There has been a lot of chatter on social media about the convicted felon, Najib Abdul Razak, receiving a royal pardon.
Should we be worried about this matter? Or should it be the authorities who should treat this matter with extreme seriousness?
The new King will be installed by the end of this month. The current Agong is from the same state as Najib, and the new one is from Johor.
The Agong has the exclusive right to grant Najib his pardon, but granting Najib the pardon will do irreparable damage to the royal household. The citizens’ faith and trust in the King will plummet.
Najib’s pardon will send mixed messages to Malaysians as well as the international community.
Only Najib and his hard-core supporters will benefit; but everyone else, from the Agong to Anwar, the judiciary, the Pardons Board, the rakyat, and the country, will suffer.
Any person who is sane, level-headed, and law-abiding knows the consequences and damage to the nation that Najib’s pardon will bring.
The pardon will encourage more criminal activities, as it undermines our efforts to curb the abuse of power, money politics, theft of taxpayers’ money, injustice and embezzlement.
Many Malaysians supported Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim when he campaigned on an anti-corruption election ticket, to eradicate corruption and punish people who commit the offence.
If there were to be a royal pardon, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) should be dissolved. What’s the point of an anti-corruption body if the person found guilty of corruption is released?
The people will also wonder why they should obey the laws of the land when elite Malaysians who commit crimes are released back into society, as if they have not done anything wrong.
Their reputations remain intact, or are probably enhanced. They also get to keep the spoils of corruption.
A pardoned Najib would most certainly try and get his job back as PM.
The deputy PM, Zahid Hamidi, who is also the Umno leader, will constantly have to watch his back.
Najib’s pardon could go two ways. It could galvanise Umno or break it up further as its members realign themselves with either Zahid or Umno.
Najib stole taxpayers’ money in 1MDB, but if he were to be pardoned, what’s to stop him from stealing again?
The 1MDB scandal serves as a trial or test run for the hypothetical “2MDB”, and he would take more stringent steps so that this new crime would not be easily exposed as before.
If Najib is pardoned, then we should drop the “Supremacy of the Constitution” from the Rukun Negara. It becomes meaningless.
The whole country will be outraged as Najib has never expressed regret even when he was found guilty and fined.
His children and wife, and his hard-core supporters are in denial, and claim he is innocent.
Perhaps the one person who has the most to lose from Najib’s pardon is Anwar Ibrahim.
Around the world, governments are charging and sentencing people involved in the 1MDB scandal. A few banks have ceased operation and the activities of certain financial institutions have been intensely scrutinised.
Both Malaysia’s international and domestic credibility will be destroyed. How will we be able to attract anyone, both foreign and local, to invest in the nation?
We need to build the economy, but a pardon for Najib will not give investors much faith in our laws, and more importantly our judiciary.
We spent years bringing Najib to justice, waiting for the trial to complete whilst we watched him dodge his trials with sickness and other tactics.
If he were to be pardoned, Malaysians will wonder why we have waste hundreds of millions of ringgits and thousands of man-hours to build a legal case against him.
It is not just the court’s time, but the security detail involved, the witnesses, civil servants, lawyers, judges, the police, court officials, reporters, even the humble cleaning crew.
A pardoned Najib will not simply retire from politics and fade away from public life. He will have his revenge on those who betrayed him with their evidence presented in court.
The judiciary will receive the rakyat’s worst contempt. Their reputation will be decimated. They will face a backlash from the people.
Malaysians will be demoralised when corrupt politicians do not serve their full sentence, but only a fraction of it before they are pardoned.
No one will have any more respect for the judiciary. The rakyat will lose all their confidence in the legal system.
Malaysians work to take care of their families, help build the economy and develop the country. However, corrupt politicians who steal taxpayers’ money will endanger the community.
A pardon for Najib only proves that crime does pay.
If he were to be granted a pardon, other criminals would want one, too. The system will simply disintegrate.
As it is, those in jail for less serious crimes are not even being considered for a pardon. People will claim that the elite are favoured.
Perhaps the one person who has the most to lose is Anwar. His election manifesto about anti-corruption will become meaningless.
If Najib were to be pardoned, Anwar’s position as PM will be threatened. Both Malays and non-Malays will lose all trust in him. His Unity Government will disintegrate.
Granting Najib a pardon will pose a huge risk for the country. Both Malaysia’s future and honour will be at stake.
Source:
(Mariam Mokhtar is a Freelance Writer.)
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