The absurdity continues…

The shifting of goalpost in the RM2.6 billion defence:

1. WSJ created a lie. There is no way a Prime Minister could accept that much money into his personal bank account. He is not stupid.
2. The propaganda team rebuked WSJ for not supplying any proof, therefore the newspaper is lying. They also bent over backwards to say that the PM’s name was misspelled in a diagram of the money trail therefore, it is all a lie.
3. The PM mulls to sue WSJ over this apparent political sabotage. He also accused Tun Mahathir for working with foreign nationals over that RM2.6 billion article.
4. The lawyers sent clarification letter but the mainstream media declares the PM has sued WSJ.
5. WSJ published the documented proof of the banking transactions. The propaganda team, working on a narrative, zoomed in on the swift codes. Gleefully claiming the swift codes are wrong, summarily claiming that there are no such account exist. WSJ had lied. The documents were tampered.
6. The Task Force issued a statement that the accounts did exist but has been closed. The narrative began to change to ‘political fund’. Obviously by this time, the propaganda team did not know anything unless they were told how to think.
7. Propaganda team bending over backwards to justify that political fund is legal and can be done through trustee accounts. Their past excuses and defence that the accounts did not exist and no money was transferred were shamelessly forgotten.
8. Believing in their own hype they created, propaganda team began to float the trust account story, saying that Umno Constitution provides for trustee accounts. But nobody, including Deputy President of Umno did not know it existed.
9. 5 weeks have past, lawyers still have not made any action towards WSJ.
10. And the latest shifting of goalpost came out today whereby the account was indeed not a trustee account but actually a personal bank account, possibly contravening with Umno Constitution and MACC Act.

Better for Umno president to hold money rather than proxies

It is better for the Umno president to hold the party’s assets and monies in his own account rather than parking them under proxies, Barisan Nasional (BN) strategic communications chief Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan said today.

The Housing, Local Government and Urban Well-Being Minister said that he “preferred” Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak to be holding the money in his personal accounts as this provided more security than the proxies.

“Even when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad resigned as Umno president, he had to look for the proxies to reclaim a lot of Umno’s assets and shares.

“I would be a lot more worried if these individuals were holding the accounts instead of the president,” he said during an interview with TV1 tonight.

Abdul Rahman said that the current controversy has sparked off a discussion that is “good” for future regulations of political funding.

“I am relieved and happy that the money is from donations. Now the goalposts for the discussions have shifted,” he said.

He said that he was “thankful” to have a president who was able to source funds from the party, insisting that the donors made the donation without expecting anything in return.

Reading this at first glance, the first question people asked is – Is Umno, the oldest and the biggest political party is Malaysia do not have its own banking accounts?

Why did it have to be a personal bank account?

Secondly, the issue is not whether proxies should be used. Tun Mahathir himself declared when he was the prime minister, this kind of money was never credited into a personal bank account.

The real matter is about RM2.6 billion being secretly deposited back in 2013. It was a secret because nobody knows about it. Including the people in the propaganda team. Yet they now claim that Umno members have agreed that political donations can be deposited into the personal bank account of the party president! (source).

When was this asked? Did they make a referendum among party members in 2013 for this decision to be made?

If indeed Umno members knew about it, why did Umno leaders and their propaganda team made gibberish arguments to discredit WSJ and tried to prove that the accounts never existed? All this had destroyed their credibility in the end.

Umno members must thank WSJ for exposing about this mystery money. If it wasn’t disclosed, they will not know about this. The price for the truth is hefty, especially if it wasn’t revealed much earlier. A deputy president and vice president lost their jobs because of this.

Now people are asking, who are the donors? Public servants and officials are beholden to the truth and accountable to the public. It took a month for the confirmation of truth to come out; that there was indeed RM2.6 billion worth of money held by the prime minister. Even then, it wasn’t the prime minister who confessed about it.

Will it take another month of silence for the prime minister to reveal who the donor and how the money was spent?

But instead of revealing to the public to end all speculation, the propaganda team asked the opposition to declare their political funding first.

Leadership by example is surely not being applied here. They now are saying all sorts of nonsense:

a) in Islam, a donor must not reveal himself as a sign of piety,

b) the money is a private matter because it was in a personal account,

c) if donor wanted to publicly announced his donation, he would have done it much earlier

d) it is safer for the money to be in a personal account of the party president than any other accounts (but they also do not know how the billions were spent)

e) please add some other nonsense

Is Umno afraid that speculation would end up as the truth? A leader needs to be honest. A political party needs to have integrity. They must lead the way in finding the truth for the public. Not, trying to spew nonsense which ultimately secures nothing but disdain and disgust from the people.

Yes, you want the opposition to be accountable too in revealing about their political funding. But the correct question Umno leaders should ask, which will compare apple to apple with the situation at hand is:

Did DAP’s political funding and donation receive through Lim Kit Siang’s personal bank account?

Only then, the propaganda team can move forward with whatever strategy they have to discredit the opposition. Otherwise, the effort to make opposition parties to reveal their political funding is moot, and ridiculous.

The diversion is unnecessary. Please do not accuse other people of moving goalposts when your own flip flopping attempt to defend is nothing short of absurd. And for brevity purposes, we have not touched on the lame excuses made on 1MDB.

The truth should be a friend, not something you spin just to fit your selected narrative.

Do they know why Anwar Ibrahim back then could never capture the hearts and minds of the people at large? Because he was surrounded by loyal but dumb followers who could never criticise or pin point anything wrong that he was doing.

For instance, his followers concocted all sorts of nonsense just to defend their leader was not the man in that video which rocked the nation a few years ago. It seems Umno is heading this say. They will hit a dead-end soon enough.

If Umno wants to emulate this kind of leadership where smart and critical followers are thrown out but loyal yet deaf mute ones are retained, then there can never be any improvement.

The voters are now smart. They are informed via many sources of information and can make up their own minds.

There is a running joke being bandied around which goes like this:

What is the difference between Anwar’s supporters back then and Najib’s supporters now? Nothing. They just like to make fools out of themselves. They need to be smarter. Need to be braver.

It is always better for a leader to speak of truth. The sooner the better. Many scandals have erupted which turned leaders into a laughing stock just because they tried to lie their way out, and their followers did not point out what was wrong.

No wonder people are disgusted.

You might also want to read:

1. Now I know, a Mandate is a license to do as we please, to Loot and Pillage.
2. MACC RM2.6 billion probe states the obvious, yet says nothing
3. Johor MB’s son poses 15 questions to Najib on 1MDB
4. Soalan Cepumas – Kalau WSJ Tak Dedahkan, Bila Agaknya Najib Nak Ngaku Ada Orang Derma RM2.6 Billion?
5. Membalas Rahman Dahlan