Country and people come before politics, Nazir Razak says

KUALA LUMPUR — Mr Nazir Razak, the brother of embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak, made an impassioned plea on his Instagram account, urging for the interests of the country and its people to be prioritised in the current political situation.

While not naming anyone, the CIMB chairman is commenting at a time the country’s leaders, including Mr Najib, are embroiled in scandals surrounding government-owned investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

“They gave their lives so we could build a nation. In this darkest hour of political times we must remember to place the country & the rakyat first.

“Not personal interests, not personal loyalties, not even party politics,” Mr Nazir’s post read, along with a picture of the National Monument which commemorates fallen soldiers and Malaysians who lost their lives in the country’s struggle to gain freedom.

Mr Nazir recently made headlines when a report claimed that he was in the midst of setting up a new political party with United Malays National Organisation’s (UMNO) Saifuddin Abdullah but he later denied this, saying that it would be a non-governmental organisation instead.

The prominent banker has been vocal on current issues, once calling on the 1MDB board to resign if they did not want to take proactive measures to address concerns over its finances.

1MDB, which has debts of RM42 billion (S$14.9 billion), is owned by the Finance Ministry and has loans which are backed by letters of support from Putrajaya. Mr Najib is also finance minister and chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board.

Previously, Mr Nazir had also taken 1MDB top executives to task for failing to attend an inquiry hearing by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“Your company has triggered a national crisis and you can be too busy to face Parliament? Unacceptable,” he had posted on his Instagram account last month after 1MDB group executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy and former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi did not attend a scheduled PAC hearing and asked for a later date.

Last month, Mr Nazir had also taken to his Instagram account to question why Putrajaya was being slow in auditing 1MDB’s accounts for the year ending March 2015.

“I am perplexed why your March 2015 audit has not even started? How is this allowed? Has standards of GLC governance dropped so low?” THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER