The real reason the MACC froze UMNO accounts
THE THIRD FORCE
Ever since news broke that the MACC froze UMNO bank accounts (see news item below), the grapevine has been abuzz with rumour that Dr Mahathir Mohamad is attempting to strangulate the party. According to ‘pundits’, the Prime Minister wants to deprive Dato’ Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi of funds to ensure that Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah becomes the next UMNO president. Well, it is true that the Prime Minister does want Razaleigh to win the upcoming presidential election (READ HERE TO FIND OUT WHY). But that’s not why he got the MACC to freeze the party’s accounts.
The thing is, Mahathir has already thrown millions into the party’s youth and wanita wings to secure either Razaleigh’s or Khairy Jamaludin’s win. It does not matter to him if Zahid has a money pot hidden somewhere that will allow him to offer the duo a good challenge. As far as he’s concerned, Zahid no longer poses a threat to Razaleigh and is as good as gone from the party scene.
So why the freeze?
Well, both Mahathir and the MACC are trying hard to pin something on Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak. Having promised voters that Najib would be jailed for siphoning RM2.6 billion from 1MDB, the Prime Minister needs to tie some of that money to UMNO to convince voters that the money wasn’t a gift. As far as he’s concerned, if he can imply that the money found in Najib’s house came from the former premier’s men, nobody would believe that it originated from the government of Saudi Arabia even if you were to show them documents or produce the Saudi Prince right in front of them.
That, in essence, is why he got the MACC to freeze the accounts.
Like Najib, Mahathir is well aware that the party’s funds are parked largely in the accounts of trustees, nominees and proxies. It is the proxies he is after – by strangulating UMNO, he hopes that Najib’s proxies will “crawl out of the woodwork” and deliver funds to Zahid. The minute that happens, he will get the MACC to arrest those proxies on the pretext that the money they possess could have originated from 1MDB.
