‘Safe passage for PM? Not as simple as that’

DAP's Ong Kian Ming shoots down Kadir Jasin's proposal for saving the nation.

PETALING JAYA: The MP for Serdang, DAP’s Ong Kian Ming, has criticised veteran journalist A Kadir Jasin as being “too simplistic” in his proposal that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak be given “safe passage” out of his post.

In an interview with FMT, Ong said the best way to save the country was still to demand maximum transparency and disclosure from the government.

In a recent blog posting, Kadir said the Prime Minister would continue to resist calls for his resignation because he was “spooked” by the prospect of being tried in court.

“Let’s give him safe passage,” said the former chief editor of the New Straits Times. “Let’s make it easier for him to leave.

“We have to ask ourselves, which is more important – putting him on trial for alleged corruption or saving the country?”

Ong said Kadir’s proposal was “unworkable.”

“He assumes that the 1MDB scandal is just a domestic issue, but at least four other countries are conducting investigations involving different aspects of the scandal,” he said. “Will these other countries also grant safe passage to Najib?”

Ong also said that Kadir was forgetting that Najib was not the only person who had to answer for the scandal. Allowing one of them safe passage would mean letting the others go as well, he added.

“What about other possible co-conspirators including Nik Kamil and Casey Ng, who have gone missing? What about the supposed mastermind behind all this, Jho Low? Should they be granted safe passage too?”

He claimed that Malaysians were unwilling to “forgive and forget” about the 1MDB scandal, especially when the whole story and the total cost of the scandal were yet to be revealed.

“How can any responsible government allow for safe passage in this context? How can a responsible opposition support such a proposal?”