Politics of Diversion in the Battle for Sarawak
Kuantan, Pahang
March 29, 2011
Of Blue Moves and Brown Noses Politics of Diversion
by Mariam Mokhtar @www.malaysiakini.com
The end game of the latest sex video is not an attempt by UMNO to hide its failures or an attempt to bring down opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. The true intention of UMNO is to preoccupy us and bombard us with the details of this sex scandal so that we lose our focus Sarawak.
UMNOs attempts to discredit Anwar are getting clumsier and cruder by the day. It is a deliberate attempt at character assassination by people whose own reputations are themselves sullied.
Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik is one of the people behind this sex video. He was allegedly 
Instead of being prosecuted, UMNO kept him firmly in the fold, possibly as a sleeper to do its dirty work in the future. Perhaps this is what that sex video is all about.
It was Lim Guan Eng, a DAP MP, who was jailed for sedition when he tried to seek justice for the girl concerned. The girls grandmother had pleaded with Lim to help her family. She did not go to the UMNO Malays to help her. That must say a lot about what ordinary Malays think of the political party which is supposedly theirs. UMNO Malays maintained an unhealthy silence to protect one of their own.
We do not know if Rahim was put up to this latest scandal by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. Two decades ago, Rahim is said to escaped a heavy jail sentence by doing a deal with Mahathir. Now, perhaps, it has come time to return the favour and come to the defence of UMNO.
It is quite possible that if Rahim had refused to help UMNO, new incriminating evidence of the alleged links with the then-14 year old girl in 1994 would have materialised.
Who says new material cannot be unearthed at such a late stage? They did it for Teoh Beng Hock, didnt they? The supposed suicide note appeared months later, when the inquest into his mysterious death was nearing its conclusion.
This plan is only one of several that surfaced in the last few months. We had Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlans personal sperm bank and weve been entertained by Umi Hafilda Alis and her virginity test. Now we have this sex video.
Getting the people titillated
This red herring, the sex video, has been planned with little games in place. It has g! ot the p eople titillated. Is it Anwar in the movie or is it not? Is it Anwars doppelgnger or is it the despicable Shazryl Eskay Abdullah? Why was the Carcosa hotel selected? Why were the police slow to act?
The white-haired Taib, dubbed The Termite, has attracted much criticism over his unwillingness to step down or to groom his successors. He has also been hit by successive waves of accusations of corruption and nepotism. The anti-graft body Transparency International Malaysia has added its voice in asking the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the allegations.
The problem that Najib faces in Sarawak is Taibs reluctance to hand over the reins. There are some who believe that Taib should not contest the polls; others feel that only he is capable of holding the coalition together and delivering the resource-rich state to Putrajaya, which considers Sarawak and Sabah as its fixed-deposit vote bank.
UMNO-BN are afraid of Anwar and Pakatan. There is no doubt about that. One has only to see the police intervention when Anwar spoke at a gathering in Gombak last Friday. The more Najib sends the thugs to silence Anwar, the more moderate Malaysians will end up su! pporting Anwar.
Anwar has become a symbol of oppression his own, and ours. He has been pilloried and punched by the police before. And yet he has managed to drag himself up from the floor and become stronger.
Anwar being preoccupied with defending himself against this sex video was so that he would not be able to concentrate on Sarawak.
Taib running scared
Taib is running scared. He has attempted to enter the cyber-world with disastrous results. One victim of his foray into this cyber-war was the proofreader at the Borneo Post.
The battle-lines in Sarawak are already drawn. A few days ago, Snap was exposed as a potential political frog and would have damaged Pakatan in Sarawak, just like the political frogs which damaged Pakatan in Perak three years ago.
Sarawak is causing sleepless nights in Putrajaya and for Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Even former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, who milked Malaysia dry, has now come out of the woodwork to defend UMNO-BN and Najib.
Sarawak has never experienced a more formidable opposition. In the past, Taib would have 
Anwar has galvanised Pakatan to such a degree that trying to topple him has become an impossible undertaking; a string of bounty hunters will get their shoulders to the task, to repay favours owed to Mahathir. We can expect more fireworks in the run-up to Sarawak polling day.
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