The screw is tightening on Najib

K Kabilan, The Ant Daily

Are we seeing the beginning of an internal Umno revolt to push out Prime Minister and party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak?

While there had been rumblings for some months that Umno warlords were preparing to force Najib out, only now are we seeing slight movements to the effect on the ground.

Prior to this all we had were sharp criticisms raised by old-timers like former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, ex-information minister Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin and senior journalist Datuk Abdul Kadir Jasin.

The attacks against Najib started earlier this week with Batu Kawan Umno division deputy chief Datuk Khairuddin Abu Hassan lodging a police report against the controversial state sovereign fund 1Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB).

1MDB is Najib’s brainchild and he is the chairman of the 1MDB advisory council.

Khairuddin wants the police to investigate the financial dealings on 1MDB, and to interrogate 1MDB’s directors. 1MDB has been in the spotlight over its enormous debts, dubious land deals and secret transactions.

Mahathir is a vocal critic of 1MBD, and Najib’s failure to address the issues surrounding the sovereign wealth fund was among the reasons for the former to withdraw his support for Najib.

Interestingly, Khairuddin deems Mahathir as his mentor but had been quick to dispel any talk that his police report against 1MDB was at the behest of the former Umno strongman.

Another interesting twist to this saga is that Khairuddin was the publisher of controversial “50 Dalil Kenapa Anwar Ibrahim Tidak Boleh Jadi PM” book written by Khalid Jafri that mooted Mahathir’s move to oust Anwar Ibrahim from Umno and government in 1998.

Following Khairuddin, former Election Commission chairman and self-confessed Umno member Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman openly criticised Najib, telling the premier to “stop lying to the rakyat and go do your work”.

His criticism coming at a Perkasa’s annual group meeting tells a lot for the Malay right wing group which has until now been a strong Najib ally.

And on Wednesday (Dec 17), an Umno grassroots leader urged Najib to step down for the sake of the party.

Umno Taman Chempaka information head Syed Rosli Jamalullail penned an open letter to Najib to say that he had become a liability and that Umno had become weak and was losing support from not only the Malays but also from the Chinese and Indian communities.

He pressed on Najib to “help Umno to become strong again by leaving”, wanting the prime minister to step down voluntarily before the 14th general election.

These internal criticisms against Najib are only now beginning to surface in the open. It is not certain if they can gain any momentum to the extent which resulted in Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi being shown the door after the 2008 general election.

Party leaders have been quick in reacting to extinguish the fire of discontent by cajoling the dissenters to revoke their criticism against their big boss.

However, it remains to be seen if the open act of dissent against Najib will gain any traction. That will only happen if senior leaders in the party start raising their concerns openly.

The next few days will be interesting to watch indeed.