Prime Minister Najib Razak has been challenged to officiate the International Anti-Corruption Convention (IACC) that Malaysia is hosting this week, and address his scandals there.
“Let Najib make a good start after the 58th Merdeka celebrations by keeping his earlier promise to open and give the keynote address at the 16th IACC in Putrajaya from Wednesday, Sept 2 to 4, with the conference theme ‘Ending Impunity: People, Integrity, Action’.
“Najib cannot make any greater contribution, not only to Malaysia, but to the global battle against corruption, if he comes clean and breaks his silence on the two scandals which have haunted Malaysia and become the talking point of the 2,000 participants at the IACC in Putrajaya,” DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said in a statement today.
The Gelang Patah MP was referring to the scandals surrounding “RM50 billion 1MDB” debt and the RM2.6 billion party “donation” into Najib’s personal bank accounts.
“If not, the IACC should not have been held in Malaysia at all, and instead of being a pride and honour for hosting the 16th IACC in Malaysia, it will become a badge of dishonour and disgrace.
“This will be the worst possible way for Malaysia to mark the 58th Merdeka anniversary celebrations,” Lim ( photo ) said in reference to the massive two-day Bersih 4 rally that ended last night.
Last Wednesday it was reported that Najib will not be officiating the anti-graft event.
The embattled PM was initially scheduled to deliver the keynote address and launch the event.
However, it was later revealed that instead, his ministers in the Prime Minister's Department Paul Low and Abdul Wahid Omar, will open and close the event respectively, with no reason given for the change.
‘Najib self-delusional’
Meanwhile commenting on the massive turnout of more than 100,000 people at the Bersih 4 weekend rally that concluded with the countdown to Merdeka Day, Lim said it was of the “grandest scales ever in the nation’s history”.
It was a celebration in which Malaysians from all walks of life came out “freely and voluntarily, without any monetary inducements” to give “real and true meaning to ‘Merdeka’.”
He also commended the police for their “new-found role as keepers of peace” for assisting in the rally, which ran its course peacefully.
However he cautioned that moving on from Bersih would require leaders to have a “paradigm shift in their thinking and outlook”, which was still elusive, pointing to former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad, whom he said was “still not advanced enough” in changing his outlook.
As for Najib, who at his own events claimed he had more supporters than Bersih’s allegedly meagre numbers, Lim said the inability of the PM to face reality was revealing.
“Najib Razak has no intention to step down ...but if he cannot demonstrate greater respect for transparency, accountability and good governance principles, and continues to live in a world of make-believe which made him say that there were only 20,000 people at the Bersih 4 rally, there is nothing to save the Najib’s premiership or even the Umno/BN coalition government.”
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