he thought 1MDB was gasping its last few breaths he stepped in and fired the final bullet into the brain to put it out of its misery, which was Khairuddin Abu Hassan’s police report in December 2014.
The only flaw in that plan was Khairuddin was not a person of the highest ethics and credibility. He had just acquired a trophy wife and was in dire financial straights. He would sell his mother to get money to save his house for being auctioned and to pay for his lifestyle of the rich and famous. Khairuddin was without a doubt motivated by money and not the cause.
In January 2015, Mahathir started gathering his forces to move in for the final putsch and to replace Najib with Muhyiddin Yassin and Mukhriz as the new Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. And he gave himself six months for that to happen, which means by July 2015. At least that was the plan. And Mahathir was so sure it was a foolproof plan and that Najib was a dead man walking that he organised Najib’s farewell and ‘happy retirement’ party three days before Najib was supposed to walk out the door and hand power to Muhyiddin and Mukhriz.
Mahathir, however, forgot one golden rule of life. And that rule is man proposes but God disposes. And that is why Muslims say insha-Allah or God willing after every statement — or as the English will say, touch wood. And in Mahathir’s case God was not willing. Three days after Mahathir’s birthday bash, Najib struck and decapitated all the main conspirators and sent them to their graves. Muhyiddin, Shafie Apdal, the Attorney General, those in the MACC, those in Bank Negara, those in the Special Branch — all who were in the conspiracy to sabotage 1MDB and to use the 1MDB issue to hang Najib were themselves hanged from the highest tree.
It was a blow Mahathir never saw coming and which he could not take. At that point of time he should have done what the IGP and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah did — and that is to back off and admit defeat. But Mahathir could not accept defeat. He thought he still had a chance of ousting Najib. So, when the 29th July 2015 coup failed, he tried a second time with the October 2015 vote of no confidence in Parliament followed by the December 2015 vote of no confidence in the Umno assembly.
Both those moves also failed and not a ripple was caused let alone a showdown of any kind.
Mahathir should have realised that the one-year December 2014 to December 2015 operation had failed. He should have gone home to lick his wounds and not waste any more time trying to oust Najib. He had tried in July and again in October and December. It was a case of three strikes and you are out. But Mahathir could not accept that Najib had outmaneuvered him and was very safe and secure in his Prime Minister’s seat.
Mahathir always told his people you will never be able to topple the Prime Minister from outside the party. If you want to topple the Prime Minister it has to be from the inside. That was why when Tengku Razaleigh’s Team B made their move on him in 1987, Mahathir closed down Umno and set up a new party. This was so that he could get rid of all his enemies within Umno.
Mahahir knew that once Tengku Razaleigh and his Team B were safely out of Umno then they no longer posed any danger. Better still if they go and set up a new party and become Umno’s enemy. Even better if Tengku Razaleigh and his new party works with Umno’s or Barisan Nasional’s enemies — such as PAS, DAP and PBS.
And that was precisely what Tengku Razaleigh did and what he should not have done. Eight years later Tengku Razaleigh realised he had made a huge tactical blunder and had played right into Mahathir’s hands. So he closed down his party and returned to Umno with his tail between his legs together with a large group of his supporters.
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