Pope to Chileans: 'We did not react in time' on sex abuse

Yahoo – AFP, May 31, 2018

Pope Francis prays during a weekly general audience in St Peter's square on
May 23, 2018 in Vatican (AFP Photo/Alberto PIZZOLI)

Santiago (AFP) - Pope Francis voiced "shame" that the Catholic church failed "to listen and react in time" to allegations of sexual abuse by Chilean clergy, in a letter to Chileans released Thursday.

Several members of the Chilean church hierarchy are accused by victims of ignoring and covering up child abuse by pedophile priest Fernando Karadima during the 1980s and 1990s.

Francis earlier this month promised "changes" to the Chilean church to "restore justice" after reading the conclusions of an investigation into the abuse.

"I must say with shame that we did not listen and react in time" over the allegations, the pope said in the letter, released by Chile's Episcopal Conference at a news conference.

The Argentine pope also announced a new trip soon to Chile by Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Father Jordi Bertomeu, who visited Santiago in February to talk to the victims.

Francis has apologized to the victims, three of whom he met with recently.

On Friday and Sunday, he is to receive seven more victims of Karadima, who was suspended for life by the Vatican.

On May 18, 34 Chilean bishops announced their resignation over the scandal, after Francis summoned them.

Since 2000, about 80 Roman Catholic priests have been reported to authorities in Chile for alleged sexual abuse.

Some analysts note that Chile's long tradition of having the church not subject to civilian law lent itself to impunity and cover-ups.

In a statement, the 34 Chilean bishops asked "forgiveness for the pain caused
to the victims" 

Related Articles:

All Chilean bishops quit over child abuse scandal

Pope receives victims of Chilean paedophile priest

Sexual abuse scandals deepen Chile mistrust in Catholic church

Pope Francis admits 'grave mistakes' in Chile sex abuse scandal

Malaysian playboy financier in cross-hairs after poll upset

Yahoo – AFP, Sam Reeves, 27 May 2018

Jho Low led a high-rolling lifestyle after allegedly stealing huge sums from
1MDB, reportedly spending vast sums in New York's hottest nightspots

Baby-faced playboy Jho Low, a financier at the centre of Malaysia’s 1MDB mega-scandal, may find his days of hobnobbing with celebrities and splurging on property and art are numbered as the new government pledges to bring him to justice.

Suspected of being a key figure in one of the world's biggest frauds along with ousted leader Najib Razak and his cronies, the chubby, bespectacled businessman has become a lightning rod for public fury at the controversy.

He led a high-rolling lifestyle after allegedly stealing huge sums from 1MDB. He hung out with celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, partied with Paris Hilton, and reportedly spent vast sums in New York's hottest nightspots.

As investigations into the controversy accelerated, the Malaysian took to a luxury yacht allegedly bought with stolen cash and sailed around Asia, until the vessel was seized off Bali recently as part of 1MDB-linked probes.

The Wall Street Journal reported that he was on the Thai holiday island of Phuket earlier this month awaiting the election results. His current whereabouts are unclear.

But time could be running out for the flamboyant 36-year-old after Najib's scandal-mired coalition suffered a shock defeat at the May 9 poll in large part due to public anger at 1MDB.

The new government, headed by Najib's ex-mentor Mahathir Mohamad, has reopened probes into the sophisticated fraud and wants to haul Jho Low -- whose full name is Low Taek Jho -- back to Malaysia.

Abdul Razak Idris, a former senior officer from the anti-graft agency which led probes into the scandal until they were shut down under Najib, said he believed Low was the mastermind.

"He must be arrested and brought back to Malaysia so that we can bring back all the money parked abroad," he told AFP.

Low, who held no official positions at 1MDB but is believed to have exerted great influence over the fund, has previously denied any wrongdoing. He could not be contacted for this article.

Jho Low took to luxury yacht Equanimity, which was allegedly bought with stolen 

cash, and sailed around Asia until the vessel was seized off Bali recently as 

part of 1MDB-linked probes

Precarious position

In a first move aimed at pressuring him, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng on Friday instructed tax authorities to probe Low and his family -- many of whom remain in Malaysia -- over 1MDB.

Malaysian social media lit up with delight at the prospect that a man who allegedly plundered state coffers was now being aggressively pursued.

"Jho Low is the key to all this 1MDB debacle," read one post on Facebook. "Catching him is like catching the one ring that rules them all."

Low's current precarious position is a far cry from the image he once projected of an urbane, well-connected investment manager.

He was educated at elite British school Harrow, and during his time in England befriended Riza Aziz, Najib's stepson, a friendship that helped him get close to Malaysia's former ruling family.

He studied in the US and moved to New York, where reports of his profligate spending began to multiply.

The Department of Justice, which has launched lawsuits to seize assets allegedly bought with stolen 1MDB cash in the US, alleges $400 million from the fund was sent to America "for the personal gratification of Low and his associates".

This is just one part of the vast fraud. The DoJ claims that some $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund, which was set up in 2009 and overseen by Najib. Najib and 1MDB deny any wrongdoing.

As well as the yacht, Low is alleged to have used stolen cash to buy artworks by Monet and Van Gogh, high-end real estate and to give gifts to celebrities including DiCaprio and Australian model Miranda Kerr.

They have both turned the gifts over to US authorities and are not accused of any wrongdoing.

In a rare media interview with Malaysia's Star newspaper in 2010, Low complained of being depicted as someone who led "an excessive kind of lifestyle".

"Ultimately, I am Malaysian," he said. "I am one who does not forget my country and I think there is a lot we can do for Malaysia."

Starbucks to educate staff against racial bias, set example

Yahoo – AFP, Catherine TRIOMPHE, 27 May 2018

Starbucks has sought to contain outrage after the arrest of two young black
men at one of its outlets in Philadelphia

Can you teach employees not to be racist? Coffee giant Starbucks will shut stores around the United States on Tuesday to conduct an unprecedented training exercise at its more than 8,000 American outlets.

The initiative, which is expected to last four hours and reach 175,000 employees, was announced by Starbucks management on April 17, as it sought to contain outrage over the arrest of two young black men at one of its cafes in Philadelphia.

The incident five days earlier sparked outrage, protests and anguished soul-searching about America's lingering problems of discrimination and racial tensions that have deteriorated under the presidency of Donald Trump.

After the two black men arrived at the Starbucks one of them asked to use the bathroom but was told it was for paying customers only. The pair then sat down to wait for a third person before ordering drinks.

The manager called police.

A video that went viral showed uniformed officers questioning then handcuffing the two men, who put up no resistance, while a white client repeatedly asks an officer, "What'd they do? What'd they do?"

"Whether in stores, on trains, implicit or explicit bias, you see it all the time," says James Bell, 47, a counsellor in a mostly black school in Brooklyn and a Starbucks customer.

"As a black male, you have workers in the stores excessively asking, 'Do you need anything, may I help you?'" he tells AFP. "You see a young black man and you immediately think crime."

Bell points to other recent examples of discrimination broadcast on social networks, such a student calling the police in May when a black graduate student at Yale University fell asleep in a common room.

'Historic'

Then there are instances of police brutality toward, and killings of, black male suspects, also often captured by witnesses armed with smartphones, that in recent years have spawned protests.

Given the context, Bell isn't convinced that the Starbucks initiative will change much, but says it's "good they are trying." "At least they make the effort," he said.

Camille Hymes (C), a Starbucks regional vice-president, addresses media and 

protestors in a Philadelphia outlet of the coffee chain on April 15, 2018 after the 

police arrest of two black men sparked outrage and the company apologized

Like him, there has been a cautious welcome from black officials and activists, who are nonetheless waiting to see what happens and whether anything actually changes as a result.

"I do think this is historic," Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, America's first civil and human rights law firm, has said.

"I don't know of another company as ubiquitous as Starbucks... that has stated their willingness to directly confront racism and bias within their own company."

In taking responsibility, she said, Starbucks has "created an important window for retail corporations in America to begin to honestly and forthrightly tackle racial inequality."

Ifill is one of those from whom Starbucks sought advice in drawing up the curriculum. As with the others, it was conditional assistance.

"We've made it clear that we wont be a rubber stamp to validate their programming if we don't believe it's not effectively delivering," said Heather McGhee, president of Demos, a public policy organization that works to reduce political and economic inequality.

"We are going to be issuing a report later on at the beginning part of this summer about a more comprehensive set of items that we think they need to address to really lead on this issue," she said.

Starbucks seems to have heeded concerns.

'First step'

"May 29 isn't a solution, it's a first step," says the company on its website.

"This first training will focus on understanding racial bias and the history of public accommodations in the United States, with future trainings addressing all aspects of bias and experiences," it added.

So what will employees actually be taught on Tuesday? Starbucks has refused to grant media access to the training sessions, but has released a short video ahead of time.

They are due to watch a film from documentary maker Stanley Nelson on the history of African Americans, and discuss in small groups their experience of racial discrimination.

There will also be taped addresses from Howard Schultz and Kevin Johnson, the chairman and CEO of Starbucks respectively.

Sharon Rush, a law professor and expert in race relations at the University of Florida, is another of those who is uncertain -- even if she applauds Starbuck's initiative.

Jehovah’s Witnesses reject calls for independent inquiry into sexual abuse

DutchNews, May 22, 2018

The Jehovah’s Witnesses community in the Netherlands will not hold an independent inquiry into the sexual abuse of members, despite being urged to do so by justice minister Sander Dekker. 

By last month, 267 reports of sexual abuse involving Jehovah’s Witnesses had been made to a hotline set up by the Reclaimed Voices foundation in 2017 after Trouw published a report on the growing scandal. 

Dekker told RTL Nieuws on Tuesday that the organisation’s decision is ‘disappointing’ and that it is ignoring the victims who want to be heard. He has no powers to force the organisation to hold an inquiry. 

A spokesman for the Reclaimed Voices foundation said that the victims had not expected much from the church itself. ‘But we are very disappointed in the minister,’ Raymond Hintjes said. ‘We had expected him to apply more pressure and make sure that there would be an independent inquiry.’ 

Dekker said last year that the church should look to the example of the Catholic church to dealing with complaints about sexual abuse. In total, 3,712 people have reported being victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic church to a special hotline set up in 2010. There are some 30,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Netherlands.

Graft-busting journalist returns to new Malaysia

Yahoo – AFP, Dan Martin, May 21, 2018

British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown has been a thorn in the side of
Malaysia's ruling elite for years (AFP Photo/Mohd RASFAN)

Clare Rewcastle Brown was harassed and vilified for years for waging a quixotic campaign to expose Malaysian corruption that helped topple the country's long-ruling regime.

The British investigative journalist is now back in the country of her birth after being blacklisted for years, and being treated as a celebrity in a sign of the whirlwind changes since historic May 9 elections.

No one is more stunned than Rewcastle, who said she expects to see further startling revelations of corruption and misrule emerge as a reformist administration cleans house.

"There is so much that’s going to come tumbling out now," she said during an interview in Kuala Lumpur.

"Everyone is gob-smacked as they see these things happening. There are going to be more amazing scenes to come."

Rewcastle, now 58, has been a thorn in the side of Malaysia's ruling elite for years, working from abroad to expose larceny and misrule centring mostly on the rainforested state of Sarawak where she was born and spent her early years.

But her biggest bombshell may have been the 2015 revelation by her website Sarawak Report that nearly $700 million was funnelled into the bank account of ex-premier Najib Razak.

That helped super-charge allegations that Najib and his entourage plundered billions from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, in a scandal that led to his electoral defeat, ending six decades under an increasingly corrupt government.

He is now under investigation and expected to be charged.

Smear campaign

Rewcastle's work over the years triggered Malaysian arrest warrants, lawsuits, threats, and a sustained campaign of online vilification that she suspects was orchestrated by Najib's government using western PR firms.

The sister-in-law of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, Rewcastle was still recently being approached by shadowy characters offering pay-offs if she'd publish juicy "revelations" for them -- ham-fisted attempts to entrap and discredit her, she says.

"Millions have gone into trying to destroy my reputation, which could have been spent on something useful," she said. "But all they did was help make me famous, the stupid idiots."

Never welcome, and officially barred from Malaysia in 2015, Rewcastle has gone almost overnight from persona non grata to welcome guest.

British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown has been a thorn in the side of 

Malaysia's ruling elite for years (AFP Photo/Laurence CHU, John SAEKI)

She met AFP following an interview with a state-aligned newspaper that formerly maligned her but gave her glowing front-page treatment on Monday.

She was halted repeatedly by ordinary Malaysians who recognised her distinctive ginger locks, stopping to thank her and snap selfies.

Many more have praised Rewcastle on social media after learning of her arrival. "It's extremely gratifying," she said.

Few foreigners were as feared by Malaysia's government.

Born in Sarawak when it was a British crown colony, she spent several years there, often following her mother -- a midwife for indigenous people -- on jungle jaunts to remote clinics.

She later worked for the BBC and others in London in investigative journalism before devoting herself to publicising Sarawak corruption, deforestation, and eviction of native peoples from traditional lands.

"I did this partly because I was mad, and partly because I thought there was a slim chance something could be done," she said of the state which environmentalists believe has lost nearly all of its original rainforest.

In 2010, she started Sarawak Report and short-wave broadcaster Radio Free Sarawak -- operated in secret from London, and later Bali, Brunei and Sarawak itself.

Rewcastle drew on a network of contacts in Malaysia to repeatedly expose the plundering of Sarawak. Najib's regime eventually blocked the website -- a move the new government has reversed -- and radio signals were jammed.

Winding down

With Malaysia on a reform path, Rewcastle expects to wind down her anti-graft work, which she said was a money-losing project reliant on financial backers she won't name.

But she pledged to "do my darnedest" to continuing advocating for Sarawak.

That includes pushing for investigations into its former chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud.

The retired 82-year-old, who was loosely aligned with Najib's regime, is accused by indigenous activists of ruling Sarawak like a family fiefdom for 33 years, plundering its timber and building ecologically harmful dams.

Sarawak Report, along with the Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss NGO, has documented huge investments around the world by Taib's circle.

"Taib needs to be taken by the ankles and shook, so the money falls out," Rewcastle said.

"There's still a lot to be done. But we're in a terrific position now to really campaign for what this was originally about."

All Chilean bishops quit over child abuse scandal

Yahoo – AFP, Lucy ADLER, Catherine MARCIANO, 18 May 2018

In a statement, the 34 Chilean bishops asked "forgiveness for the pain caused
to the victims" 

Thirty-four Chilean bishops announced their resignation Friday over a child sex abuse scandal within the Church in Chile that has come to haunt the reign of Pope Francis.

"We, all the bishops present in Rome, have tendered our resignation to the Holy Father so that he may decide freely for each of us," the bishops said in a statement after three days of intense meetings with Francis at the Vatican.

"We want to ask forgiveness for the pain caused to the victims, to the Pope, to God's people and to our country for the serious errors and omissions we have committed," the statement continued.

The striking announcement came after the pontiff summoned the bishops over the scandal.

Several members of the Chilean church hierarchy are accused by victims of ignoring and covering up child abuse by Chilean paedophile priest Fernando Karadima during the 1980s and 1990s.

On Thursday evening, Francis promised "changes" to the Chilean church to "restore justice" in a short declaration to the bishops, made public.

But in a confidential 10-page document leaked Friday by Chilean TV channel T13, the Argentine pope goes much further in his indictment of the Chilean Church.

The letter -- handed to the bishops at the start of their meetings with Francis -- evokes "crimes" and "painful and shameful sexual abuse of minors, abuses of power and conscience by ministers of the Church".

It qualifies the removal of certain prelates from their roles as necessary but "insufficient," calling for "the roots" that allowed for such abuse within an "elitist and authoritarian" Chilean Church to be examined.

Evidence destroyed

The damning letter also outlines findings of an investigation, ordered by Pope Francis, into the abuse allegations.

It says the probe found senior Church officials had destroyed proof in cases of sex abuse and that certain members of the clergy who had displayed immoral behaviour had been transferred to other dioceses after attempts to "minimise" the gravity of their actions.

Grave accusations "were superficially qualified as improbable", the letter says, denouncing bishops for their "terrible negligence in protecting children".

Pope Francis bids to repair some of the damage done during his visit to Chile in January, when his defence of controversial Chilean bishop Juan Barros -- accused of covering up Karadima's abuses -- caused a public outcry.

The pontiff at the time said he was convinced that Barros was innocent and demanded "proof" before he would speak out against him.

Francis later apologised to the victims, three of whom he recently received at the Vatican, and admitted he had made "grave mistakes" after reading the 2,300-page report on the abuse in Chile.

The mass resignation of an entire delegation of bishops is almost unheard of, having last happened two centuries ago.

Bishops have, however, previously been summoned to the Vatican over abuse scandals.

In April 2002, Pope John Paul II summoned 13 American cardinals and bishops to Rome after a huge paedophilia scandal within the clergy. Following another abuse scandal in Ireland in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI also organised a meeting of Irish prelates at the Vatican in February 2010.

'Their day has come'

Speaking at the Vatican Friday morning, the Chilean bishops said: "We thank the victims for their perseverance and courage, despite the enormous personal, spiritual, social and family difficulties they had to face, to which were often added the incomprehension and attacks of the Church community."

Two of Karadima's victims tweeted their relief on Twitter in response to the resignations.

"Those who caused so much pain, sometimes worse than the abuse, are now all quitting. The Pope heard what we asked of him in our conversations with survivors from all over the world. For those who did so much damage, their day has come today," wrote Juan Carlos Cruz.

Similarly Jose Andres Murillo tweeted: "For dignity, justice and truth: all the bishops leave. Criminals. They failed to protect the weakest, exposed them to abuse and then prevented justice. So, they just deserve to leave."

Related Articles:

Pope receives victims of Chilean paedophile priest

Sexual abuse scandals deepen Chile mistrust in Catholic church

Pope Francis admits 'grave mistakes' in Chile sex abuse scandal

AT&T admits 'big mistake' in hiring Trump fixer Michael Cohen

Yahoo – AFP, May 11, 2018

US telecom giant AT&T said it was a mistake to hire Michael Cohen, a longtime
 personal lawyer and confidant for President Donald Trump, as a
consultant (AFP Photo/SPENCER PLATT)

Washington (AFP) - AT&T's top executive said Friday it was a "big mistake" to hire Donald Trump's personal lawyer as a consultant after the 2016 presidential election, but maintained that the telecom giant's actions were legal and "entirely legitimate."

Randall Stephenson, AT&T's chairman and chief executive, also told employees in a message that the company's policy chief Bob Quinn would be retiring following the disclosures of payments to lawyer Michael Cohen, who is now the focus of a series of investigations.

"There is no other way to say it -- AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake," Stephenson said.

"To be clear, everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate. But the fact is, our past association with Cohen was a serious misjudgment. In this instance, our Washington DC team's vetting process clearly failed, and I take responsibility for that."

AT&T recently acknowledged paying some $600,000 to Cohen, who is under scrutiny for accepting payment from companies and others seeking access to the White House, and for making a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump about a decade ago.

"Our company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons these last few days and our reputation has been damaged," Stephenson said.

Stephenson said general counsel David McAtee would be taking over the functions of Quinn following his retirement.

AT&T, which is in the midst of a contentious court battle over its mega-deal for media-entertainment group Time Warner, acknowledged hiring Cohen's firm under a one-year contract at $50,000 per month, from January through December 2017.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, seen at a 2017 event, said it was a mistake to

 retain Donald Trump's personal lawyer as a political consultant (AFP Photo/

SPENCER PLATT)

The company said it hired the firm among "several consultants to help us understand how the president and his administration might approach a wide range of policy issues important to the company, including regulatory reform... tax reform and antitrust enforcement, specifically our Time Warner deal."

"Companies often hire political consultants, especially at the beginning of a new presidential administration, and we have done so in previous administrations," a statement added.

Cohen 'approached' AT&T

It said Cohen approached AT&T in the transition period between Trump's November 2016 election and his January 2017 swearing-in.

Cohen "said he was going to leave the Trump Organization and do consulting for a select few companies," AT&T explained.

"Our contract with Cohen was expressly limited to providing consulting and advisory services, and it did not permit him to lobby on our behalf without first notifying us (which never occurred)," it added.

"We didn't ask him to set up any meetings for us with anyone in the administration and he didn't offer to do so."

AT&T also said it "cooperated fully" with a request by special counsel Robert Mueller, investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, providing "all information requested in November and December of 2017."

The Justice Department sued in late 2017 to block the AT&T-Time Warner deal, and the case is pending in federal court following a seven-week trial.

Saudi-financed Belgian mosques teach hatred of Jews, gays: report

Yahoo – AFP, May 11, 2018

Texts used in mosques including the Brussels Grand Mosque call for gays to be
stoned to death or thrown off buildings and describe Jews as "evil", the report by
the OCAM national terrorism monitoring centre said (AFP Photo/PHILIPPE HUGUEN)

Brussels (AFP) - Teaching manuals in Gulf Arab-financed mosques in Belgium promote anti-semitic stereotypes of Jews and call for the persecution of homosexuals, according to a leaked Belgian intelligence report.

The texts used in mosques including the Brussels Grand Mosque call for gays to be stoned to death or thrown off buildings and describe Jews as "evil", the report by the OCAM national terrorism monitoring centre said.

The writings, which are used to train preachers and theology professors, were "inspired mainly by classical Islamic law from the Middle Ages," OCAM said in a copy of the report obtained by AFP on Friday.

They have "problematic content in terms of radicalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism," the OCAM report said.

Belgian lawmakers say they will discuss the report next week.

The report singled out Arabic-language religious training manuals in the Grand Mosque, which is near EU headquarters in Brussels.

The Belgian government said in March that it would terminate Saudi Arabia's half-century old lease of the Grand Mosque over concerns it was promoting radicalism. It had been run by the Muslim World League.

The manuals call Jews a "corrupt, evil and treacherous people" and call for "war" on all people who do not follow Sunni Islam.

They also recommend "stoning" and "fire" as methods of killing gays, along with throwing them off "the highest building in the village".

One manual says "the most important principle of jihad is to fight unbelievers and aggressors," according to the report. "Armed jihad becomes an individual duty for every Muslim."

OCAM said such manuals are widely available "thanks to the unlimited financial and technological means of the proselytising apparatus of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states."

The manuals, it added, were found not only in Belgium but also in neighbouring countries, both in hard copy and online.

The report comes from the work of the Belgian parliamentary committee investigating the suicide bombings that killed 32 people at Brussels airport and a metro station in March 2016, which were claimed by the Islamic State group.

OCAM director Paul Van Tigchelt will next Wednesday discuss the report with committee members behind closed doors, members of parliament told AFP.

"There is an urgency to be firmer and much clearer and close this scholarly institution," centrist opposition lawmaker Georges Dallemagne said, referring to the Grand Mosque.

RBS agrees to $4.9 bn fine in US: report

Yahoo – AFP, May 10, 2018

The Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to pay US regulators $4.9 billion in fines
 to settle litigation over subprime mortgage products it sold before the 2008 financial
meltown (AFP Photo/Tolga Akmen)

New York (AFP) - The Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to pay US regulators $4.9 billion in fines to settle litigation over subprime mortgage products it sold before the 2008 financial meltown, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

The US attorney's Office in Massachusetts, which oversaw talks with the bank, would not confirm the amount.

But it said in a tweet that it had reached an agreement in principle with RBS and some of its affiliates "to settle potential civil claims to RBS's structuring and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities issued b/w 2005 & 2008."

Other details were still being worked out before a final settlement could be announced, according to the prosecutors

This was the last in a series of lawsuits brought against RBS by the US Justice Department.

RBS, once the world's largest bank, had to be rescued by British government during the global financial crisis.

Like other banks, RBS packaged toxic subprime mortgages into risky financial derivatives and sold them to customers, a practice that helped trigger the 2008 housing meltdown.

RBS had already set aside a huge pot of money for fines linked to its behavior leading up to the crisis.

The British government, which ended up owning 71 percent of RBS, will now more easily proceed with the bank's privatization.

RBS had already been fined several times by other US government agencies because of its sales of subprime-based financial products.

Malaysia's Mahathir wins shock election victory, toppling 61-yr-old regime

Yahoo – AFP, Martin Abbugao, May 9, 2018

As it became clear that Mahathir had won, supporters took to the streets
waving flags of the opposition alliance (AFP Photo/Mohd RASFAN)

Malaysia's veteran ex-leader Mahathir Mohamad, 92, won a shock election victory Thursday, in a political earthquake that toppled the country's scandal-plagued premier and ousted a regime that has ruled for over six decades.

It was a stunning triumph that almost no one had predicted and ended the long hold on power of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which has ruled Malaysia since its birth as an independent country.

The victory capped a dramatic political comeback for Mahathir, who previously ruled the country with an iron fist for 22 years, and came out of retirement to taken on Prime Minister Najib Razak after the leader became embroiled in a massive corruption scandal.

When he takes power, Mahathir will be the oldest prime minister in the world.

His victory spells big trouble for Najib -- Mahathir has vowed to bring him to justice over allegations that billions of dollars were looted from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, which the scandal-plagued leader set up and oversaw.

But at a press conference, Mahathir vowed: "We are not seeking revenge. We want to restore the rule of law."

Mahathir's return to the political frontlines saw him throw in his lot with an opposition alliance filled with parties that he crushed while in power, and which includes jailed opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim -- his former nemesis.

When he takes power, Mahathir Mohamad, 92, will be the oldest prime minister

in the world (AFP Photo/Manan VATSYAYANA)

As well as seizing control of the national government, several state legislatures across the country fell into opposition hands for the first time, including the highly symbolic bastion of Johor, the birthplace of Najib's party that was the lynchpin of the ruling coalition.

Official results from the Election Commission showed that Mahathir's opposition grouping Pakatan Harapan, along with an ally in the Borneo state of Sabah, had secured 115 parliamentary seats. 112 are needed to form a government. BN were on 79 seats with just a few left to count.

As it became clear that Mahathir had won, supporters took to the streets waving flags of the opposition alliance.

After polls closed earlier in the day, journalists had flocked to the headquarters of Najib's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the lynchpin in the ruling coalition -- but he failed to turn up to give a victory speech and the media were told to leave.

Huge numbers of voters earlier flocked to the polls across the country, despite Najib having called the election on a weekday in what critics said was a bid to keep turnout down.

The BN wipeout is a disaster for Najib, who had been under pressure to score an emphatic win after the government lost the popular vote for the first time at the last elections in 2013.

The controversy surrounding 1MDB has dogged Najib since the story exploded in 2015. Billions of dollars were allegedly stolen from the fund, which was set up and overseen by Najib. The leader and 1MDB deny any wrongdoing.

But in rural areas, the rising cost of living, which has hit poor Malays hard, was the main concern at the election particularly after the introduction of an unpopular sales tax in 2015.

#UPDATE Malaysia's Mahathir wins shock election victory, toppling 61-yr-old regime https://t.co/vijr5oPJud pic.twitter.com/XTDogeLUl7

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 9, 2018

VIDEO: 92-year-old former leader Mahathir is challenging the current scandal-hit Malaysian PM Najib - and it’s turning out to be one of the country’s closest-ever elections https://t.co/7qnKdpyjAP pic.twitter.com/X5NN4QFD9N

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 9, 2018