COMMENT A mobile phone causes a riot, the ringgit is depreciating, investors are losing confidence, the government is on auto-pilot, friends have become foes, and foes have become friends.

Battle lines are redrawn, ministers are reshuffled, billions surfaced in personal accounts, a website is blocked, a business publication suspended, and a British woman is on the wanted list.

High ranking civil servants are detained and top officials evicted from their posts for illnesses unknown to them while others are on leave or appear to have fallen off the face of the earth.

Down south, there is talk of a rebellion brewing.

A crown prince keeps battering the administration, spouses included, with sarcasm on Facebook . Whereas, a prominent banker does the same on Instagram regardless of blood ties.

Leaders and members of the ruling parties have a single function, which is to defend the prime minister. One or two ministers have dedicated all their time and effort to this task.

The opposition pact, which captured the Malaysian imagination for change in the last two general elections, has crumbled but its leaders insist that a new hope is on the horizon.

In the absence of the Internal Security Act, which the prime minister perhaps regrets having abolished, a new legislation is stealing the infamous limelight - Section 124B of the Penal Code.

There is a complete meltdown of public trust best exemplified by a recent fire which broke out at the police headquarters that ignited a blaze of speculation on social media that it was deliberate arson to torch incriminating documents.

The anti-corruption commission is forced to seek protection from the heavens, giving the impression that diabolical forces are assailing it.

A civil war has erupted between the MACC and police, with the former accusing the latter of being the marionette of hidden hands to interfere with the commission’s probe into a Finance Ministry-owned firm, the outcome of which can have severe repercussions on the prime minister.

The nation is ailing. It has degenerated into a tragicomedy soap opera, and the international media are painting the town red.

Villain to hero

From being a villain in the past, the MACC is now regarded as the hero, the vanguard of justice.

The commission has received an outpouring of support from the public and also from politicians who once admonished it.

What motived the MACC to deviate from the decades-old script remains a mystery, though there has been talk of a high-level conspiracy and a decisive counter-coup at the eleventh hour.

Or perhaps, as cliched as it might sound, there are still those in uniform who believe in doing the right thing.

       

The police probe on the MACC officers involved in the SRC International case has become another public relations disaster for the prime minister.

It has fueled the perception that the crackdown is designed to forestall or even sabotage the investigation. Tongues are wagging that the nothing to hide administration might have something massive to hide.

And should the case come to naught after the unfolding of such dramatic events, it would be deemed as a cover-up.

           

For the MACC, this is its golden period. The public have bestowed upon the commission and its officers something hitherto alien to government agencies - confidence and respect.

A ferocious anti-corruption watchdog that is not afraid to bark and bite would send shivers down countless spines.

To back down now would render upon its reputation an unerasable blotch.

By making courageous statements that suggest it is being persecuted for having damning evidence in its possession, the MACC has also placed tremendous pressure on the new attorney-general if and when the SRC International investigation papers are submitted to him to decide if a prosecution should commence.

These are interesting times, and somewhere in a plush neighbourhood in Kajang sits a nonagenarian whose actions in the past have spawned much of the present imbroglio, twirling his fingers and plotting his next move.

Expect more fireworks in the coming weeks.

RK ANAND is a member of the Malaysiakini team.

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