Loyalty pays in politics and in the corporate world, but it pays until the time you are needed.
This is what the 1MDB chieftain Arul Kanda has probably learned during the recent collapse of the Bandar Malaysia deal, a deal far too big for him to handle due to the immense ramifications it has on the political powers in China and Malaysia.
In a sudden attack against the newly minted chairperson of TRX City Sdn Bhd and Bandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd, blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin lashed at Irwan Sriregar who is also Treasury secretary-general.
Raja Petra has been a straight soldier defending Arul Kanda’s rule of silence in the 1MDB saga.
Arul Kanda was abruptly removed from Bandar Malaysia, TRX boards as a fallout of the Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH)- China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) consortium deal.
With Kanda’s rule of silence, also referred to as the silence is golden rule, Raja Petra was happy with the latter as he was not saying anything that would undermine Prime Minister Najib Razak’s political career in the midst of 1MDB scandal.
THE RULE OF SILENCE
For those who do not know, the rule of silence is an important part of the Unix philosophy that states that when a program has nothing surprising, interesting or useful to say, it should say nothing.
That is, silence in itself is a virtue and when one is silent, the price could be high when it is time for retribution.
But Arul Kanda, swiftly removed and discarded and with his termination of role in the ‘Budiman’ group formed to oversee the dismantling of the 1MDB’s assets now considered as ‘complete’ by the regime, is now the victim and could end up as the fallen guy.
In the background, Arul Kanda has been actively pursuing his defence to some news reporters in Malaysia and Singapore and has surely been in touch with Raja Petra to defend his case.
RAJA PETRA’s CORRIDORS OF POWER
And it is surprising that Raja Petra, who has been on the warpath against the opposition, has suddenly trained his guns on Irwan Serigar Abdullah in the wake of the latter’s appointment as chairperson of TRX City Sdn Bhd and Bandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
In his vitriolic attack on Irwan Serigar, Raja Petra said the latter leaked confidential information regarding the Bandar Malaysia-TRX deal to anti-government portal The Malaysian Insight to burnish his diabolical plot.
“Irwan also lied to the Prime Minister by saying that IWH-CREC violated the terms of the agreement, which is why their agreement must be terminated.
“Irwan purposely did not pre-warn the Prime Minister about the anticipated reaction of the Chinese government regarding the abortion of the deal with IWH-CREC because he was was positioning Dalian Wanda-Malton to take over,” wrote Raja Petra.
With this attack, it is now clear the Najib Razak regime is split in its policy making process, with bloggers supporting some of the decisions on 1MDB and Bandar Malaysia and advisors pressing hard to get their share of the spoils at the highest levels.
ARUL KANDA – FALL GUY?
And what will become of Arul Kanda in this messy situation?
If he does not accept his fate, that is to fall in disgrace from his job as 1MDB chief soon, he will probably get the support of Raja Petra and of those who are behind the blogger within the corridors of power to battle it out.
But does he has the personal and moral capacity to battle it out against the powers that be within Najib’s circle?
That is yet to be seen as his rule of silence surely never meant that he would not speak out if he is become the fall guy!
To recall, on 8th May 2017Â the Ministry of Finance (MoF) – that is probably a decision pushed by Irwan Sriregar if we were to believe Raja Petra, removed Arul Kanda from Bandar Malaysia, TRX boards.
The Malaysian Insight got the scoop and now opposition bloggers are asking “How did the freshly created portal get this story?”
According to Malaysia-Chronicle, it is simple.
Based on Raja Petra’s outburst – which is a tactic to represent the group of decision makers who are not in favour of Sriregar – the Treasury Secretary-General leaked this to because he wanted to remove Arul Kanda Kandasamy as the Chairman of Bandar Malaysia and board member of TRX City.
There will be more to come on this new ‘1MDB saga’.