The infamous 1MDB scandal has caused a lot of unwanted speculations disrupting the society and nation. To end all these unwanted speculations, the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall’s (KLSCAH) Civil Rights Committee supports a public petition which urges the White House to reveal the real identity of Malaysian Official 1(MO1).

The committee perceives this as part of transparency, rule of law and democratic methods to restore the credibility of the government.

A petition was launched on Nov 24, 2016 to the White House to reveal the identity and position of MO1. According to the White House’s Terms of Participation, the barack Obama administration will have to respond to any petition within 60 days should the petition garner 100,000 signatures within 30 days. Therefore, the last date falls on Dec 24, 2016.

Thus far, the petition has only garnered 23,600 signatures. The petition should have collected half of the required signatures, which is 50,000, after 15 days of campaigning, but it seems that the target is far left behind and we are afraid that it will be highly unlikely to hit 100,000 before the expiry date. We therefore urge the public to sign on the petition at this link.

The Civil Rights Committee supports the petition based on several reasons.

Firstly, neither the prime minister, the cabinet nor the attorney-general has publicly stated the real identity of MO1. Although a cabinet member, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, once stated that “only an idiot doesn’t know who that person is” and Najib Abdul Razak was obviously the one who was named in the US lawsuit, his statement didn’t represent the cabinet nor the Malaysian government.

We felt that the best solution towards this entanglement is to ask the authorities who labelled MO1 to explain who is MO1. In this case, the White House would be the one and thus the petition perfectly fits into this effort.

Secondly, asking the White House to explain the real identity of MO1 is not and shall not be perceived as inviting foreign intervention in domestic politics. It is the the Department of Justice of United States who first made serious accusations against the MO1 in its lawsuit filed on July 20.

Money-laundering activities were revealed and traced back to the misappropriation of funds which originated from 1MDB and the mysterious MO1 was accused of being one of the recipients of the misappropriation of funds.

This accusation has seriously tarnished the good name of the Malaysian government and jeopardised relations between Malaysia and the United States. Logically, the person who needs to explain it should be the one who made the accusation. Apart from that, the earlier the White House explains the matter, the less damages it will bring to our bilateral relations.

Furthermore, should the petition manages to gather 100,000 signatures and the White House does really reveal the identity of MO1, it will be up to our attorney-general and Malaysians to consider what should be the next step.

Therefore, the petition should be perceived as a meaningful and lawful effort to protect the dignity of Malaysia and bilateral relations between US and Malaysia.

Since the White House petition is a lawful channel, the Civil Rights Committee once again urges the public to sign it and do not give up any effort, no matter how slim the chance is, to find out the real identity of MO1.