OPPOSITION leader Anwar Ibrahim has accepted the fact that he may never become prime minister, especially after pushing for the Pandora Papers to be debated in Parliament.

Bringing up the subject of the Pandora Papers – which has also implicated several Malaysian leaders – will make it harder to become prime minister, the PKR president told Australia’s ABC radio.

“The whole power apparatus, apparatchiks, conglomerates and political elites in the media will gun for you. So, I do not worry about that.

“I just do my tasks, que será será. If I continue to be opposition leader, so be it. If (I become) prime minister, I will say, thank God Almighty.”

On Wednesday, Anwar filed for a motion to allow for the Pandora Papers to be debated in the Dewan Rakyat, but it was rejected by Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun on the grounds that it is not urgent.

The Pandora Papers are an anonymous dump of 2.94 terabytes of confidential financial files to the Investigative Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The dump is made up of more than 11.9 million documents and records from 14 offshore service providers that set up and manage shell companies and trusts in tax havens around the globe.

However, the data does not show any wrongdoing on the part of the depositors.

Among those named in the Pandora Papers as having offshore accounts are Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, former finance minister Daim Zainuddin and Selayang MP William Leong.

Anwar said he has spoken to Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob about the leak, adding that the latter had asked him what could be done about the matter.

“I said he must conduct a full investigation (as) the issue is not new. In 2012, I raised the global financial integrity report, which involved hundreds of billions of ringgit (offshore). Then, in 2015, there were the Panama Papers.”

The Port Dickson MP said this will prompt the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to start investigating the issue.

He also voiced his concern that the corruption in Malaysia is “not getting better”, pointing to the recent case of three MACC officers who were arrested over suspicions of being involved in the loss of case items involving US$6 million (RM25 million).

“No one will believe all these pronouncements of anti-corruption until and unless you are prepared to take tough measures to strengthen MACC.” – October 8, 2021.