Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s wife blazes her own controversial trail
The surat layang – “flying letters” in Malay, or anonymous assaults
-- have been flying in record numbers in recent weeks, attacking Rosmah
Mansor, the wife of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. They are
being picked up and spread in volume by the country’s blogosphere, much
of it arrayed against the Barisan Nasional, or ruling national
coalition.
It isn’t certain who is behind the attacks, but they are clearly tied to
national elections expected either late this year or early in 2012. The
opposition and the dominant United Malays National Organization are
blaming each other and both saying they aren’t involved. But the
60-year-old Rosmah has become a lightning rod for criticism of the
administration, most of it centering on her alleged profligacy and her
reported dominance of her husband’s political and social agenda. The
attacks compare her to both Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth, who drove her
husband to murder and tragedy, and to former Filipino First Lady Imelda
Marcos, who gained fame for her extravagance including owning hundreds
of pairs of shoes.
More ominously, as Asia Sentinel has reported, she has been the subject
of rumors for several years that she somehow was involved in the murder
of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, to the extent that a
businessman close to
her allegedly paid a witness RM750,000
to get out of the country after he said the dead woman had an affair
with her husband. In addition, court testimony has indicated that she
met with a former aide to Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim prior to the
aide’s accusing Anwar of raping him.
Those in Anwar’s Pakatan Rakyat coalition say the attacks on Rosmah are
coming from Muhyiddin Yassin, the 64-year-old deputy prime minister and
protégé of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Muhyiddin played a
major role in driving former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi from
power and has long been regarded as being ambitious to succeed Najib
should the prime minister stumble.
Added to that equation, the sources say, are Mahathir’s own ambitions to
see his third son Mukhriz, currently the deputy minister of
international trade, as deputy prime minister. Muhyiddin also fits
Mahathir’s political philosophy more than Najib does. He is an advocate
of Ketuanan Melayu – ethnic Malay dominance of the economic and
political landscape, in opposition to Najib, who is committed to his
so-called 1Malaysia campaign, an attempt to bring other races back into
the Barisan Nasional fold. Mahathir has become increasingly strident in
his calls to preserve Malay dominance as well.
Sources in the United Malays National Organization blame the accusations
on Pakatan Rakyat in an effort to blacken Najib’s reputation and
hamstring the ruling national coalition in advance of elections expected
later this year or early next. One aide to a top UMNO politician says
neither Mukhriz or Muhyiddin would be likely to be attack Rosmah as
Najib’s surrogate now. If serious infighting broke out within UMNO, the
aide says, it would seriously cripple the party and the ruling Barisan
Nasional coalition in advance of the polls.
If Mahathir and Muhyiddin were really after Najib, the aide says, it
would make no sense for them to be daring the destruction of their party
and the loss of even more of the Barisan’s power, which was severely
dented in March 2008 elections when for the first time in the country’s
then-50 year history its two-thirds hold on parliament was broken by the
opposition. Other sources say that Mahathir himself owes a debt of
gratitude to Najib’s father, the late Tun Abdul Razak, for
rehabilitating him after he had been kicked out of UMNO b y Tunku Abdul
Rahman, Malaysia’s first prime minister, and that he wouldn’t go against
Najib for that reason.
However, observers point out, Muhyiddin hasn’t been publicly defending
either Najib or Rosmah lately. One businessman in Kuala Lumpur told Asia
Sentinel: “Mahathir and Anwar are both working towards the same
objective even if they aren’t working together – get Najib out.”
Rosmah has been controversial since well before Najib became prime
minister. The newest sensation appeared a few weeks ago with a report by
a Kuala Lumpur-based opposition blog that she had received a US$24.8
million diamond ring from the New York-based Jacob & Co. jewelers
and that the ring had passed through customs without duty being charged.
Rosmah has said publicly that: "There is nothing I want to say (in
relation to the purchase of ring) because I have no time to entertain
such issue.” She later denied buying the ring.
She has also been photographed carrying what appears to be a Birkin
handbag, designed and manufactured by Hermès of Paris and named for the
actress and singer Jane Birkin. Prices of the bags range from US$9,000
to US$150,000 according to the type of material used. She has been
photographed as well wearing what appears to be a 65.77 carat white and
black Zebra safari bangle bracelet from also Jacob & Co. and made of
white and black pave diamonds and 18-karat white gold.
In addition to her taste in jewelry, Rosmah has raised hackles about her
influence on government, rumors that she is enriching the family and
because of the social life she leads. Particularly galling to some is
her claiming the title of Malaysia’s first lady, a title usually
reserved for the wife of the king. A six-person unit has been
established in the prime minister’s office, known as FLOM, an acronym
for First Lady of Malaysia, to look after her needs, a far cry from the
wives of previous prime ministers such as Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali,
Mahathir’s austere physician wife.
Sources say Rosmah has continually inserted herself in the political
process and has been responsible for spending vast amounts of government
money – for instance, as much as RM80 million in a 15-month campaign to
refurbish the Prime Minister’s residence.
In April 2010, Joshua Wong, then the producer of the popular Malaysian
current affairs program "Editor's Time," resigned, charging that the
NTV7 channel, which is controlled by UMNO, buckled under from complaints
from the Prime Minister's Department and Rosmah personally about
coverage of opposition politicians. Other newspaper editors complain
that she frequently calls to complain about coverage of both her and her
husband.
Last year, tongues began to wag in Kuala Lumpur over Rosmah’s taste for
the high life in New York and other capitals, particularly because of
her reported closeness to Low Taek Jho, who calls himself Jho Lo and
spent an astonishing amount of money on starlets, movie actors and
celebrities in New York. Low routinely dropped as much as US$60,000 a
month in Manhattan night clubs, according to the New York Post, which
said Low once sent 23 bottles of US$900 Cristal champagne to troubled
actress Lindsay Lohan's table as she was celebrating her 23rd birthday.
“This Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania graduate from
Malaysia,” the New York Post reported Aug. 1, 2010 “has burned through
hundreds of thousands of dollars at the city’s hottest nightspots in the
last three months — and shows no signs of stopping.”
Low, who was said to be pals with Paris Hilton, is also believed to be
the mystery man behind a US$180,000-US$230,000 advertisement that ran on
April 2010 in the New York Times congratulating Rosmah for being
Malaysia’s “first lady.” after she received the inaugural “International
Peace and Harmony Award” from an obscure US-based business group. The
Times first said the advertisement had been placed by the government,
then reversed itself three weeks later and declined to say who was
behind it.
On April 16, 2010 according to the New York Post, Rosmah and Najib were
given a star-studded party in honor of the award that was emceed by
actor-comedian Jamie Foxx and attended by a flock of movie stars
including Charlize Theron and Robert De Niro and included performances
by Grammy-award nominee Leona Lewis and the Harlem Boys Choir. The Nut
Graph, a Malaysian Blog said the festivities included karaoke duet
version of “You’ve Got a Friend” performed by Rosmah and De Niro, who
was later invited by the Rosmah to visit Malaysia.
News media including the New York Post and Gawker in the United States
say Low, the son of a wealthy Chinese family from Penang, owes much of
his cachet to his friendship with a Kuwaiti and fellow Wharton graduate,
Hamad Al Wazzan, the chairman and CEO of the Al Wazzan Group of
Companies in the US.
An UMNO source in Kuala Lumpur says Low used his links with Rosmah to
become the middleman in a massive land deal in Kuala Lumpur -- the
redevelopment of the 152-hectare 80-year-old Sungei Besi Air Force Base,
a prime, centrally located site that appears to have been awarded
without tender to a joint venture between 1Malaysia Development Sdn Bhd
and Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT), the armed forces retirement
fund.
According to local media, the project is being developed through a joint
venture with the Qatar Investment Authority, possibly with the
involvement of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Co.
Whether it is fair or not, the flying letters are giving a growing
segment of the Malaysian public the impression that Rosmah has become a
major detriment to her husband.
Whichever side is delivering the allegations, they may be having an
impact. Mustapha Ali, the secretary-general of the opposition Parti
Islam se-Malaysia told a press conference Wednesday that a revolt is
brewing in UMNO because Najib and his wife had become a liability to the
Barisan. Reportedly, Mustapha told the reporters, party officials fear
the long string of scandals are affecting voter sentiment.
That, of course, is the opposition trying to stir up trouble in the
Barisan. An UMNO source told Asia Sentinel that “this is the opposition
intensifying their attacks before the election. They are weak ”
But clearly the surat laying are flying indeed.
GUILTY ... Ibrahim Yusuf
“If
you’re saying that Christians give RM5,000, now you convert, show the
proof,” Council of Churches of Malaysia general secretary Rev Dr Hermen
Shastri (picture) told The Malaysian Insider today.
