After ‘PM8’ stabbed his boss in the back late February (through pretending to defend him) the cry was up that he would introduce an ‘Anti-corruption Government‘. This last week he instead conceded that he is bringing things “back to normal‘.

Everyone knows what that means when it comes to politics in Malaysia.

A recording later proved the point, as he was heard strategising how to buy and bribe defectors using ministerial posts and illegal appointments to GLCs (all of which took place).

As for the rest? Naturally, the criminally charged kleptocrats from UMNO and the high-living prelates from PAS were only too eager to steer the way and take over the show – after all whom does decapitated Bersatu now really represent?

As a result, Malaysia is being run by the same old mafia politicians, treating the public to the same tired stories and shows of yore, all brought courtesy of the same post-retirement performers – prime amongst them ‘NGO Leader’ cum bankrupt, Ramesh Rao and ‘Investigative Journalist’ cum bankrupt, Raja Petra Kamaruddin (RPK).

Both have ended up subjects (yet again) of a police report today and Malaysians need no prompting to understand that at issue is a ‘Statutory Declaration’ first orchestrated into existence by Ramesh Rao and then ‘exposed’ by RPK on his site (who else would touch it?).

Rao (who once threatened to “burn alive” the editor of Sarawak Report) is an enthusiast of Rosmah Mansor (a mother to him). As the police report against him alleges, he persuaded the complainant, one Aidil Azim, to notarise a statutory declaration in June claiming Aidil had been paid for sex by UMNO’s prize target and repeated victim of gay sex accusations, the PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Azim says he was promised cash in return for allowing the would-be PKR leadership usurper and then defector Azmin Ali to utilise the declaration in some undisclosed way. Instead the document was given to RPK who published it and embarrassed Azim.

Who knows at this stage if any of what Azim alleges might be true? What he describes in his SD supposedly took place back in 2013 yet no concrete evidence has been provided even though the complainant, who claims he willingly did the job several times for money, must have known that Malaysia is seething with Anwar’s political enemies all desperate to just prove such an accusation.

What we do know is that we absolutely cannot trust the word of either Ramesh Rao or Raja Petra Kamaruddin (RPK).

Ramesh Rao is a habitual concoctor of fake confessions and is so bad at it he has been caught out time and again. When Sarawak Report became a target of a Ramesh Rao operation a former journalist, Sarawakian Lester Melanyi, openly admitted he was paid to make ridiculous allegations of forgery to undermine our exposes on 1MDB.

Lester was a sick and desperate man at the time, who sadly has since died. Rao had offered him money and Lester gamely earned it by issuing his string of lies, which were all easily disproved. Ramesh Rao walked away, but Lester became a laughing stock.

Before that Rao ruined another family’s life, when he acted as go-between to PI Bala after  his Statutory Declaration over the Altantuya case on behalf of Rosmah and Najib. As all Malaysia knows Najib and family members bribed and blackmailed Bala to change his story and take his family into exile

As ever, it was a lie. Bala later returned and revealed how he was bullied into changing his original declaration. Not long after Bala sadly also died. However, Rao was by no means done. As the 1MDB case started to explode it was none other than Ramesh Rao who again enticed Bala’s desperate widow to accept his cash in return for a statement retracting statements against Rosmah and Najib.

Except, Rao altered the statement she had been prepared to give, so she retracted it live, on camera at the very press conference they had called to pull off the stunt. It meant yet again the Ramesh Rao fake confession tactic exploded in his face and made matters worse for his patrons, by now well known to be Rosmah and Najib.

Rao’s loyalties are not in doubt. He broke down in emotion at Rosmah’s trial (at the very least the bankrupt would have been concerned at losing a likely key donor for the good works of his ‘NGO’) and at Najib’s conviction he posted libellous tweets against the judge for which he was questioned by police over contempt of court.

So little surprise, now things are ‘back to normal’, that Ramesh Rao is back peddling his trusty sideline in staged confessions. The surprise would be if this time any of it turned out to hold a shred of truth.

Another Routine Performer

So what of the publisher of all this ‘information’?  In Najib’s cheerleader RPK once again we have an all too familiar player following a familiar playbook. For years this blogger has proved an incontinent producer of wild and unverified defamation directed against those he has admitted he is paid to vilify.

Grainy and unverified video are as much his stock in trade as dodgy documents that are uncorroborated by evidence or facts.

In the past ‘RPK’ has accused Rosmah of commissioning murder and much more recently Azmin Ali of stealing hundreds of millions of ringgit.  Following re-alignments he has changed his tune towards them both and acts their agent.

Meanwhile, he has accused Sarawak Report, opposition leader Lim Guan Eng and countless others of largely unsubstantiated nonsense.

He hides in the UK to avoid legal action from angry targets.  However, he ought be wary that with his present story he is highly vulnerable under UK law, whether his allegations prove true or false. Since if what he claims were to be correct, he could be found guilty of an invasion of privacy, harassment and hate crime against consenting adults. If false, of gross libel exacerbated by homophobia.

So, once again, Malaysia has to stomach political vendetta waged through the agency of well known proven liars, employing the same old tired tactics without a shred of evidence so far to prove their tawdry accusations.

The fact that the man accused of commissioning all the fun, PKR defector Azmin Ali, was himself the recent target of exact same allegations but was saved from prosecution because  the previous government refused to stoop so low, only serves to remind how far backwards this back-end-obsessed coterie of outdated politicians has travelled since their backdoor coup overturned the elected government.

It also demonstrates how they are out of fresh ideas, out of fresh faces and dependent on tired out dirty tactics as they try to get yesterday’s men off the hook over their corruption trials and grab whatever remaining loot that their return to abuse of power can provide them with.