By Aathi Shankar
Syed Husin Ali has recently slammed Tun Mahathir Mohamad as the politician responsible for all ills crippling the nation.
Syed Husin blamed Mahathir for causing the serious division amongst Malays and their political parties.
He recalled that Mahathir, as formerly the 4th Prime Minister (PM4), had destroyed the integrity of the judiciary and government institutions.
Malaysians should remember that all major financial scandals that rocked the country happened under the PM4’s watch.
“It is because of him that graft and money politics are widespread.”
The former PKR deputy president can’t be more precise than that.
Blame Game
Now, Mahathir has returned to power as PM7.
Who Syed Husin is going to blame – Pakatan Harapan (PH) or the people, who enthusiastically voted for a change in the 14th General Election (GE14) on May, 9, 2018?
If not for PH election campaign tainted with malicious lies and spins, the people would not have been tricked and conned to vote out the previous Barisan Nasional administration.
The people would not have been deceived by deception to vote in PH and allowed Mahathir to be appointed as the PM7 if not for the propaganda of lies.
On the election night, the King had even offered then PKR president Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail the premiership but she declined.
It was a logical royal offer given that Wan Azizah was then chief of the largest party in PH with 48 federal seats while Mahathir’s PPBM only had 13 seats on the election night.
But Wan Azizah allowed Mahathir to become the premier as per PH pre-election agreement.
Now PPBM has 26 MPs due to defections from Umno, the previous ruling party.
Shouldn’t Syed Husin blame PH, its leaders from PKR, DAP and Amanah for kowtow-ing to Mahathir, Wan Azizah for turning down the premiership offer and those dishonest party hoppers?
Corruption
Mahathir encourages party hopping, and this raises suspicion on money politics, a political corrupt act.
The MPs would not have hopped from Umno to PPBM to save Malaysia.
Surely they had jumped ship to save themselves after been lured with attractive packages.
PH stormed to power in GE14 by riding on an anti-corruption election platform.
PH leaders condemned and portrayed the former premier and his party colleagues as the most corrupted humans in Malaysia then.
But some 16 months later and after been slapped with 42 corrupt charges, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is yet to be proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Nepotism and cronyism, which were hallmarks of the past PM4 rule, have reared its ugly head in the current PH administration.
The cover-up on the bungalow and Penang tunnel scandals are clear indications that PH is corrupted.
The scandals have implicated a former chief minister, who is now a federal minister, and his party colleagues but the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Attorney-General had claimed “no case”.
Mahathir has welcomed selfish Umno MPs to hop into PPBM.
MACC should probe into this to find out whether the party hopping exercise was muddied by elements of corruption.
People are doubtful about the government dealings over the Bandar Malaysia project, the East Coast Rail Link (ERCL) project and latest, Kampung Baru project in Kuala Lumpur.
People are unhappy and suspicious over the sales of national assets.
Syed Husin should have condemned these latest corruption scandals erupting under PH rule as well.
Betrayal
Syed Husin has questioned the integrity and competence of PH political leaders such as PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, PPBM president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Amanah president Mohamad Sabu and DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang.
He asked on whether these leaders’ wings had been clipped since they had been strangely quiet over Mahathir’s political manoeuvres that would destroy the agreement made by the PH component parties before the May 9 polls.
Mahathir told a forum organised by the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York recently that he would retire before GE15.
Syed Husin rebuked Mahathir’s statement as “betrayal and insult to PH”.
Syed Husin expressed doubt over a promise by Mahathir on handing over power for Anwar.
Syed Husin seems to concur with the current majority opinion that Mahathir’s battle cry of wanting to save Malaysia during the GE14 campaign run-in was an absolute lie.
Mahathir is firmly focussed on holding on to power and handing it over to someone of his choice when the time was right.
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