By P Prem Kumar
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
Malaysia's deputy prime minister has claimed that the ruling National Front or Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition would lose a general election if it was called in the near term, given controversies surrounding the country’s prime minister.
If we dissolve the parliament today and call for elections tomorrow, Barisan will definitely lose, Muhyiddin Yassin told the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Monday morning.
Yassin -- deputy chair of BN and UMNO -- said the controversy surrounding Premier Najib Razak and debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) has caused anger among Malaysians, who will not support the ruling coalition if the matter remains unresolved.
Earlier this month, international probes into the Malaysian state-owned investment arm claimed that billions of Ringgit (hundreds of millions of dollars) from the debt-ridden firm was channelled to personal bank accounts belonging to Razak.
Razak must not avoid the main crisis revolving around him, said Yassin -- his first comments critical of Razak and his alleged involvement in the 1MDB affair
Yassin said that he had asked Razak to step down as chairman of the 1MDB board of advisers, but his advice had been ignored.
"I told him to let go off his post in 1MDB, but he didn't want to listen. The prime minister should take the lead in explaining the 1MDB issue to the people, not the finance minister or the housing minister," he said.
"Don't underestimate the people, we cannot lie. When the second finance minister explains on 1MDB, the critics rebut him and when the housing minister speaks, he is also rebutted," added Razak.
"We cannot explain properly because even we don't know the real facts, so who is going to tell us the real facts, it should be the prime minister, true or not," he told a 1,000 plus crowd in capital Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia has been ruled by BN since it gained independence in 1957, with all five prime ministers originating from BN and UMNO -- a Malay ethnic based political party.
Wall Street Journal and Sarawak have released reports quoting documents from the on-going 1MDB probe claiming $700 million (or 2.67 billion Ringgit) that moved among government agencies, banks and entities linked to 1MDB ended up in the prime minister's personal accounts in five separate deposits.
Razak has said that he has never taken funds for personal gain, whether it is from 1MDB, Finance Ministry-owned SRC International or other entities.
When contacted by Razak's lawyers, WSJ publisher Dow Jones has said it stands by the article, saying it is based on concrete evidence obtained by the newspaper.
