Cover-Up and Face-Saving – A Rush for the Chairs

Money was not the main driver to people who are already filthy rich. People such as Bill Gates do not have to worry about money so much so that his “real job” now is running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Politicians especially from certain countries in Asia are also filthy rich but don’t expect them to do charity, not because they do not want to but they simply can’t. It was an open secret that former Indonesia President Suharto was so rich due to corruption that his personal wealth was estimated at no less than $45 billion and the late Suharto was once the world’s sixth richest men on planet Earth. On the contrary corrupt politicians usually use charitable body to mask their “activities”.

Of course Malaysian politicians are much cleaner and it would be absurd to even think that they would do such thing (corruption). Former Prime Minister Mahathir and his buddy (former finance minister) Daim Zainuddin were accused to have amassed great amount of wealth themselves but definitely that can’t be true *grin*. It was always said that politicians’ goal are money and power while successful businessmen are obsessed with money and women. Either way money is the main menu on the table; for this same reason a well-known model from Sabah was willing to become “sugar-honey” of one of the biggest bankers in town. But I suppose with money you would automatically gain power and women (or gigolo for that matter).

But there’s another thing that sometimes rank higher on politicians’ radar – face. The higher you are on the hierarchy chart the more you value your face or your honour (if they ever have one in the first place) than money. Perhaps that was the reason why former Works Minister Samy Vellu always threaten to sue the hell out of anybody who say something “not so nice” about him, regardless of how silly the subject was. For some strange reasons the new PM did not initiate any lawsuit against the author of Malaysia-Today even though the author wrote many disastrous articles about him, and his wife. If U.S. had Majestic 12 (twelve) or better known as MJ12 (nope, that’s not MetroJaya) that sparked public distrust to their government, the Mongolian beauty’s gruesome murder or better known as Altantuya may be Malaysian’s equivalent version.

MJ12 was derived from the secret committee of top military officers, scientists and government officials formed in 1947 by an executive order by President Harry S. Truman to investigate the UFO activity after the Roswell incident – crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. At least four aliens were killed and thus the U.S. military launched the initiative to cover the infamous UFO conspiracy theory; at least that was what the public perceive of their government till today. In short the American would rather believe former President Bill Clinton did not receive the “special job” from Monica Lewinsky than to believe the U.S. military did not involve in any of the UFO cover-ups.

But unlike the Majestic Twelve which involved the terristerial from outer space, the Altantuya case involved an individual whose life was “destined or fated” to become the sixth PM. The public perception now is that the PM has something to do with the Mongolian, one way or another. And the poor PM is hoping this scandal would go away so that he could concentrate building his “One Malaysia” concept *grin*. However the immediate attraction is definitely the coming 7th May Perak’s Assembly which could see the repeat of a childish game – the musical chair. The legitimate and illegitimate teams of PR and BN respectively would run for the chairs the moment the whistle is blown. The fun part is there are now 2 (two) Chief Ministers and by this Thursday the state could have another pair of Speakers.

The Constitutional Crisis is expected to worsen and it’s not about power struggle anymore. It was obvious the backdoor coup d’état by BN government was the worst plan ever architected but there was no turning back since and the plan did not provide any exit face-saving hence the current situation. Given choices, the architect would rather pay $500,000 to the Mongolian lady and never launch the power grab on Perak but it is too late now. The BN government might has the advantage that it controls all the pillars namely the executive, judicial, legislative and the monarchy plus the police, Election Commission, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and perhaps the military but the present government could be digging its own grave come next general election. Let’s hope the current Speaker Sivakumar would not disappear on 7th May else his former deputy Hee Yit Fong would be laughing all her way to the bank – millions of dollars, new Mercedes Benz and a temporary position as the most powerful person in the Assembly (deputy Speaker)