Anwar will even risk2his career to fight corruption.

Since he took over as prime minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been working hard to try to help deliver the lower segment of the society from their current economic plight while uncompromisingly battling corruption at the same time.

He said if someone tries to topple him because of his anti-corruption effort, he can go ahead, because the country and her people can only be saved if the country has become cleaner.

If he really means it, then it speaks volumes of the fact that Anwar will even risk his career to fight corruption.

As a matter of fact, the country will only prosper if the people are not corrupted.

According to the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published in late January by Transparency International, Malaysia only scored 47 points out of 100, down for a third straight year at 61st among 180 countries.

Across the southern border, Singapore was ranked fifth in the world. Now the question: what has made Malaysian government officials so much greedier than their counterparts a narrow body of water away?

Sure enough such a wicked culture of corruption has not been born overnight, but since when? It’s now time to dig into the core of the problem and hold everyone guilty accountable.

Corruption among Malaysian officials, elected representatives, public servants have become intertwined and deep-rooted through the decades. And with the resolute anti-corruption drive just started, already the MACC has detected several “suspicious cases.”

The latest revelation involved former Perlis menteri besar Azlan Man for counterfeiting travel documents on five different occasions during his tenure as MB, submitting false travel claims worth RM1.185 million over five years.

It is unbecoming that a tiny state with only a population less than 260,000 could have produced a menteri besar with a “billion dollar whale” appetite for wealth. We really can’t imagine how many more federal and state big shots and officials have done something similar in the past. It could be a lot more than we could possibly imagine!

The anti-corruption trumpet must be sounded. Take Azlan’s case for instance, he was the MB for ten years, and the five corruption charges against him were all cases taking place during Najib’s administration (2013-2017). He continued to helm the state after a change of the federal government in 2018 until his electoral defeat last year, but we don’t know how many more cases during those years have yet to be unearthed.

Najib is the first former prime minister of Malaysia to have been convicted of corruption and sentenced to jail.

On August 23, 2022, the federal court found Najib guilty of misappropriating RM42 million SRC International funds, and he was subsequently sent to Kajang Prison to serve his sentence.

Several days ago, the Umno supreme council unanimously agreed to submit an appeal letter and an MoU with the signatures of all 191 Umno divisional chiefs, to seek an audience with His Majesty Yang di-Pertuan Agong and his consent to grant Najib a royal pardon.

That said, if there are conclusive evidences against Najib, we believe His Majesty will make a wise decision.

Despite having been in office for only nine years, Najib has almost plunged the country to a hellish state of desperation. From the fall of BN administration in 2018 until Anwar was back at the core of power in 2022, successive governments have been trying to arrest the bleeding from BN’s RM400 billion worth of “white elephant” projects as well as budgetary deficits expanding rapidly to the tune of RM1.5 trillion today.

Take the 1MDB incident for example, as much as RM42.1 billion worth of debts have already been disclosed within a span of just several years. We have no idea how much loss has actually been incurred!

Countless inexplicable scandals have come to light, including an astronomical sum of donation from the Saudi royalty. Investigations by the US Department of Justice have provided us the answer: the money came from Tanore Finance Corp, not the Saudi royalty.

Those bold enough to steal should be courageous enough to face the music instead of putting the blame of flawed judiciary or seeking a royal pardon or dismissal of the charges.

DPM Ahmad Zahid Hamidi recently sent a letter of representation to the AGC to have his 47 charges of criminal breach of trust, corruption and money laundering dropped. Although the prosecution say they need time to consider whether to drop the charges, they nevertheless agree to the application filed by Zahid’s lawyer Hamidi Mohd Noh to postpone the trial.

Let the social conscience and the moral yardstick of the masses decide whether what Ahmad Zahid did could be construed as political intervention of judiciary.

It is Zahid’s right to fight for his own interest to have the charges against him dropped. But do bear in mind that the Malaysian judicial system has not been created to serve only a handful of privileged individuals but the justice of the masses. As such, an unjustified precedent must never be set at all!

Bersatu president and former PM Muhyiddin has also be charged in a court for corruption, and has also dismissed his involvement citing “political persecution.”

Well, let’s surrender the case to the country’s judiciary for a fair trial.

Anwar also said Tun Mahathir is not a clean person, and the old man instantly vowed to sue the PM for libel. Since Anwar claimed that he had the evidence, why not hand over the evidence to the court?