Nazri: Dr Mahathir’s statements driven by anger towards PM

“Democracy is dead. It is dead because an elected leader chooses to subvert the institutions of government and make them his instruments for sustaining himself”, Dr. Mahathir said on his personal blog. The premier has denied taking money for personal gain and has described the furor as part of a campaign to remove him from office.

Nga said he would urge all 59 state assemblymen to agree that Najib should go on leave.

Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Action Party has called on the government to hold an emergency meeting of Parliament this month to select a new chairman for the bipartisan Public Accounts Committee, which had been forced to halt an inquiry into 1MDB after its previous head Nur Jazlan Mohamed and three other MPs were appointed to the Cabinet.

Yet Najib has not only survived the political crisis so far, he has tightened his grip on power through a series of deft steps to sideline would-be dissenters.

On Monday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan said there is a need for political financing to be monitored.

He also lamented that when the MACC continued its investigations and wanted to query Najib on the source of the money in his account, its officers were harassed by the police who accused them of leaking information, while those who had been outspoken were suddenly transferred.

Malaysian authorities have also suspended two of the country’s newspapers and blocked access to a website, Sarawak Report, that has been reporting on 1MDB.

Mr. Najib has been under growing pressure over accusations of financial mismanagement at the fund, known as 1MDB, his leadership of a faltering economy and a poor election performance in 2013, when the government lost the popular vote.

The MACC said last week that the task force has now been disbanded, although the agencies involved can still look into 1MDB’s dealings individually.

Malaysia’s anti-graft unit said last week that it would ask Najib to explain a 2.6 billion ringgit donation that was deposited into his private bank account, adding that the sum was given by a donor from the Middle East.

The suit names Najib, 1MDB, the Election Commission and the secretary general of the Najib’s United Malays National Organisation’s (UMNO), the dominant party in the coalition.

The alliance’s success was short-lived as the coalition split earlier this year.

“If anything were to happen, the rebellion or uprising has to come from within UMNO”, said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.