Najib Stonewalling as his strategy a egotistical person

Hope can be a stubborn thing. In the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, hope can find a way to continue to believe in an idea that it holds dear. When challenged with unpalatable facts, hope uses a multitude of strategies to stay afloat. It discounts the magnitude of the evidence, re-calibrates its original expectations, adjusts to compromises in the name of realism, finds new reasons to believe when the old ones start running out, and clutches at straws of any kind that appear to be within grasp. And only then, with a death rattle, it drains itself empty, leaving behind nothing but the rancid taste of humiliation amongst the believers for having had the audacity to hope.
When people push us into a corner and psychological pressures begin to build up within us, it is best to stonewall the antagonists or allow them to gently go by. We can turn stoic and overcome the pressure without loss of calm. When we allow troublemakers to gently go past, we let them flow out of our lives. Just observe them like spectators. Najib normally friendly, but now have an outer shell that fends off people who are aggressive or want to pick up a quarrel. From politics and corporate boardrooms to personal relationships, everywhere, the same dynamic could be at work. Sometimes, we might also see a funny side to it and just laugh it off. Because if we give in to anger, we will not have the energy to move on to the next stage.
 Investment fund is at the center of a burgeoning political and financial controversy that is roiling markets and leading to calls for the ouster of Malaysia’s prime minister.The underlying uncertainty accelerated the ringgit currency’s decline, hitting a 16-year low against the dollar on Friday.Najib Abdul Razak will either be weakened or face problems surviving as prime minister following the latest scandal of US$700 million from the 1MDB funds transferred into his personal bank account said Wright, who writes on banking and finance in Asia.Malaysia is a place where reputation matters enormously and where bad press sticks.Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, in an opinion piece, also published yesterday, said it stands by its reports on 1MDB's US$700 million money trail, saying these were based on solid and reliable documents.WSJ in the opinion piece said the size of the alleged funds that were diverted was shocking, but the abuse of public entities for private gain “is politics as usual in Malaysia”.

The scandal is a case study on the effects of one-party rule by the Umno on the country’s institutions, WSJ said.

"This is a familiar story. A government investment scheme is launched with grandiose promises of moving up the value chain and other economic jargon. Then the asset stripping begins.

"If the project goes reasonably well, the ruling party has an accomplishment to point to, with the high costs conveniently forgotten.

“If it fails, public money bails it out in some form, with the state-owned oil monopoly Petronas the ultimate backstop," said WSJ.If the allegations against Najib prove true, Mahathir and others are right to call for his resignation.

"But incompetence and greed won’t be rooted out until Malaysia’s democracy matures into a true multiparty system."

In yet another report in WSJ yesterday, journalist James Hookway wrote that political pressure is intensifying against Najib after a government investigation that, for the first time, directly connected the prime minister with the probe into the troubled state investment fund.

Najib is facing the greatest challenge of his leadership – and even the risk of criminal charges, Wright said.The state sovereign fund racked up to RM41.8 billion in debt and attracted inquiries from four different institutions, from the auditor-general to the police, and with The Wall Street Journal(WSJ) latest report alleging huge funds went into Najib’s bank account, he noted.

Silence is the better part of squalor. The Prime Minister continues to abide by this adage even as the political dust-storm raised by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.  on 1MDB's fiasco his illegitimate affair, the stronger is his resolve to ignore it.to use the "full force of law" against critics like Mahathir  who had accused him of stealing state funds.That would be obvious from his latest . He was, as always, loquacious. He proffered much home-spun advice from Special Affairs Department (Jasa) director-general onThe Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that alleged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak received billions of ringgit in his personal bank accounts from SRC International Sdn Bhd that impact on the lives of citizens. But these subjects were of his own choosing.

And Malaysia’s elder statesman, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who led the country for 22 years and was something of a mentor to Najib, has turned against him, he said.

Umno, which faces internal turmoil, no longer has an automatic right to expect to win every election, said Wright, who also penned No More Worlds to Conquer.

"(I) wonder whether Najib is the right person to lead it in this newly competitive political environment," he said.

"The attorney-general of Malaysia, Abdul Gani Patail, confirmed that he had received documents linking Najib to the investment fund, and is reported to feel there is the potential for them to lead to criminal charges if they turn out to be accurate," Wright wrote.



On the one issue on which he was expected to speak, his lips were sealed. Not a word on the bonhomie between Rosmah

No one can miss the signal: Najib won’t let Mahathir and the media dictate his conduct. He alone will decide, if he does decide at all, the time and place to make known his stand on the controversy. He is aware that his procrastination threatens to sap his credibility and that of his government and party. But bowing down to a decimated opposition and the media he loathes would, in his eyes, be an act of self-debasement.

All of this does not portend well for his efforts to give a fillip to economic growth. The opposition can be trusted to stymie them at the initial stage itself. A battered credibility also threatens to place UMNO on the back-foot during the campaign for the  elections in Bihar. A perception that the party has sought to defend the indefensible can upset the most calibrated  calculations.
But apparently this makes no difference to the Prime Minister’s determination to resolutely stay in a silent mode. That alone, he is convinced, can be an effective answer to what he believes are calumnies hurled at him.

What goads him on? One reason could well be that if the consequences of the controversy he fears are irresistible, then the only thing that he can do is to acquiesce in them with silence. Thus, as Samuel Johnson famously said, he can, at the very least, retard what he cannot repel and palliate what he cannot cure.

The other, equally speculative reason is that the Prime Minister working on a strategy that would stump the detractors, including, especially, those in their own ranks. Veteran leaders who have been denied what they think is their due have been making ominous noises. These cast doubts on his style of functioning and indeed on his attitude to the imperative of probity in public life.

These noises could get louder in the days ahead. That is surely a major source of concern to the Prime Minister even if these leaders do not command battalions of supporters. That picture might change, and change dramatically, should  Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin today and urged him to take temporary control of the government.
Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIA) said Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, should pressure Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to go on leave pending an investigation into allegations that almost US$700 million was deposited into Najib's personal bank accounts.

"(Muhyiddin) must urge Najib to take leave until the investigation involving the prime minister is completed, with Muhyiddin acting (as prime minister)," the UIA students said in a statement today.

The statement was endorsed by 12 UIA student groups, and was signed by Hanif Mahpa the UIA students council president, and Ahmad Fadhli Umar Aminolhuda the UIA law association president, among others.

The students also urged Muhyiddin to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate allegations of misappropriation of funds involving the government.

Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIA) students rallied behind Deputy Prime Minister want Najib and the government to sue The Wall Street Journal over its report, and urged Muhyiddin to order Bank Negara and Ambank to challenge the allegations made by the US financial daily.

One should therefore not be surprised  decide that it is better to let other heads roll than risk their own heads. In this latter strategy, populism would be back in vogue and hot-heads, who continue to embarrass the ruling dispensation with their communally-charged provocations, would be put on a tight leash.

Nothing is more compelling for a politician than the need to survive in office.Najib has survived, and indeed thrived, in the face of the heaviest of odds for a decade and a half. Like a consummate trapeze artiste, he has trained himself to perform every conceivable somersault and pirouette. The attendant risk — a sharp and sudden fall from mid-air — comes with the job. To run that risk poses a danger. Not to run it poses an even bigger one. Should he therefore emerge relatively unscathed from the that almost US$700 million was deposited into Najib's personal bank accounts.  he would be beholden, above all, to his silence.