By Tony Pua
Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said that Barisan Nasional (BN) must counter the perception created by the opposition on 1MDB to win back the state.
He claimed the 1MDB issue had been solved, and Umno now must fix the wrong perception that the opposition has created.
“The 1MDB issue has been solved. The bad perception was created (by the opposition) to confuse the voters. So, Umno has to step in to clear the confusion,” the Federal Territories minister said after opening the Petaling Jaya Utara Umno division meeting yesterday morning.
If only Umno and BN’s problems in Selangor were merely as simple as “perception”. Indeed, if that was the only problem with 1MDB, it would have been extremely easy to fix.
The challenge for Umno-BN, if Tengku Adnan hasn’t realised by now, isn’t a mere problem of perception.
It is the problem that their attempts to fake facts have gained no traction, especially in Selangor where the thinking electorate do not fall, hook, line and sinker for BN’s lies.
The people of Selangor, what more in Petaling Jaya Utara, can see with their own eyes how Prime Minister Najib Razak and 1MDB are hiding themselves from “sensitive” questions about the RM50 billion monster scandal.
Why else would the Dewan Rakyat Speaker reject nearly all questions with regards to 1MDB even one as innocuous as seeking to know the current value of 1MDB’s “unit” investments previously held with the now-defunct BSI Bank in Singapore?
Why else would the prime minister not answer as to why is it that the Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali claimed that the charges laid out in the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) were “politically motivated”?
It also isn’t a question of perception when 1MDB repeatedly failed to fulfil its obligations to repay its agreed instalment to Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Corporation (IPIC) amounting to billions of ringgit.
The people of Selangor are not so dumb as to not be able to see the fact that 1MDB has suffered billions of ringgit of losses, as a result of a kleptocratic BN administration which will lead to Malaysians footing the RM42 billion 1MDB bill.
Hence, the biggest problem the BN administration faces isn’t a question of perception.
The biggest 1MDB problem facing BN is that people are staring at the bare indisputable facts which BN leaders are only trying to sweep under the carpet.
Most importantly, we are confident that the people of Selangor will support the Pakatan Harapan coalition comprising of PPBM, Amanah, PKR and DAP and reject all other parties who fail to crusade against the single largest case of robbery and kleptocracy in the history of Malaysia.
Tony Pua is Petaling Jaya Utara MP and DAP national publicity secretary.
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