“Now that the true nature of Kit Siang’s intent is out in public, should Najib have won the debate, people would automatically have accused the senior Lim of wanting to topple Mahathir to make sure that the nation’s finances remain under the control of his son, Nobita, who Mahathir and Daim can no longer tolerate”
Raggie Jessy Rithaudeen
This shxt never ends, I tell you.
Lim Kit Siang, man who accepted Dato’ Seri Najib tun Razak’s challenge to a debate, fixed the title of the debate and spoke a helluva lot as to why it had to be that debate, has now come out to declare that he’s pulling out from the debate amid fears that it may “turn into a racial conflict.” Yes, according to the man who ran a near 365-days marathon accusing Najib of running a global kleptocracy, the debate, which just so happens to be about kleptocracy, is now said to be a precursor to racial unrest and is therefore not worth touching.
“As there is a great likelihood that the debate on ‘How Malaysia became a global kleptocracy and how we can become a leading nation of integrity’ between Najib and myself could be turned into a Malay vs Chinese conflict… I have decided not to proceed with the debate with Najib,” the senior Lim wrote.
Can someone please help me make sense of this?
The idea that Lim never once let up any opportunity to censure Najib publicly for “running a global kleptocracy” but now claims the debate could trigger unrest isn’t just absurd, it’s pathetic, downright stupid and reeks of cowardice. For heaven’s sake, not only was his cockamamie babble on kleptocracy splashed all over the mainstream media, his own son, Lim Guan Eng aka Nobita, himself ran a near 365-days marathon dedicated to ripping Najib apart on the topic of – you guessed it – kleptocracy.
What happened to the threat of racism then?
Kit Siang’s chickening out – which is what it is – may have to do with an expose published by The Third Force that spoke of reasons he insisted that the title of the debate be “How Malaysia became a global kleptocracy and how we can become a leading nation of integrity.” Yesterday, I explained (in italic) that the title presupposes that Malaysia is indeed a global kleptocracy and assumes that the status is somewhat established and agreed upon by the vast majority of Malaysians, even Najib himself.
“…the title could sound the death knell for Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s premiership and may even have been planned to do just that by none other than the senior Lim himself.
“Conventional debates never carry such titles, as a debate title is supposed to contain the point of contention and not something both sides agree upon.
“For instance, if the title of a debate reads “television is bad,” both sides know that they’re going into the ring to decide if indeed television is bad or if it’s a good thing after all.
“Likewise, should the title read “Malaysia a kleptocracy,” the objective is for one side to argue in favour of Malaysia being a kleptocracy and for the other side to argue against Malaysia being a kleptocracy.
“In both cases, you could rephrase the titles to resemble questions, in which case, the goal would be to answer the question, i.e., yes, television is bad for you, or no, Malaysia is not a kleptocracy.
“In the case of Najib vs Kit Siang, the latter cleverly proposed a title that would force both sides to agree that Malaysia is a kleptocracy.”
Having a debate on kleptocracy opens the doors wide for Najib to rip Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad apart. All the former premier needs to do is list out the hundreds of times Kit Siang stood up in parliament demanding Royal Commissions of Inquiry to investigate just about every scandal that took place in the eighties and the nineties. We’re talking the multibillion dollar Perwaja Steel, EPF, Maminco, Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF), Makuwasa, Petronas, PLUS and forex scandals here, all of which are said to have cost the country an estimated RM200 billion in total losses by today’s worth, to say the least.
Lim had either accused Mahathir of concealing, inspiring, choreographing or architecting these scandals at some point or other and claimed that he wrote “10 million words” since entering politics. A sizeable chunk of these words detailed the lopsided agreements Mahathir entered with various individuals that resulted in exorbitant toll rates, scandalous bailouts, the ‘piratisation’ of public services, the illegal logging of rainforests and the ‘looting’ of Petronas, among others. None of these words, however, spoke of Kit Siang’s son’s world renowned multibillion Undersea Tunnel Project scandal.
Notwithstanding the tunnel, had Najib pointed all this out during the debate, Kit Siang would never have been able to deny them and would effectively have ended up “speaking a thousand insults to Mahathir” through Najib’s mouth. Accordingly, Najib would also have been able to point out an article that appeared in 2015 in which the senior Lim admitted that Mahathir was responsible for starting the “rot” in the country through corruption and the rampant abuse of power.
“According to the senior Lim, it was during the Mahathir era that the famous Operasi Lalang crackdown was carried out among other mass arrests of anti-government dissidents under the now-repealed Internal Security Act (ISA).
“Kit Siang went on to say that Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy conviction was proof of the rot.
“Corruption, power abuse, manipulation of the system to extend one’s personal wealth and political powers – does this all not spell k-l-e-p-t-o-c-r-a-c-y?”
Should Najib have been given the opportunity to prove Mahathir is the kleptocrat, not him, he could have gotten people to believe that the Prime Minister wanted him gone because he was preventing the latter’s cronies from looting government linked enterprises. This includes the crony-controlled Independent Power Producers (IPP) that literally looted wealth from Tenaga National Berhad (TNB) which the rakyat had to pay for. Had Najib been able to prove all this by citing Kit Siang’s ‘thesis’ on the matter, he would technically have cleared his name.
“Thereon, any sudden move by Daim against Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim would automatically turn the majority of Pakatan supporters, particularly the youth, against Mahathir and earn Anwar, Kit Siang and gang a lot of sympathy.
“Then, should the DAP and team Anwar suddenly decide to pull out of Pakatan Harapan and collapse the federal government, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong would have no choice but to appoint a caretaker government and pave the way for a general election.”
Now do you see why Kit Siang backed down from the debate?
A man of his stature would not have been stupid enough to suggest kleptocracy for a title and not known that the title would end up destroying Mahathir. It’s obvious that the senior Lim did not mind helping Najib ‘clear’ his name by shifting the kleptocracy spotlight onto Mahathir, as to him, helping Najib would be better off than seeing Anwar Ibrahim getting destroyed and Azmin Ali being made Prime Minister.
However, now that the true nature of Kit Siang’s intent is out in public, should Najib have won the debate, people would automatically have accused the senior Lim of wanting to topple Mahathir to make sure that the nation’s finances remain under the control of his son, Nobita, who Mahathir and Daim can no longer tolerate. That explains why Kit Siang is reluctant to go on with the debate, though, at this point in time, it is unclear to me how all this could end up becoming a racial issue.
Well, as Raja Sara Petra put it, run, baby, run!
READ ALSO:
Kit Siang – Najib debate may end up crushing Mahathir for good
