Satire by Mustafa K. Anuar

THERE have been heated exchanges between two former prime ministers on their respective social media platforms lately, each competing to provide the definitive answer to what constitutes a people’s traitor.

Malaysians, many of whom are now confronted by the marauding Omicron variant and high costs of living as well as political fatigue, are likely to dismiss the barb trading between Najib Razak and Muhyiddin Yassin as a sheer waste of their precious time, if not hogwash.

Yet the people would be sadly mistaken if they were to ignore the spat.

In fact, they should appreciate the selfless effort of these politicians who slugged it out in the open only to help fellow Malaysians to ferret out whom the politicians considered the real traitor.

This is useful for the ordinary folk, especially the simple minded, who are not sophisticated enough to understand the shenanigans involved in the act of betrayal. 

In other words, we ought to appreciate that both seasoned politicians have taken great pains to help Malaysians separate the wheat from the chaff.

Much troubled by allegations making him out to be a traitor, Muhyiddin metaphorically trained his gun at Najib.

Bersatu president Muhyiddin categorically accused the Pekan MP of being a traitor to the Malay community, particularly Umno members, for having been involved in the country’s ever biggest financial scandal (sovereign wealth fund 1MDB) when the latter was both the prime minister and Umno president.

Muhyiddin added that the now convicted felon had dragged the country down with his financial fraud, which brought shame to the Malay race in the eyes of the international community.

What must have slipped Muhyiddin’s mind was that the impact of the 1MDB scandal was also felt by all Malaysians, irrespective of their ethnic, religious and cultural origins.

If exposing the 1MDB scandal and setting up his Bersatu party to oppose the kleptocrats in Umno was considered a treacherous act, Muhyiddin valiantly accepted being called a traitor.

In fact, he pointed out, he paid a high price for calling for a probe into the scandal as he was eventually sacked from his post as deputy prime minister, and similarly the Umno deputy presidency in 2015.

He said the scandal was not a figment of his imagination nor a mere slander.

Very much bedevilled by the presence of the “court cluster” in Umno, ie, those facing criminal charges in court, Muhyiddin argued that the the Perikatan Nasional pact’s continuing support for the Ismail Sabri Yaakob government was only to ensure that the prime minister would not interfere with the court process.

However, ordinary Malaysians may wonder at this juncture why Muhyiddin did not choose to remain in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government – instead of leaving and bringing about its collapse – as the issue of the “court cluster” could still be actively addressed.

Najib, in turn, refuted the statement that Muhyiddin was sacked because of his bickering over the 1MDB scandal. Najib, incidentally, did not think it was crucial to deliberate the scandal.

Muhyiddin was fired from the said positions, revealed Najib, because he had been conspiring with Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Mukhriz Mahathir since 2014.

In no uncertain terms, the former Umno president accused Muhyiddin of betraying Mahathir by plotting to bring down the PH government through the so-called Sheraton Move.

However, Najib did not think it was worth mentioning here that the plot also involved PKR defectors, Umno and PAS. In any case, this conspiracy eventually led to Muhyiddin becoming the country’s eighth prime minister.

He also did not feel it was important to highlight that the Sheraton Move also had a bigger implication, in that the people’s mandate for social reform was squandered, and therefore betrayed.

After attentively listening to the two hardened politicians, perhaps the only conclusion that fair-minded Malaysians could arrive at is that people living in glass houses should not throw stones. – February 13, 2022.