Mohd Puad Zarkashi, who once led the government propaganda arm known as Jasa or Special Affairs Department, claimed that Khairy was actually an asset to Pakatan Harapan (PH), not a threat.
In a vitriolic attack, Puad said Khairy was playing judge and jury by faulting Najib in the 1MDB issue when the courts had yet to incriminate him.
In a statement today, he said he was disappointed with Khairy’s refusal to toe the party line, especially when Umno MPs had staged a walk-out over an issue. Khairy “refused to budge and stayed put like a rock”, he added.
He said if Khairy was “looking for new politics”, he should shed his populist ways.
“Populist politics no longer has substance today as it is egoistic and artificial. Is Khairy willing to be tested the same way Najib was, with 38 charges and more?
“Yet, Khairy need not fret. He is not a threat to Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He is an asset to PH now, but who knows, he might suffer from the same ‘luck’ as Najib, with a string of indictments waiting for him.”
Puad said the fall of Barisan Nasional (BN) and Umno had actually happened during the time of Najib’s predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Puad claimed that the catalyst for the heavy losses in the 2008 polls was “a rag-tag team” of people called the “fourth-floor boys” during Abdullah’s time who had the power to call senior government leaders whenever they liked.
The “fourth-floor boys” was a term coined to describe a group of young and influential people who worked at the Prime Minister’s Department during Abdullah’s tenure as prime minister. They allegedly had powers to influence government decisions and Umno matters.
Khairy, in a 2009 interview with Malaysiakini, said the fourth-floor members were “press secretaries, special assistants, and researchers” who wrote speeches, memos and research but had no hand in government matters. Khairy said he was part of the group for “about a year”.
Puad claimed today: “For example, former Johor menteri besar Abdul Ghani Othman was ordered to meet Ahmad Zaki Zahid (a fourth-floor boy) to listen to a briefing on the Southern Corridor (Iskandar Malaysia) project.
“Imagine, a MB being summoned to meet a greenhorn who is not even a CEO or a secretary-general.
“The stories from the fourth-floor boys became fodder for a campaign leading to the fall of Pak Lah. And true enough, in the 12th general election in 2008, BN lost four states to the opposition and failed to wrest back Kelantan,” he said.
Puad said BN also lost its two-third majority in Parliament as a result.
He urged Khairy to accept the backstory and not to be in denial.