EVEN though he heads a Malay party, Umno president Najib Razak thinks Malays are stupid and easily fooled, said Bersatu chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

 Dr Mahathir based his observation on the Election Commission’s proposed new electoral boundaries to carve out more Malay-majority seats from ethnically-mixed constituencies.

The proposed redelineation is supposedly for Umno to contest more Malay-majority seats, said Dr Mahathir.

“There are some among us who think the act of separating (Malay and non-Malay voters) is because he loves Malays.

“In reality, Najib thinks Malays are easily fooled. He thinks Malays are stupid. 

“(Najib thinks that if) You steal RM100, they will understand. You steal chickens, they understand. But if you steal billions of ringgit, Malays don’t understand,” Dr Mahathir said in his policy speech at the party’s inaugural annual general meeting in Shah Alam.

The 92-year-old has repeatedly accused Najib and his associates of stealing billions from state firm 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

Najib has denied wrongdoing in the scandal which has triggered money laundering and fraud investigations in six countries.

Dr Mahathir said Najib was reliant on the Malays for votes and accused him of rigging the electoral roll.

“Why do I say that he is not only changing the borders but also the electoral roll?

“We find that the people are not allowed to vote in their areas but given the choice of voting where they wish or  right to decide where they wished to vote or  to vote or their choice of their place. They will take them from one area to another in the hope that Malays will be duped and will vote for BN.”

He said the addresses of 30.9 million voters were problematic in the last general election.

“There were many kinds of changes, such as 110 (phantom voters) registered in a vacant house; in some cases there was no house at all; and blocks where there are voters but no houses.

“There were houses where there were no roads, maybe they were floating in the air; and there were same names but with different identification numbers and they all lived in the same village,” he said to laughter from the audience of about 1,000 Bersatu members.

He said the town of Pekan also saw a sudden increase of voters in the last general election. Pekan is Najib’s constituency.

“The number of voters in Pekan increased from 35,832 in 1999 to 80,260 in 2013 to give votes to MO1,” Dr Mahathir said, referring to “Malaysian Official 1”, the description used in the US Justice Department’s court filings on 1MDB.– December 30, 2017.