Malaysia's Malafia

In a recent attempt to justify including organised crime in the anti-terrorism Security Offences and Special Measures Act (Sosma), Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar warned that Malaysian gangsters are even more daring than American Mafia during the 1920s.

Claiming that the members of gangs outnumber those of the Communist Party of Malaya during the ‘Emergency’ of the 1950s, he further lamented that while the communists were armed, today’s gangsters have access to far more sophisticated weapons.

And of course Wan Junaidi (left) was right, but for the wrong reasons. In clumsily trying to equate non-government gangsters with (Chinese) communist terrorists, all he managed was to remind most of us that the government he represents is like a blend of both, on an almost incredible scale.

In fact the BN regime, in its organised criminality, fake religiosity and terrorism against those who oppose it is like a Malaysian version of the Mafia, only more so. A Malafia that’s like a cross between Al Capone and al-Qaeda.

Or, if you prefer, like a monstrous collection of Triads backed by Cryads, Buyads and Lieads. Trying every trick in the book for robbing the rakyat, crying crocodile tears to trick the innocent and ignorant into believing that their race and religion is under siege, while busily buying elections and systematically lying to cover their tracks.

Yet the current godfather of this criminal conspiracy posing as a political coalition, Najib Abdul Razak, still has the effrontery to claim that his so-called “transformation agenda” is on track.

Following re-election of the usual suspects in the recent elections for leadership positions in Umno, he claimed that “the party leadership need not necessarily be replaced, as what is important is the team’s ability to implement the agenda for the good of the nation”.

According to Bernama, lead member of his 1Malafia/Triad team of Lieads in the mainstream media, Najib followed this initial serving of hogwash with lots more similar swill, like “the transformation process has started with amendments to the federal constitution. Transformation also means that we have a transformation agenda for the nation. The main question is, whether the team chosen by the grassroots is capable of implementing this agenda.”

“The answer is, they are committed and I believe this team is capable of translating the national transformation agenda into making Malaysia a developed nation. I believe, InsyaAllah, we can do this.”

For sale to highest bidder

All of which leads me to wonder who Najib thinks he is to try and transform Allah into a supporter of 1Malafia, when everybody with half a brain, let alone Almighty insight, is perfectly well aware that positions of power in Umno are for sale to the highest bidder.

Umno supreme council contestant Nur Jazlan Mohamed (right) admitted this in September, complaining that corruption, or what the Malafia regime euphemises as ‘money politics’, makes it difficult for newcomers like him, as the going price for a single division is RM200,000, and for a vice-presidential post a whopping RM13 million.

And nobody was fooled by his ‘explanation’ following his failure to buy whatever position he was after, that the massive sums involved were not for buying the votes of party members, but for electoral ‘machinery’.

“My loss was because I was less capable in terms of machinery than those who hold government positions,” Nur Jazlan reportedly told Malaysiakini. “They (ministers and deputy ministers) can go anywhere to campaign, but I cannot afford it. Machinery is expensive. It’s paying money to people to campaign, not paying for votes.”

However, another losing candidate, Mohd Zaidi Md Zain, told a different story, attributing his defeat not to the prohibitive cost of ‘machinery’, but to typical machinations of the money-mad Malafia, writing on Facebook that it “looks like my offer for leadership change in Serdang Umno has been defeated by offer (sic) of money in enveloped by my opponents at the last minute”.

“Forgive me if I conclude that political corruption still shackles the sensibility of Umno delegates.”

And even more tellingly, the Godfather’s Godfather of Malaysia’s Malafia, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself, foreseeing the imminent failure of his son Mukhriz to purchase himself a vice-presidency at any price, complained that “money politics is still rampant” in Umno.

As much as they might deplore corruption alias money politics in party elections, however, Mahathir, Mukhriz and their fellow Malafiosi apparently have little problem with such practices in public polls.

Bye-election into buy-election

As usual the BN gang’s tame Electoral Commission (EC) and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) are turning blind eyes to official attempts to turn every bye-election into a buy-election, as currently in Sungei Limau.

Spectacles worth RM180 a pair have been given to 700 voters in the constituency, along with a message from Minister from the Prime Minister’s Department Jamil Khir Baharom that “I hope after getting the spectacles, you can see clearly on Nov 4. Tick on the box of the one who gave you the spectacles, put an ‘X’ on the BN.”

Other blatant bribes to voters in this buy-election so far have been ‘gifts’ of RM5000 to each of 200 families for ‘home renovations’ and of course the now long-traditional grant of public money for long-neglected re-surfacing of roads and repairs to street-lighting.

Other corrupt and outright criminal acts by the regime this week have included a decision to allow the comprehensively-discredited EC to proceed with a re-delineation of the nation’s electoral boundaries, and amendment of Section 203A of the Penal Code to cloak regime activities in even deeper secrecy, or what the Mafia calls omerta, than the draconian 1972 Official Secrets Act (OSA) does.

But as much further discussion as these and other current issues deserve, I must leave space here for by far the most dramatic display of gangsterism by any individual Malafia member this week, the “fight me and I’ll kill you” outburst by Tourism and Culture Minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz.

At a press conference called to warn Chin Woo School in Pudu against laying claim to land allegedly belonging to his ministry, Nazri (right) ranted “you fight with me, I fight you, I kill you. I take back the land, don’t mess around with me. It’s government land, it’s my land.”

He then modified his stance somewhat, suggesting an apology by the school and application to lease the said land, before once again threatening “don’t fight with me (as it) is my land, I’ll kick you out.”

Precisely what not just 53 but 100 percent of Malaysians should have said to Nazri and all his Malafia accomplices in the 13th general election, and should finally be smart enough to say in the 14th.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.