A scandal centered on cows and luxury condos raises the chances that elections will be delayed and highlights Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s stuttering efforts to push through reforms.
“Cowgate,” as it has inevitably been dubbed, is providing rich fodder for the opposition as it digs up dirt on a publicly funded cattle-rearing project that it says was used as a personal fund for the family of one of Najib’s ministers.
It is not the first corruption scandal to hit Najib and his long-ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO), but the farmyard connection makes it a potentially damaging one because rural Malays — the bedrock of UMNO’s support — could relate to it more easily than to more obscure financial matters.
“The cow issue is God-given,” People’s Justice Party women’s section head Zuraida Kamaruddin said, following a speech at a recent rally, which she punctuated with the occasional “moo” for comic effect.
“This time we have real evidence that proves their mismanagement,” she added.
The family of Women, Families and Communities Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil is accused of using 250 million ringgit (US$83 million) in soft government loans meant to develop the cattle project to buy luxury apartments, expensive overseas trips and a Mercedes.
Meanwhile, the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) project was found by the Malaysian auditor-general to have done little to reach its initial goal of making the country 40 percent self-sufficient in beef production by 2010.
Najib last month froze the assets of the NFC, which is under investigation by Malaysia’s anti-corruption commission. With fresh allegations appearing almost daily on the country’s lively Internet news sites, the scandal adds to growing temptations for him to delay elections that must be called by April 2013.
However, with the US economy showing signs of recovery and the eurozone not yet imploding, he might feel he can wait and hope for the scandal to blow over while recent government handouts to poorer families take effect.
The risk for Najib is that the scandal could balloon further or set off other allegations of graft, implicating other members of his government and giving a further boost to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was acquitted on sodomy charges last month, leaving him free to campaign.
The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition is expected to retain its parliamentary majority after historic gains by the opposition in 2008. However, the NFC scandal adds to the difficulty Najib faces in recapturing the coalition’s once impregnable two-thirds majority and winning a mandate to keep up with his tentative reforms.
That could set off an internal power struggle, with many expecting the more conservative, less reform-minded Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to launch a bid for the UMNO leadership.
Malaysia, once mentioned in the same breath as South Korea and Singapore as an Asian “tiger” economy, has mostly disappointed since the region’s financial crisis of 1997 as it struggles to revamp an economy centered on commodities and low-end manufacturing.
At the same time, corruption has worsened, with the country sliding to 60th in Transparency International’s global ranking of graft perceptions last year compared to 33rd in 2002.
Najib has reached out to Malaysia’s middle class as a reformer, promising to replace repressive security laws and wean the country off a race-based economic system that has alleviated poverty, but increasingly stunted growth, fuelled corruption and turned off foreign investors.
However, he has watered down or backtracked on many of his key pledges, encountering opposition from within UMNO and its network of corporate interests that benefit from the system of ethnic Malay privileges.
Najib announced a significant overhaul of the system in 2010 named the New Economic Model (NEM), most of which has not been implemented.
“The NEM is not only dead, but has also been effectively buried under a new avalanche of preferential policies and contracts that run against the open, transparent and accountable system promised,” Malaysian Centre for Policy Initiatives director Lim Teck Ghee said.
Cowgate is a gift for critics who say little has changed on Najib’s watch since 2009 other than the rhetoric.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS