The Malaysian Insider

PKR’s Rafizi Ramli today demanded Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil prove she was not involved with the National Feedlot Corporation’s (NFCorp) operations, saying it was a matter of utmost public interest.

The PKR chief strategist charged that the Wanita Umno chief had not once refuted PKR’s allegations with concrete proof, and that her response so far had merely been “jokes” and jibes aimed at her detractors.

Rafizi (picture) was referring to Shahrizat’s latest comments on the issue yesterday, where she said she will send the Wanita Umno wing’s trademark red-and-white baju kurung to her “stalker” in PKR, whom she joked wanted to assume her post.

In an apparent reference to Rafizi, who has led PKR’s attacks on Shahrizat and the NFCorp, the federal minister said the idea had been mooted by Perak Wanita Umno at a recent meeting.

“She has not provided proof that she was not at all involved in the decision making that awarded the contract to become integrator to her family’s company, nor has she proven that she was not at all involved with the operations of NFC,” Rafizi said in a statement to The Malaysian Insider.

The PKR leader said that Shahrizat would be “guilty by association” if she was aware that federal funds meant for the cattle project were used for “other purposes” and did not the matter to the relevant ministry.

“If our scrutiny of her conduct she deems as a personal attack against her or Wanita Umno, clearly she does not understand the weight of accountability that she assumes as a senior minister.

“I will continue to dig for evidence of misappropriation and her complicity in such misappropriation no matter how many baju kurungs she wants to send me, because no prior scandal involving a minister’s complicity in a financial misconduct receives such interest from the public,” added Rafizi.

Shahrizat has been repeatedly linked to NFCorp because of her husband’s role as company chairman, and their children’s directorships in the same entity.

The RM250 million publicly-funded cattle-raising scheme was first coined a “mess” in an article in English daily The Star after it made it into the pages of the Attorney-General’s 2010 Report for badly missing production targets.

The term was later repeated by various media organisations to describe NFCorp after PKR launched a series of exposés to show that the project’s funds had been allegedly abused.

PKR, led by strategic director Rafizi, had claimed that RM27 million was used for land and property purchases as well as expenses unrelated to cattle farming by Shahrizat and her family.

The company’s assets were frozen after investigations were launched by the police and the national anti-graft body following the exposés.

Shahrizat returns to ministerial duties today after taking three weeks’ leave to allow the authorities to complete their probe.

Malaysia Chronicle

The next General Election, the 13th, is widely expected to be called on paper between May this year and April/May next year when the five-year term of the present Parliament ends. The five-year term of Parliament is calculated from the first day of the first sitting of the first Parliament for the term/tenure.

Once Parliament is dissolved, elections would have to be held within two months.

However, if Parliament is not dissolved within its five-year term, it stands automatically dissolved at the end of that term. In that case, elections would have to be called within six months. This factor might be playing on Malaysian Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak’s mind, desperate as he is to stretch out his term in office.

GE-13 can even be in second-half of 2013!

Najib seems to have come to the conclusion, albeit grudgingly, that there are no guarantees that he will be Prime Minister after GE 13. That may be the sole reason why his wife, Rosmah Majid, is forever off somewhere on shopping sprees if not hunting for a spot in exile at the expense of the people.

Whether Najib will be Opposition Leader and/or allowed to do so by his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin – rooting for a Mahathir dynasty — and Mahathir Mohamad himself is a RM 1.5 billion question.

Najib does not have a mandate of his own.

He continues to shamelessly ride on that obtained by his sacked predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in 2008. Mahathir was able to get rid of Badawi because the Umno Supreme Council members, corrupt beyond redemption, are in his pocket.

Najib should have obtained his own mandate by now but he fears, as he has never feared before in his cushy life so far, the prospect of testing the electoral waters on his own.

No Prime Minister has been that fearful in the history of the country. Najib just doesn’t have the guts to ignore Mahathir and his (Mahathir’s) Umno Supreme Council and call for the 13th GE and accept like a man whatever is in store for him. Neither has he the foresight to make a deal with the opposition alliance to accept his faction at least into their government-in-the-making and save the political dynasty built by his late father.

Too risky for BN to call GE-13 now

There are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies in politics, only permanent interests. That doesn’t mean the opposition alliance will accept Mahathir as well unless he agrees to flee the country for good and leave his ill-gotten gains behind.

There’s too much at stake to go for the GE 13 now and even go for it at all, not just for Najib who is not that big a factor, but Umno, the establishment and the entire system which stands at risks of being dismantled and many of its members incarcerated for very long stretches, if not for good.

This is one reason why the Prime Minister declared not so long ago that he can always do what his father, 2nd Prime Minister Abdul Razak, did in the wake of the searing race riots between the non-Malay communities and the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia in 1969. However, Najib was quick to add that he “would not do so”. But why mention it if he has no plans to do so? Was that a veiled threat to vote him back into power or else?

Najib was referring to the declaration of a state of emergency, the shutting down of Parliament, suspension of democracy, the shutting out of the political parties, and the setting up of the National Operations Council under Abdul Razak as Direction of Operations.

Abdul Razak also set up the National Consultative Council, with its members drawn from various walks of life but not the political parties, in lieu of the disbanded Parliament. He chaired the NCC.

Abdul Razak went on to form the Barisan Nasional, a concept which circumscribed the democratic process and denied the majority meaningful participation by endorsing elite power-sharing. The BN which was formed included the opposition parties which had made spectacular gains during the 1969 polls.

Emergency rule and forcing DAP to join BN

It will be a sheer miracle if Najib does not do what his father did in 1969/1970 considering his sudden morbid fear of going to the polls and especially with Mahathir breathing down his neck to achieve the impossible: get back the ruling Barisan Nasional’s (BN) coveted two-thirds majority in Parliament.

There are attempts being made to force the Dap to join the BN.

At the same time, Umno does not seem to reckon with the fact that its legislators will abandon Mahathir for good – notwithstanding his Big Black Book of Everyone’s Sins — and flee in droves to the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) after the 13th GE “in order to buy political protection and avoid a stint behind bars, if not bankruptcy and/or the prospect of being reduced suddenly to abject poverty”. (more…)

Malaysiakini

Pakatan Rakyat mendakwa langkah kerajaan untuk menggunakan dana Kumpulan Wang Simpanan Pekerja (KWSP) sebanyak RM1.5 juta untuk menampung pinjaman rumah kos rendah sebagai usaha untuk menyembunyikan hutang negara.

Naib Presiden PKR Nurul Izzah Anwar (kanan) dan Setiausaha Publisiti DAP Tony Pua berkata, berbanding langkah yang jarang diambil itu, ia biasanya dibuat melalui hasil cukai atau pengeluaran bon.

“Kami hanya boleh simpulkan kerajaan tidak mahu meminjam langsung dari KWSP, dan lepaskan tanggungjawab itu kepada KWSP untuk memberi pinjaman terus kepada pembeli rumah kos rendah kerana kerajaan tidak mahu terus menerima kritikan menggunung terhadap hutang yang sudah sedia tinggi,” katanya.

Dalam kenyataan bersama hari ini, mereka berkata, hutang negara sudah mencecah RM456 bilion pada penghujung 2011, peningkatan 88.4 berbanding hanya RM242 pada 2006.