Cover-Up and Face-Saving – A Rush for the Chairs
Money was not the main driver to people who are already filthy rich. People such as Bill Gates do not have to worry about money so much so that his “real job” now is running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Politicians especially from certain countries in Asia are also filthy rich but don’t expect them to do charity, not because they do not want to but they simply can’t. It was an open secret that former Indonesia President Suharto was so rich due to corruption that his personal wealth was estimated at no less than $45 billion and the late Suharto was once the world’s sixth richest men on planet Earth. On the contrary corrupt politicians usually use charitable body to mask their “activities”.
Of course Malaysian politicians are much cleaner and it would be absurd to even think that they would do such thing (corruption). Former Prime Minister Mahathir and his buddy (former finance minister) Daim Zainuddin were accused to have amassed great amount of wealth themselves but definitely that can’t be true *grin*. It was always said that politicians’ goal are money and power while successful businessmen are obsessed with money and women. Either way money is the main menu on the table; for this same reason a well-known model from Sabah was willing to become “sugar-honey” of one of the biggest bankers in town. But I suppose with money you would automatically gain power and women (or gigolo for that matter).
But there’s another thing that sometimes rank higher on politicians’ radar – face. The higher you are on the hierarchy chart the more you value your face or your honour (if they ever have one in the first place) than money. Perhaps that was the reason why former Works Minister Samy Vellu always threaten to sue the hell out of anybody who say something “not so nice” about him, regardless of how silly the subject was. For some strange reasons the new PM did not initiate any lawsuit against the author of Malaysia-Today even though the author wrote many disastrous articles about him, and his wife. If U.S. had Majestic 12 (twelve) or better known as MJ12 (nope, that’s not MetroJaya) that sparked public distrust to their government, the Mongolian beauty’s gruesome murder or better known as Altantuya may be Malaysian’s equivalent version.
