IN arguably his hardest-hitting speech yet, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad told rural voters in Selama, Perak last night that the country’s ruin will be on their heads if they continued to support the Barisan Nasional government.
 
Speaking to a crowd of about 1,000 people from the surrounding oil palm estates, the Pakatan Harapan chairman said they could no longer feign ignorance of the financial scandals wracking the country.

Dr Mahathir said he believed rural folk understood that massive amounts of taxpayers’ money have been stolen and that they should do their part to kick out the present regime at the coming national polls.

“People say orang kampung (village folk) do not care. That they don’t understand how much a billion ringgit is,” Dr Mahathir told the crowd at the Ceramah Perdana last night.

“I don’t think village folk don’t understand. They have to pay GST (goods and services tax). They understand that the government is running out of money.

“How has the government run out of money? Because its leaders have spent it. They’ve gotten their money illegally by stealing from the people. I think the orang kampung can understand this.”

Selama is an agricultural town 45km north of Taiping in Perak. Most of last night’s audience were from the surrounding villages.

Dr Mahathir then attacked Prime Minister Najib Razak: “If you choose him again, I don’t know what to say.

“If we allow him to be prime minister any longer he will do worse. Why is he buying support? Because people don’t like him. He hopes people can be bought off. If you allow him to do this, the country will be destroyed.” 

Dr Mahathir also touched on the US Department of Justice’s investigations into 1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), which is alleging that US$4.5 billion (RM18.8 billion) was stolen from the state investor. 

“We know where the money went to. It went to Najib. It went to Rosmah (Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor). It went to Jho Low (Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho). It’s frozen in Singapore. It’s in the US and in Switzerland. 

“They want to return the money, but they’re waiting. They don’t want to give it back to Najib.”

Dr Mahathir also took Najib to task for selling land to Chinese firms.
 
“Najib is dangerous to our country. He always sells land. We should not sell our land. If we sell our land, then we will lose it forever. Once it belongs to someone else, we can’t have it back.” 

“TRX, Sungai Besi have been sold off. This is Najib’s way. When you owe people, must pay. If you owe Ah Long (loanshark), he will send people to beat you up. 

“Najib owes RM55 billion to build the East Coast Railway. He gave the contract to the Chinese. If we can’t pay the Chinese, what will happen?” 

Other speakers at the Ceramah Perdana were Perak Pakatan Harapan chief Ahmad Faizal Azumu, Selangor Senator Muhammad Nur Manuty and Amanah Kuala Krai MP Mohd Hatta Ramli.

In his speech earlier, Hatta pointed to Najib announcement earlier that the government had collected RM41 billion revenue through GST. 

“He (Najib) has said that if you abolish the GST, the country would go bankrupt.

“We can fix it. We just need to remove the wastage and corruption,” Hatta said. – September 23, 2017.