QUESTION TIME This is a fight which transcends everything, including race, religion, belief and political affiliation.

Before we get down and dirty to the 10 ways to get Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to go, let us reiterate clearly and briefly why he should step down, using in addition to all the numerous reports previously, the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recent civil court filings. 

Malaysia has set a new record for itself - the DOJ has seized over US$1 billion (about RM4 billion) in US assets bought using money misappropriated (the DOJ uses the term as well) from wholly government-owned strategic development company 1Malaysia Development Bhd, or 1MDB, the largest ever such seizure in US history

Some things have been plainly established as far as 1MDB is concerned - beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of this, the main one is that at least US$3.5 billion - that’s a massive RM14 billion - has been misappropriated from 1MDB, despite our attorney-general ridiculously denying it.

"The attorney-general emphasised that to date, there has been no evidence from any investigation conducted by any law enforcement agencies in various jurisdictions which shows that money has been misappropriated from 1MDB," AG Mohamed Apandi Ali shamelessly said in blatant disregard of evidence in a statement last Thursday.

It is a matter of public knowledge that 1MDB claims to have paid US$3.5 billion to Aabar PJS Ltd, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Corp, or IPIC. And IPIC has denied that it ever received the money.

In other words, US$3.5 billion - the entire proceeds of two bond issues - has simply disappeared from 1MDB. If that is not misappropriation of money from 1MDB, what is? What more evidence of misappropriation does the AG need? Further, in arbitration proceedings to be held later, IPIC is actually claiming US$6.5 billion, US$3 billion or some RM12 billion more than the money that went missing, making a grand total of RM26 billion!

The truly surprising thing is that 1MDB has until today not even made a police report over this disappearance of billions of ringgit, something which must have happened not by accident but by a wilful criminal act. Worse, this act of not investigating an obvious and massive crime is inexplicable and can only be attributed to the direct intervention of Malaysian public official no 1, the prime minister.

Earlier reports said that US$1.03 billion, or over RM4 billion, was transferred into the accounts of Good Star Ltd, effectively from 1MDB. Malaysia’s central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia, in leaked documents, confirmed that Good Star was owned by 35-year old Low Taek Jho or Jho Low, widely believed to be the mastermind behind the 1MDB heists.

Of this some US$680 million (about RM2.6 billion) wound its way into Najib’s personal bank accounts through a circuitous route documented by various news reports, including The Wall Street Journal. Najib at first denied this but subsequently said it was a donation from Saudi Arabia even though the money has been traced back to 1MDB. Again, the new AG found no wrongdoing, accepting Najib’s explanation that it was a donation!

The DOJ filings assert that US$3.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and that over US$1 billion of these which found their way into US assets have now been seized, including assets owned by Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz and Jho Low, adding to the weight of already overwhelming evidence of criminality in 1MDB.  

The revelations make Najib’s dogged clinging on to the post of prime minister of Malaysia, using a combination of power and patronage to keep detractors in line and influencing enforcement authorities, even more untenable than ever before. But he shows no signs of stepping down.

The only way that he will is if those in authority and in a position to do so take all legitimate action against him and stop him from abusing his position as the number one public official in Malaysia and there is overwhelming public disapproval to boot.

At the heart of that has to be an expression of extreme displeasure, to put it mildly, over the occurrence of corruption at the highest levels in Malaysia by the general public and a demonstration of intolerance for such behaviour by all levels of our society.

Here are 10 ways, that we can get Najib to go and they all call for measures that involve large sections of people.

  1. Get Umno members to show their displeasure. Umno has millions of members. They don’t all condone corruption and the embezzlement of billions of ringgit from a state corporation. These millions must make their feelings known openly over the billions lost by saying so to their Umno leaders, the branch heads and the division heads and upwards so that Umno itself realises that the support for Najib has evaporated among party members. If Umno does not remove Najib, the general elections will have to or the investigating authorities or the public.
     
  2. Lobby Umno leaders to pull their weight. Weightier Umno members should put aside their ambitions and fight for the common good of the country and demand that senior leaders of Umno openly show that they are not for Najib. All who know these senior leaders should urge them to do so. It is a shame that Umno, which prides itself as the guardian of the Malays and the nation, allows plunder in the billions to take place, and condones it openly by actively defending Najib.
     
  3. Umno’s coalition partners must make their voices heard. It is high time that Umno’s coalition partners in the peninsula and in east Malaysia convey the disgust that most of their supporters feel about 1MDB to Umno even if it means that they have to leave the coalition.
     
  4. Get the opposition together on this issue. Those Malaysians who have influence among the opposition should exhort them to come together to force a change in leadership, if not now then at the polls. The only way the opposition can win is to have a united front which includes PAS. Simply focus on the common agenda and put the divisive issues - including an untimely and energy-sapping snap poll in Penang - on the backburner for a while.
     
  5. Support public movements urging Najib to step down. There are any number of movements which are calling for Najib to step down. Support them, including the so-called Citizens’ Declaration which has garnered over a million signatures. Why stop at one million? Why not two or three or four? Even if he was a former prime minister who destroyed institutions to help propagate the current sad state of affairs, support him for his stance now, not for anything else but because it is the right one.
     
  6. Join peaceful, orderly rallies urging Najib’s ouster. The constitution guarantees our right to demonstrate in an orderly and peaceful manner. If Bersih 5 transpires to urge an ouster of Najib, we all should show our support for it and go to the streets to demonstrate that.
     
  7. Refuse to print untruths about 1MDB. For those who work for the mainstream media, there may be no choice but to support the government of the day, but at the very least it may be possible to refrain from publishing untruths about 1MDB. No one has a right to ask you to publish lies. Group editor of the New Straits Times Mustapha Kamil quit his job in April. He said this recently in a Facebook posting: “There are specific instructions to use this or that story, and we’re not allowed to question,” he said. “Before 1MDB, there was more freedom for us to do our job.” More editors and journalists should emulate him.
     
  8. Make your displeasure felt by airing them. We have a right to our opinions and we should state them, especially when we can support those statements with facts and well-argued reasoning. If we adhere to these conditions, none of us should be afraid of airing our views and grievances with respect to this. There is not a friend or even acquaintance I know who supports the government over 1MDB. We all need to get ourselves heard.
     
  9. Put pressure on MACC and the police to investigate. Enough is out there for everyone to see that one of the biggest if not the biggest heist of all time, not just in Malaysia but in the world, is taking place before our very eyes. We must put all the pressure we can on those responsible to investigate this to do so and on those responsible to enforce justice to likewise do the same. We need to remind them that history will judge them harshly if they don’t. And if there indeed is an afterworld, those sitting in judgement of the errant are not likely to be very kindly disposed.
     
  10. If all else fails, kick BN out at the next polls. In the last general elections, 51 percent of those who voted picked the opposition. That is likely to increase given 1MDB, provided the opposition gets its act together. So do not underestimate the power you hold in your hands for what you can change. That is the ultimate power of the people.

This is a fight which transcends everything, including race, religion, belief and political affiliation. It is a simple question of right or wrong, about corruption and whether money was blatantly pilfered from state-owned 1MDB and who permitted it to happen and who benefited from it.

It is about kicking out those responsible in whatever way for allowing this to happen and putting in new people who will be prepared to get to the bottom of it, investigate thoroughly, bring those responsible to book, throw the entire weight of the law on them, show that no one, but no one, can get away with crimes like this in Malaysia, and make the necessary changes to ensure that something like this never happens again.

It is finally about getting back Malaysia for Malaysians - all Malaysians - and freeing the country from the greedy, grubby claws of corrupt politicians, using race and religion to stay in power while working with conniving businessmen and professionals to ruthlessly milk the country dry.

If we fail, we will collectively pay a very heavy price for it will give carte blanche for every Malaysian to be as corrupt as he possibly can which will mire us in a morass of moral and ethical degradation far beyond anything we have descended down to before, leading to our collective Malaysian soul floating in limbo for generations to come.

We owe it to ourselves to put a stop to this madness. If we all play our part, no matter how small, we can succeed.

P GUNASEGARAM is convinced that 1MDB is no accidental mistake - it was set up with the sole and exclusive purpose of making billions and billions of ringgit for a select few.