KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s position as prime minister is secure despite the actions taken by the US and Singapore to seize assets related to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) said today.
IDEAS chief executive officer Wan Saiful Wan Jan said Najib’s political future cannot be threatened by any outside powers.
“So far there is no sign that Umno is sensitive to the damage inflicted to our country by this saga,” Wan Saiful said in a statement.
“Najib’s position as prime minister is secure as long as his position as president of Umno is safe. Umno members generally decide based on local considerations, and just like any other political party they will prioritise their own political survival. That is the bottom line,” the political analyst added.
Wan Saiful said statements such as those by Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak, who said yesterday that “1MDB has been the subject of unprecedented politically-motivated attacks, the objectives of which were to unseat a democratically-elected head of government”, indicated the security of Najib’s political career.
Salleh also claimed that allies of former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who has been pushing for Najib’s resignation, were behind the US Department of Justice’s civil lawsuit seeking to seize assets that it said was bought with money embezzled from 1MDB.
The US Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday seeking the forfeiture and recovery of more than US$1 billion in assets linked to what it described as an “international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated” from 1MDB, the largest case ever brought by the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.
US prosecutors said more than US$3.5 billion in 1MDB funds were allegedly misappropriated by high-level officials of the local state investment firm and their associates between 2009 and 2015.
The funds allegedly embezzled and laundered into the US were purportedly used to buy luxury properties in New York, Los Angeles and London, paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, a US$35 million jet, as well as to pay for gambling debts in Las Vegas.
International newswire Reuters reported that Singapore authorities also seized yesterday assets worth S$240 million (RM716 million) in an investigation on fund flows related to 1MDB for possible money laundering.
