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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