Malaysia on ‘slippery slope’ to becoming failed state, says Ambiga

Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan believes Malaysia is well on its way to becoming a failed state. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, August 9, 2015. 

Malaysia is on its way to becoming a failed state, with institutions failing to function and lawmakers ignoring the very laws they created, says Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan.

The former Bar Council president told a forum at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus in Kuala Lumpur today that while the downward slope began decades ago with the 1988 judicial crisis, the public could feel the effects more keenly today.

She said this could be seen in the transfer of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) directors, and Umno politicians openly admitting that RM2.67 billion was transferred into their president's accounts.

"Everybody is talking about failed state. Whether we are already there or heading there, that's a matter of opinion. But there is no doubt that we are on that slippery slope, at the very least," Ambiga said at the forum titled "Rethinking civil society, Islamism and democracy".

"People are just sick of the bluff. You get the officers who are transferred, then you get the deputy prime minister saying it's administrative. Do we look stupid?" she said.

She was referring to Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's statement that the abrupt transfer of MACC's director (special operations) Datuk Bahri Mohamad Zin and strategic communications director Datuk Rohaizad Yaakob were just an administrative matter.

Their reassignment to the Prime Minister's Department comes amid MACC's probe into the transfer of RM2.67 billion into Datuk Seri Najib Razak's account.

Ambiga added that Umno MPs' open admission to the fund transfer, and their justification of it, also showed the ignorance of the very people leading the country.

"The illegality of all these issues that has surrounded all these transactions from start to finish is escaping all these politicians.

"These are our parliamentarians, but they are ignoring our own laws. They shouldn't be there, actually," she said.

Ambiga had said that under the MACC Act 2009, the definition of gratification in Section 50 of the act included donations.

The section stated that any form of gratification was presumed to have been corruptly received, unless proven otherwise.

MACC declared that RM2.6 billion which had been funnelled into Najib’s accounts was a donation and not money from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

The agency also confirmed that the donor was from the Middle East but did not name the source.

It also said it would be asking Najib to provide an explanation on the donation.

- TMI