By Phlip Rodrigues
With each passing day, the glare on Najib Razak seems to grow softer and gentler, with many quarters portraying him as someone who is actually an honourable man.
Najib’s supporters would say, we should not be too harsh on him. Blame others for his woes. He is the victim who needs all our sympathy and commiseration. Remember, he was once our prime minister who contributed so much to the country.
Give the man a decent chance to redeem himself, they would add. After all, he has suffered so much and he deserves to take a break in his home. Poor man. Once mighty, now reduced to a prisoner spending all his living days in a dingy cell. Help him to rehabilitate himself.
Stop it! That’s not how people of Malaysia generally see Najib. No, no, some quarters are glossing over his misdeeds to put the shine back on him.
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The consensus among those who believe in the rule of law is that he must fully serve his time behind bars for what he did.
Try as hard as you can, you simply cannot muster the strength to show compassion to someone who does not feel contrite about what he has done.
The very notion of giving the unremorseful convict Najib a chance to slide back into active public life is anathema to all law-abiding folk.
It is tempting to think that he has learnt some painful lessons from his monumental mistakes and now he wants to turn over into a new leaf.
Hold it! Don’t be deceived. Najib is a politician. Politics is in his blood. What do powerful politicians do when they fall from grace? They immediately want to take revenge. They plot, they scheme, they hatch plans in a desperate bid to get back to the national stage by fair or foul means.
Alone in his cell, Najib, ousted as PM in 2018, has all the time in the world to plot his political comeback. He still has a large reservoir of support within Umno and even has Pas in his corner. He can spend his days thinking of ways and means to get back at all his ‘persecutors’ once he returns to power.
For this, Najib can take a leaf out of US President Donald Trump’s playbook, containing all the guidelines on political vengeance. In fact, someone has even likened him to Trump, who returned to the US presidency despite being a convicted felon.
Assuming, like Trump, convict Najib makes a stunning comeback, what will he say? Will he deliver a speech behind his meranti desk (like the Resolute desk in the White House) with a stirring call for action against those who tormented him?
“Fellow Malaysians, lend me your ears. I come not to apologise but to mete out justice against my enemies.”
Will Najib sign his own executive orders à la Trump, to ‘clean up’ the justice system by firing all those who worked on his criminal case? Will he, wielding his sword of vengeance, also weed out all his political opponents and critics in Umno and elsewhere?
A free Najib could create more turmoil if he resorts to Trumpian political warfare. Would the people of Malaysia want to see a ‘rehabilitated’ convict go on a rampage if he makes his way back to the seat of power? No way!
Malaysia gave Najib a chance to become prime minister for nine years, and he could have done wonders for the country. But, along the way, he went astray and landed behind bars.
The millions of voices out in the country have already let out one mighty shout that could be heard all over the land: “No more chance!”
Let Najib spend his days cooped up in that small cheerless space where his political career now lies in ruins. Leave him alone in his misery and let the punishment send an unmistakable message to all politicians that crime does not pay.
Phlip Rodrigues is an Aliran reader.
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
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