HOW deep will the culling go of senior government officials and government-linked company bosses who protected Najib Razak and campaigned for Barisan Nasional?

This question has been troubling many individuals since yesterday, when it became clear that the BN empire had fallen.

In their place were individuals who had swept to power promising to clean up corrupt Malaysia, beginning with prominent individuals who had propped up and protected the crooked.

There is a palpable nervousness in Putrajaya and in GLC offices in Kuala Lumpur, with several senior officials already reaching out with mea culpas and saying they had little choice but to support the prime minister and government of the day. A few claimed that they would have been punished had they not stumped for BN.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced today that the new administration would begin investigating Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali, Election Commission chairman Mohd Hashim Abdullah and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission head Dzulkifli Ahmad.

They allegedly broke laws and hid crimes committed by Najib. Even if the investigations do not disclose criminal behaviour, it will be untenable for the trio to stay on in their respective positions.

Removing these three will be like plucking low-hanging fruit for an administration wanting to ‎burnish its credentials for putting the rule of law above all else, as they are largely unpopular with Malaysians for defending Najib or propping up his regime.

Also likely to be shown the door is Treasury Secretary-General Irwan Serigar Abdullah. He broke a cardinal rule of the civil service by actively campaigning for Najib and BN in the run-up to the polls. Particularly distasteful was his reading of a poem urging voters in Langkawi, whose new MP is Dr Mahathir, to support BN.

Other individuals with big question marks hanging over their heads are Chief Secretary to the Government Ali Hamsa and Wan Kamaruzaman Wan Ahmad. Their sin: campaigning for BN.

Within the Pakatan Harapan camp, there is also an eagerness to punish GLC heads who campaigned for Najib or who were players in some of the more tasteless attempts by the Najib government to smear Dr Mahathir.

Right up there in this category is Shazalli Ramly, the group CEO of Telekom Malaysia. Outside of office hours, he was very involved in branding Najib and BN for GE14.

PH supporters were also angry that Abdul Wahid Omar, the group chairman of Permodalan Nasional Berhad, campaigned for BN in the run-up to polling day on May 9. He upset the PH camp by issuing a statement saying that abolishing the goods and services tax could hurt Malaysia’s economy, panning PH’s plan to scrap the GST as regressive.

‎Perhaps one individual who should be sweating profusely is Sidek Hassan, the chairman of Petronas.

He chaired the farcical Royal Commission of Inquiry on the forex losses suffered by Bank Negara in the 1980s. The commission was meant to be a hatchet job to discredit Dr Mahathir, but most Malaysians saw through the sham. Sidek didn’t help himself with his rough treatment of Dr Mahathir during the inquiry. His days at Petronas are numbered. – May 11, 2018.