Is Mahathir a traitor? (updated)

This is the question I asked in Parliament during the triangular exchange between the duo, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nazri Aziz and the UMNO MP for Sri Gading Mohamed Aziz who ganged up against me during the beginning of the Ministerial winding-up in the 2006 Budget debate this morning.

Mohd Aziz had come to the aid of Nazri by implying that I was a traitor (pengkhianat) saying that those who tarnish the country’s image and scare away foreign investors by talking about corruption having become a culture and way of life are traitors.

Nazri supported Mohd Aziz in this irresponsible line of argument, although both dared not say that they were calling me “traitor” despite my repeated challenge to them to be specific and to have the courage to name me.

I then reminded the rowdy House that former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad recently said that corruption had become a culture in Malaysia, and whether Mohd Aziz dared to declare that Tun Dr. Mahathir is a traitor.

Of course, there was not a whimper from the phalanx of 200 Barisan Nasional MPs.

Dr. Mahathir’s statement was reported by New Straits Times of 26th May 2005 under the heading “Dr. M: Corruption becoming culture”, which said:

PUTRAJAYA, Wed. - Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad warned today that corruption was becoming a culture in Malaysia.

The former Prime Minister said corruption was almost at the "above the table" level, with a significant number being involved.

"Where are we now? We are slowly breaking through the ceiling. We are slowly emerging 'above the table', and when that occurs, I hope I won't be around," he said.

Dr Mahathir said there could be no turning back if corruption becomes rampant, "because everybody, from the bottom to the top, will be corrupt".

"If we have better values, this will not happen," he said after presenting the keynote address on "Social Re-engineering", for a 10-part series of discourses at the Perdana Leadership Foundation here today.

He said this in response to a question from an Umno Youth member who sought his opinion on the level of corruption in Malaysia.

Earlier, I had quizzed Nazri about the poverty of results in the campaign against corruption which the Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had elevated into a centrepiece of his administration.

I pointed out that there was no outrage, shock or even reaction when Malaysia’s corruption ranking last year fell another two points from 37th to 39th placing in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2004, raising questions whether the government is serious about stamping out corruption.

I asked why Abdullah was not backed up his Ministers in the campaign against corruption as he was the only one talking about fighting corruption in the past two years of his premiership. When Malaysia’s TI CPI 2004 fell by two rankings last year, it should have been a wake-up call to the government to start “walk the talk”, with all Ministers spearheading a campaign in their respective Ministries to root out corruption. This was not the case.

This set Nazri off on a cock-and-bull story to defend Malaysia’s 39th ranking in the TI CPI 2004, prompting me to ask whether he would be equally smug if Malaysia fell further in the TI CPI 2005.

Nazri claimed that Malaysia was placed No. 39th in TI CPI because more countries have been taken into account and ours is an expanding economy.

I enumerated the top ten countries in the TI CPI 2004 rankings, namely Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Australia and Netherlands to show that they are even more developed countries than Malaysia.

When Nazri countered that he was not referring to developed countries but developing countries, I did a quick google of the TI CPI 2004 rankings and read out from my notebook the countries ranked from No. 11 to No. 38 to show that there are also developing countries which are better positioned than Malaysia. Nazri’s response was that these are developing countries which are either smaller or poorer than Malaysia.

Earlier, I had I pointed out at the beginning of Nazri’s winding-up that many regard the corruption situation as having gotten worse now than before Abdullah took over as Prime Minister two years ago, quoting as testimony four persons who had spoken out recently, viz:


# Former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Hanif Omar writing about the serious problem of corruption in his Sunday Star column.

# Malay Contractors Association president Roslan Awang who said the construction sector is “choked with graft”.

# Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, M. Kayveas who said that corruption in the construction sector was “small fry” as “corruption is at its worst in the local authorities”; and

# Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir who warned that corruption was becoming a culture in Malaysia.

Nazri made the claim that the arrest a few days ago of the IGP’s son for corruption by the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) was something that had not happened before and proof of the government’s seriousness in the campaign against graft and the ACA’s independence and powers.

I applauded the ACA for the arrest of the IGP’s son but warned that whatever kudos and good image the ACA has gained in the arrest of the IGP’s son risk being wiped out by the ACA failure to even initiate investigation against Isa Samad, who had just stepped down as Federal Territories Minister, in the past four months.

I posed to Nazri and Parliament the question: - If Isa Samad is regarded as too corrupt to continue as an UMNO member and Cabinet Minister, is he clean enough to remain a Member of Parliament and why has the ACA failed to initiate any investigation of Isa Samad in the past four months after he had been found guilty of corruption and money politics by the UMNO Disciplinary Board?