MALAYSIAN politics have a way of putting hurdles along the path of graft busters.
When former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was slapped with seven charges of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering in the RM42-million SRC International Sdn Bhd case, his now famous response was that he was a victim of selective prosecution. Umno echoed his words in very frightening ways, implying that the charges framed against him were politically motivated, another darling phrase of Malaysian politics.
Najib is now in jail, after three courts, including the highest one in the land, found him guilty as charged, but the narrative of him being a victim of politics hasn't gone away.
Today, as another ex-prime minister and president of Bersatu, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, is in the dock facing six counts of bribery and money laundering amounting to RM427.5 million, "selective prosecution" and "politically motivated charges" are back in play.
Muhiyiddin was even more explicit to reporters gathered at Kuala Lumpur Courts Complex on Friday: the decision to charge him was "made by the country's most powerful leadership before the investigation was completed". Here is more: "They are using the enforcement agency to achieve their political agenda." These are serious allegations, which Muhyiddin must prove.
Perhaps the truth of his allegations will surface when the court's judgment is made known in either Bersatu's judicial review or Muhyiddin's case.
But in the meanwhile, politicians, especially party leaders, must let the law take its course. Anything less, will spell chaos.
No country can be governed well if every time a politician is charged with embezzlement or similar crimes, a section of the people rise up in protest claiming the innocence of their leaders. Let the innocence be established in the courts.
Political parties aren't the best forum to determine the guilt or innocence of their leaders. The courts are, and politicians must let them do the job. But we do agree politically motivated prosecution is a no-no.
But Malaysia's administrations and the graft busters do make such an unwelcome perception possible.
Every time there is a change in government, graft busters seem to be on steroids chasing after former leaders. It happened in 2018 and it is happening now. Graft busters mustn't wait for the directive of the prime minister to spring into action. Fighting corruption must be a 24/7 365-days-a-year job, not a five-year plan driven by the administration.
True, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), as it is structured, would not find it easy to charge a reigning prime minister, or a minister even. But the MACC, by the very nature of its mission, must be able to do so.
There are two ways out of this, though. The first way is to make the MACC independent in every sense of the word. Reporting to the prime minister only lends credence to allegations of selective prosecution, however false they may be. Justice is not just about doing it, but also about seeing it done.
The second way is to separate the prosecutorial role of the attorney-general from that of his as a legal adviser to the government. In this way, there will be very little room for a politically distorted view of reality. Put differently, what you get is what you see.