From Penang Conman to Shopaholic Wrecking Ball
Myanmar paper: Jho Low a ‘Penang conman’ and Rosmah a ‘shopaholic wrecking ball’
MON 2015-MAR-2 @ MYT 13:57:20 PM
Najib ‘a notorious philanderer’ says columnist
as he lets fly with colourful phrases about the PM,
Rosmah, 1MDB, and Rosmah’s son Riza Aziz
FROM THE MIND YOUR LANGUAGE DEPT
It’s hilarious.
A Myanmar newspaper has described Jho Low as “a Penang conman” in a commentary that says prime minister Najib Razak is “under the sway of his wife”, calling Rosmah Mansor “a shopaholic wrecking ball”.
Najib is said to be “a notorious philanderer in his early days” but he’s not the only one; the writer says Najib was just “like most UMNO leaders” in his philandering. Give the man a cigar, I might think.
Referring to the Altantuya murder, the writer suggests that Malaysians believe that Altantuya was also Najib’s mistress besides being the lover of Najib’s associate Abdul Razak Baginda, the policy analyst who now lives in the UK after being acquitted without his defence being called for the Altantuya murder.
The commentary by writer Roger Mitton in the Myanmar Times newspaper was published last Monday, and mentioned by the DAP’s Lim Kit Siang in a statement on Saturday. Coincidentally, the columnist quotes an opposition figure who, from past experience, is known to occasionally succumb tohyperbolia extremis. Mitton writes: An opposition MP has called the fund fiasco “the mother of the mother of the mother of all scandals in the history of Malaysia.”
A stirring phrase, eh? There’s a lot more.
Mitton and his opposition friend share a common love of language as you can see:
For example, Najib’s government is “a tawdry and sinking regime”.
Life in Najib’s Malaysia is “death by treacle”.
Malaysians are “drowning in a gluey black sea of venality the likes of which has not been seen in this region since the days of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines”.
Najib is “steadily sinking into the treacly pit of corruption and maladministration”.
Malaysians living a slow death under Najib, says columnist
Surprisingly, Mitton accuses Najib’s stepson, Riza Aziz, as being “the man apparently responsible for most of the woes” brought about by 1MDB.
And to add further confusion, Mitton says 1MDB “appears to be almost entirely controlled by Najib, Aziz and a flamboyant Penang conman called Jho Low”.
Hmmm…
None of the published news accounts so far seem to have made mention of Riza Aziz poking into the innards of 1MDB, although his relationship with Jho Low is known to have begun when they were both at school at Harrow.
Perhaps Mitton was a trifle overcome after hyperventilating about Najib and suffered a brief spell of blurred vision.
To press on, there are more choice descriptions…
Najib is “under the sway of Rosmah”, Mitton says.
The PM’s wife is “a shopaholic wrecking ball, who shrugs off ridicule and ignores how her actions thwart her husband’s premiership”.
But the personal damage to Najib was “piffling” compared to the “disastrous effect” of 1MDB’s losses on Malaysia’s economy, and that a collapse of 1MDB “would dwarf the effect of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997″.
Najib’s u-turn on repealing the Sedition Act was a signal of “a premier running scared”.
And after all that, Mitton says the omens are not good for Najib. His political survival might depend on Umno elders like Mahathir Mohamad, Daim Zainuddin and Razaleigh Hamzah — but they had all turned against him.
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