The Perak Conspiracy...Pt 4

26 Jan 2009:

Perak Menteri Besar claims three more state assemblymen from UMNO would follow in the footsteps of Datuk Nasaruddin Hashim and join PKR.

By this time, the 2 PKR men were already missing, safely hidden away by their UMNO "hosts". Had the PR been in more discussions among themselves, they would have noticed the missing men. They would probably have thought things through properly too and caught the inconsistencies in the whole defection episode.

However, perhaps the busyness of preparing for the Silver Jubilee, the CNY holiday mood, and the euphoria of the defection dream come true probably lulled the PR into a complete sense of complacency.

Also, such enticing future prospects probably proved too much to resist. So they welcomed the Trojan horse - Nasaruddin - with open arms. And the temptation of 3 more defections and a possible national wave to follow kept their eyes firmly away from UMNO's maneuvering.


29 Jan 2009:

UMNO Supreme Council receives letter from former Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali that he was resigning as Perak UMNO Liaison chairman with immediate effect. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak takes over as Perak Barisan Nasional chairman and Perak Umno liaison chairman.

At that time, it was widely perceived that Tajol Rosli was resigning to take responsibility for the defection. But on hindsight – when was the last time anyone from UMNO resigned to take responsibility for anything? It's not their style to take responsibility! This report from the Star however, has some curious statements made by Tajol Rosli that could shed some light on what really happened.

Tajol Rosli was upset with a newspaper for reporting that he had resigned. He said, "The information did not come from me. It was a closed-door meeting with (Umno) members.” So it would seem that he did not want to resign. Why?

It's possible to deduce the reason.

It s now clear that the wheels of the plot were set in motion when Nasaruddin was sent to PKR on Jan 25th. Tajol Rosli was still the UMNO Liaison Chairman then, so he must have been a participant. Why was he forced to resign on Jan 26th? Probably because he refused to accept what was being discussed at the closed-door meeting.

One can only speculate what was discussed. Thus far, the conspiracy only revolved around UMNO members. If the coup succeeded, the Dewan would have a total of 29 UMNO seats and merely 1 MCA seat. That would not go down well with the large urban Chinese population - the bulk of the State's taxpayers. Perhaps they thought that they should get non-Malay jumpers to portray "racial balance".

But the only Chinese reps were from DAP. And everyone knew that you don't join DAP expecting to make money. You joined expecting to work like hell for your ideals and get no financial reward for your politics. So if you wanted to entice a DAP member, you better have some damn good offers!

So how did they get to Hee, then? Money? Highly probable. But I'm more inclined to think that they mainly got her to cooperate by coercion. If that's so, perhaps what they had to leverage on Hee was so repugnant that Tajol Rosli refused to agree to it. Or Tajol Rosli had no intention to have any more Chinese reps in the govt. We cannot know for sure what happened for the moment. Whatever the reason, Tajol Rosli was a threat to the enterprise and he had to be removed – and he was.

Najib taking over from Tajol Rosli would also imply that the conspiracy was hatched by the PM-in-waiting and executed by Tajol. With Tajol refusing to cooperate, the Mastermind would then have to intervene to get it done right exactly to plan. That would explain why the Most Powerful Man In Malaysia would take over a mere state-level position.

to be continued...