Citing himself as a example, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad swung out at Women's minister Shahrizat Jalil, reminding her to think for good of the Umno party and not for herself. not to “love” her post to the point of refusing to part with it even if this were to be good for Umno.
This is not the first time that Mahathir, the former Umno president, has publicly chided Shahrizat, earlier telling her to step down as the party's Wanita or women's wing before she got "chased out".
“We must always think about the problems caused to the party. That is why when I was there in Umno for so long and people were getting bored, I decided to resign. So do not love your post so much that you refuse completely to part with it. Eventually, we will have to part with it,” the 86-year-old told a press conference on Wednesday.
Learn from Mahathir
Indeed Mahathir himself was also 'chased out' although he chose not to remember the full facts.
He had given up the Umno presidency in a dramatic fashion, bursting into tears midway through a speech at the 2002 Umno annual assembly, and tendering notice of his intention to quit. Forgotten in the melodrama was the fact that he had been told by other Umno stalwarts that he would have to go or the party would do poorly in the next general election. Mahathir had in 1998 jailed his deputy, the popular Anwar Ibrahim who is now the Opposition Leader, and this move had split the Malay community down the line.
One of the first acts that his successor Abdullah Badawi did when he came to office was to allow Anwar access to fair trial. The opposition leader was acquitted and Badawi coasted to a landmark, landslide victory in 2004.
In the Shahrizat case, her family has been accused of abusing their power and of corruption in the RM250mil NFC financial debacle. Instead of using a soft government loan to develop the national cattle breeding project, a huge chunk was spent on plush condominiums, Mercedes Benz, credit card charges, overseas holidays and extending million ringgit discounts and cash transfers to their own family-controlled firms.
Even the manner in which the Shahrizats were awarded the NFC contract through a closed tender by Badawi and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who was the then Agriculture minister in charge, has been questioned.
Expected to step down before month-end
Shahrizat was expected to send in her resignator today during the Cabinet's weekly meeting. But so far, she has not done so. Within Umno circles, her peers say she has been told by Najib that she can decide on her own timing but resign she must. Wanita Umno is also expected to push for a Extraordinary General Meeting to force her out of office is she does not leave voluntarily.
Nazri Aziz, the minister in the PM's office who is widely regarded as Najib's spokesman, has in the past few days turned up the heat on Shahrizat, saying that he believed there was breach of trust in the way the government soft loan was used.
“In a way, there has been a constructive breach of trust. The money, which was meant for the cattle industry, was used for something else. The money was specifically given out based on a project given to NFCorp, that it could raise cattle and sell (it) at a cheaper price,” Nazri had told reporters during a press conference.
“The loan was given just for that. If you use the money for something else, you don’t need to be a lawyer to see that there is a breach of trust; it’s so simple."
But obviously Shahrizat, herself a prominent lawyer herself before she became active in politics, does not share Nazri's opinion. H
However, given the broad-based public and party pressure on her to quit, she will have to do so and pretty soon too. Some Umno watchers speculate she is now tying up loose ends and will announce her resignation before the end of this month.
Malaysia Chronicle
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