MAHATHIR’S ENRICHMENT CLAIM: SO WHY HAS ANWAR NOT REPORTED TO MACC?
——Press statement by Kua Kia Soong, Former Member of Parliament, 9 April 2023
[本文是社会学者柯嘉逊4月9日声明原文（全文），是以其前国会议员的身份和名义发布的，而华文媒体大都错误报道为“柯氏以大马人民之声”（SUARAM）顾问的身份和名义发表]
[This is the original statement (in full text) released on 9 April by a sociologist, Dr Kua Kia Soong, in his capacity as the former Member of Parliament. Most of the Chinese media have misreported that Kua released the statement in his capacity as the Adviser of SUARAM]
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At a recent PKR congress, Anwar claimed that Mahathir had enriched his family during his time in power from 1981 to 2003 and again from 2018 to 2020. After Mahathir filed a letter of demand against the prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim said he will show Dr Mahathir the evidence to back up his claim.
For a prime minister who has committed himself to a zero-tolerance approach towards misconduct and corruption, it is a glaring omission that he has not reported this claim about Mahathir’s self-enrichment to the MACC all this time:
"Any breaches will be severely dealt with, whether you are Tun or Tan Sri, regardless, whether you are with this government or with the Opposition, we will act without fear or favour," he said, in his keynote address at Invest Malaysia at The St Regis here on 8 March 2023.”
Instead, Anwar has made what looks like a huge and serious claim into a tit-for-tat tiff between the two rivals:
“I don’t want to fight, (Mahathir) asked me to respond, so I will respond. He wants evidence, I will give (evidence), no problem,” Anwar said in a dialogue with students at Universiti Teknologi Mara.”
Anwar’s claim about Mahathir’s enrichment is of course not new. Barry Wain, in his book titled, 'Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times', had claimed that the former premier had 'burned' RM100 billion on corruption and grandiose projects during his 22-year reign.
During his term as Prime Minister, Mahathir’s favoured “Bumiputera entrepreneurs” were presumably Umno’s nominees who were holding all these business interests on behalf of Umno. Mahathir’s own children didn’t do too badly either - In 2011, Forbes named Mokhzani Mahathir as the 15th richest Malaysian, worth US$560 million. (Forbes Asia March 2011)
Will Mahathir counter claim about Anwar’s enrichment?
Could Anwar’s hesitancy in reporting Mahathir to the MACC be related to his own skeletons in Mahathir’s closet? Mahathir’s closet of files on his rivals are well-known. The sodomy charges against Anwar are an example of Mahathir’s chest of secrets!
Observers of UMNO during the Mahathir years know that the periodic power struggles within UMNO often produced unexpected revelations of great interest to the people. Thus, in November 1994 it was revealed that relatives of prominent UMNO politicians had been profiting from the preferential share-allocation scheme originally designed to help ordinary Malays under the NEP. Among these were Mirzan Mahathir, son of the Prime Minister; Marzuki Ibrahim, brother of the Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim, and Fazrin Azwar, son-in-law of International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz, who happened to chair the allocation committee. (Asiaweek 30.11.94) This information was only leaked to the public by Rafidah Aziz because she wanted to show that it was not just her son-in-law who had gained from the allocations.
After all, during Mahathir’s tenure as Prime Minister, three main UMNO officials focused their attention on building “Bumiputera capitalists”. This was facilitated after UMNO was declared illegal in 1988 and its assets were required to be sold off. The three were Mahathir himself, Daim Zainuddin who was his finance minister during two phases in Mahathir’s term and thirdly, Anwar Ibrahim who, before his downfall in September 1998, was second in power to Mahathir. All three had their respective corporate connections and became bitter rivals.
We all know how Mahathir dealt with Anwar after 1998 and ever since then, he still cannot face the thought that the man he said was morally unfit to be prime minister is today the de facto prime minister of Malaysia.
So, the saga continues…We are told Anwar has called on the MACC to investigate Daim’s wealth exposed in the Pandora papers. He had promised Daim that the latter would not be able to sleep when Anwar becomes prime minister. On this point, it should be pointed out that if Anwar is consistent, he should ask MACC to investigate ALL the Malaysians who were named in the Pandora papers, not just Daim.
But can he make Mahathir lose sleep over his latest claim about Mahathir’s enrichment during his term in office? Only time will tell if Anwar takes the offensive and report his claim about Mahathir’s self-enrichment to the MACC. If he truly believes in zero-tolerance against corruption, he should. ▉
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