Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak commands a legion of close to 3.4-million Facebook “likes” and more than 4-million Twitter “followers”. However, 51% of his Twitter followers are fake. Chances are millions of his Facebook “likes” are fake too. At US$10 for 1,000 likes, it would take only a small fortune to spike Mr. Najib’s “likes.”
In spite of having millions of social media fans, interestingly, Mr. Najib is fast losing something more precious – international friends. As a self-proclaimed great leader, he should command some sort of respect within the international community. Sadly, only a handful of global leaders would risk being seen with him. This is incredibly unprecedented, not to mention humiliating.
Najib loves travelling to foreign nations so that he could be photographed rubbing shoulders with world powerful leaders. Such opportunity is short in supply nowadays. With the exception of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who had no choice but to welcome him at the Australian-ASEAN summit recently, it seems all the global leaders are avoiding Najib with a ten-foot pole.
As the Malaysia Parliament about to be dissolved anytime now, Najib’s legitimacy as the country’s premier could be in jeopardy, even if he wins big thanks to gerrymandering as a result of the latest re-delineation exercise. With the new electoral boundaries re-drawn to his favour, Najib can now win a two-thirds majority in parliament – even if he wins only 40% of the popular vote.
Throw in the Anti-Fake News 2018 Law bulldozed to silent critics, there’s no difference between Najib Razak and North Korean Kim Jong-un or Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe. The Washington Post is the latest foreign news media that says Malaysia’s proposed anti-fake news is nothing but an excuse for censorship.
But the Washington Post isn’t the only foreign news media which couldn’t help but gave the Malaysian leader a kick of disapproval. The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times, CNBC, MSNBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Al-Jazeera and even Indonesian Tempo have accused and mocked PM Najib Razak as the crook behind 1MDB scandal.
1MDB, which has been classified as a “Ponzi Scheme” by the Swiss Attorney General is not any common thievery. 1MDB is the world’s biggest financial scandal. In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice acknowledges the 1MDB represents the largest action brought under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, involving stolen money of more than US$4.5 billion.
Najib Razak, who was the Chairman of 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad), has denied any involvement in the scandal despite caught with his hand in the cookie jar – a whopping US$681 million in his private banking accounts. Instead, Mr. Najib has claimed that the money was donations from Saudi royal family, a claim that could not be substantiated.
President Trump, perhaps wanted to give PM Najib the benefit of the doubt, was persuaded by lobbyist to grant a White House visit to the Malaysian leader. The POTUS was promised a mind-boggling US$20 billion investment “bribe” to “Make America Great Again”, a pledge made by Najib which was nothing by empty rhetoric, as Trump would find out later.
For all it’s worth, that historical White House visit package didn’t come with its basic goodies such as photo-op, luncheon, exchange of diplomatic gift or a joint press conference, let alone a 19-gun salute. Amusingly, Mr. Najib still believed his visit was a great success, despite being granted a “pariah visit status” by Donald Trump, whom he repeatedly claimed as a golf-buddy.
It would take two months later for Najib to realize that his so-called golfing buddy had abandoned him when the naughty President Trump was caught in a viral video clip – deliberately pretending didn’t see Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor – during a dinner at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Manila, Philippines.
Four months later, a secret joint operation between the U.S. authorities and Indonesian police seized “The Equanimity”, the US$250 million luxurious yacht owned by fugitive Jho Low, Najib’s business partner. Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, was also exposed to have had purchased a 22-carat pink diamond necklace – worth a stunning US$27.3 million – using money siphoned from 1MDB.
Interestingly, Indonesia, the closest neighbour of Malaysia and the ancestral homeland of Mr Najib, appears to be distancing from the extremely corrupted Malaysian leader. It was by design, not coincidence that Indonesian President “Jokowi” Joko Widodo had chosen not to share intelligence with Malaysian police about the confiscation of Jho Low’s mega-yacht “The Equanimity”.
Besides skyrocketing cost of hiring Indonesian maids – from RM8,000 to RM15,000 – largely due to falling Malaysian Ringgit, Jokowi administration demands better treatment and minimum wage for its maids. Najib’s policies of importing maids from Philippines and granting special treatment for Cambodian domestic workers was a slap in the face of Jokowi.
Obviously, President Jokowi wasn’t impressed that while Indonesian maids were mistreated and underpaid, Najib government secretly and quietly signed an agreement with Cambodia giving free smartphones, bank accounts and counselling to its maids. Adding salt to the injury, Malaysian jobless graduates are competing for the same job as maids too.
Days ago on March 28, Malaysia’s northern neighbour – Thailand – dropped a bombshell after Najib regime attempted to bulldoze the highly unpopular Anti-Fake News 2018 Law. A Thai news portal – The Nation – published a caricature of Najib Razak with a long nose that resembles Pinocchio’s, suggesting that the Malaysian leader is a great liar.
The cartoon showed Mr. Najib chopping a pen labelled “Press Freedom” but his nose, presumably due to excessive lying, grew so long that some tree branches could be seen written with “Corruption”, “1MDB Scandal” and “Scorpene Submarine Affair”. It was clearly a direct insult on not only Najib’s corruption and thievery, but also his sexual affair with murdered Mongolian model Altantuya.
During Mahathir era, Sultan Brunei often paid visits – both official and unofficial – to Malaysia. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, once the world’s richest man, was a great admirer of the former Malaysian premier. However, ever since Najib took over the premiership, especially after the explosion of 1MDB scandal, the sultan seldom visits Malaysia – unless absolutely necessary.
To hell with America, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia or Brunei. Who need them when Najib has a powerful friend – Chinese President Xi Jinping? Turns out, even China has been quietly distancing itself from the despicable Malaysian leader, as revealed by SCMP (South China Morning Post), a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group.
The SCMP is one of the most credible newspapers in Hong Kong, even after billionaire Robert Kuok sold it to Jack Ma. The news media, however, is seen as more bias towards the Chinese Communist Party after the acquisition. Now, if you think SCMP has become a mouthpiece of the communist party, there’s more reason to believe Beijing doesn’t think highly of Najib Razak.
So when SCMP says the Chinese leaders are avoiding the Malaysian leader like the plague, it can only mean one thing – Xi Jinping doesn’t regard Najib Razak as his good friend at all, despite the latter claiming otherwise. The Chinese president last visited Malaysia in October 2013, when he attended the China-Malaysia Economic Summit. That was 5 years ago!!
Since then, the China leader hasn’t set his foot on Malaysian soil, and has no plan to do so. In 2016, Najib announced he had invited Xi to visit Malaysia. Still, Xi finds it neither productive nor worthwhile to visit Najib. A year later in 2017, Najib’s cybertroopers, propagandists and bloggers were overjoyed with speculations that Xi would finally visit Malaysia.
Najib’s advisers believed the timing of the 14th general election should be coincided with a visit to Malaysia of President of China, so that local discriminated ethnic-Chinese voters could be hoodwinked into thinking that Najib was Chinese-friendly. Earlier speculation was that Xi would visit Malaysia in August, only to change to October, 2017. None of those materialized.
The plan to call for an early snap election in 2017 failed spectacularly after Xi’s refusal to fly to Malaysia. The Chinese president was supposed to witness the official opening of Xiamen University’s Malaysian campus in Bandar (City) Sunsuria, Sepang. As the year ended with no sight of Xi coming over, Najib realized the window has essentially closed.
That was when Najib showed his ugly side – whacking and demonizing Malaysia richest man Robert Kuok by spreading fake news that the billionaire was secretly funding opposition parties. Using Malaysia-Today portal to achieve his racist evil plan, the premier hoped to rally the ethnic-Malay behind him at the expense of the ethnic-Chinese.
SCMP argued that if Xi really regards Najib as a true friend, China could easily support Malaysian palm oil, as indicated by Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia, Bai Tian. With European Union boycotting and banning the use of palm oil in biofuels, producers such as Malaysia could easily find support and comfort from good friend China.
But why should Beijing help import more palm oil from Malaysia after the son of Razak arrogantly insulted Robert Kuok? Unlike ungrateful UMNO-Malays Najib Razak, Beijing is still grateful to the renowned Sugar King, who secretly helped China overcome a severe sugar shortage in the early 1970s. The Chinese government’s trust and affection for Kuok didn’t stop there.
Whenever Chinese leaders visit Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, they deliberately choose to stay at Mr. Kuok’s Shangri-La hotel and that includes former president Hu Jintao and subsequently his successor, Xi Jinping. Even Najib’s former Special Envoy to China, ex-MCA President Ong Ka Ting, had to seek blessing from Kuok on certain crucial matters.
But there’s one compelling reason why President Xi gives Prime Minister Najib the cold shoulder. And it has very little to do with 1MDB. That reason is none other than Bandar Malaysia. In Dec 2015, Malaysia’s Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH) and China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) jointly secured rights as the master developer of the mega-project Bandar Malaysia.
A year later in Dec 2016, Financial Times revealed how Najib son of Razak approached China to help settle the US$6.5 billion dispute over an alleged breach of contract between two Muslim nations – Malaysia and U.A.E. – over Abu Dhabi IPIC’s missing money. Obviously, China refused to be treated like a personal ATM machine of Najib Razak.
In a surprising business move, Malaysia Ministry of Finance, of which Najib is the finance minister, terminated the project on 3 May, 2017, blaming failure to meet payment obligations as the reason. But why would cash-rich CREC break its promise of payments when Bandar Malaysia was a strategic investment to meet China’s agenda – OBOR (One Belt One Road) – in the region?
In reality, the greedy Najib wanted to squeeze more money from Bandar Malaysia by terminating the deal so that Beijing and foreign competitors could be put to a bidding war for the precious 196.7-hectare site of the former RMAF (Royal Malaysia Air Force) base in Sungai Besi – driving up the price to higher than the initial RM7.41 billion winning bid of IWH-CREC.
True enough, Najib administration re-opened the tender for Bandar Malaysia in June, 2017 – a month after its refusal to honour the deal won by IWH-CREC. The greedy and despicable government wanted Fortune 500 companies to bid for the project. That probably explains why Najib had failed to convince President Xi to visit Malaysia last year.
Thinking highly of himself, Najib thought he could scam not only the Americans but also play the Chinese. His partner Jho Low tried to bribe Republican and Trump donor Elliott Broidy with US$75 million to influence the U.S. president to drop the 1MDB investigation but failed. With both President Trump and President Xi avoiding him, the toxic Najib really has very few powerful friends.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- Najib’s Dirty Deal With Trump Backfires – Confiscation Of Jho Low’s $250 Million Yacht Is Just The Beginning
- Najib & His Mad Dogs Should Be Careful What They Wish For – Robert Kuok Is President Xi’s Trusted Adviser
- Ungrateful Trump Pretends Didn’t See Golf Buddy Najib & Oversized Rosmah
- Under Pressure, Trump Granted Najib A “Pariah Visit Status” Despite $20 Billion Investment Bribes
- This Chart Shows How US-DOJ Links Auntie Rosie To A $27-Million Pink Diamond
- No Deal For Bad Deal – Here’s Why China Pulls Plug On Bandar Malaysia
- Bandar Malaysia Has Become “Bandar China” – The U.S. & Malays Conned By Najib
- Swiss A.G. – Najib’s 1MDB Scammed At Least $800 Million Using “Ponzi Scheme”
- WSJ’s Last Bombshell For The Year – Najib’s $700 Million Came From 1MDB
- Be Very Afraid Najib, Mahathir Has Unleashed Altantuya Card
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April 2nd, 2018 by financetwitter
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