FRANKLY, if the 15^th General Election (GE15) is held this year, UMNO and other Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties are likely to perform badly.

Barely one year after the COVID-19 pandemic, the country is still reeling from its standstill economy between 2020 and 2021.

People’s tongues are still wagging that should BN win the general election and become the government, former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor and UMNO president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi will be set free, among others.

The Najib-Rosmah duo together with flamboyant playboy Jho Low had caused billions of ringgit to vanish from the public coffers, leaving the nation still in huge debts – to be precise, in the quantum of RM32.08 bil as of end-June 2022.

This makes the 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Bhd) scandal the mother of all scandals and as the US Department of Justice put it, “unprecedented”.

Much to the credit of Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) 22 months in Putrajaya, a total of RM19.28 bil had been recovered with the amount used to reduce existing debts.

Had PH not won the 14^th General Election (GE14), UMNO and BN would still be in denial of the damages caused by the disgraced couple and their accomplices. Najib, on the other hand, is unlikely to be pardoned before all his court cases are dispensed of.

Till today, both Najib and Rosmah have been found guilty with the amount they have to pay back being in excess of RM1 bil. This is a small amount compared to the billions that the country now owes.

Although the taxes that Najib and members of his family owe have yet to be taken into consideration, it has to be borne in mind that not a single sen had been paid or had been channelled to the public coffers.

Any attempt to pardon either Najib or Rosmah must take into consideration the millions of ringgit that they have to pay; or else, the royal pardon would be frowned upon by the Lady Justice. – Sept 19, 2022

Stephen Ng
Kuala Lumpur

https://focusmalaysia.my/umno-and-bn-are-never-going-to-win-the-coming-general-election/