The art of the political chameleon
Brainjam #6.
By now, you’ve probably watched Tom Wright and Bradley Hope’s livestream on their findings about fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
Their tantalising claims made headlines. A quick TL;DR:
Jho Low is allegedly living in Shanghai, specifically in Green Hills, an upscale gated compound in Pudong.
He is using a forged Australian passport under the Greek alias “Constantinos Achilles Veis.”
He is now a behind-the-scenes strategist for the Chinese government.
Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution dismissed these findings as “mere allegations.”
Hope and Wright — who made their name at The Wall Street Journal for exposing the 1MDB scandal — have expressed interest in cooperating with Saifuddin.
A Straits Times reporter attempted to verify Jho Low’s presence at Green Hills but couldn’t confirm it, as residents either didn’t know or didn’t care who lived there.
Then, halfway through the livestream, the unlikeliest of characters popped up – Khairy Jamaluddin.
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There’s nothing wrong with interviewing Khairy for an insider’s take on Barisan Nasional’s tumultuous period and the saga of convicted former PM Najib Razak.
Khairy was smart, too. “To be fair to Najib” was his go-to phrase during the interview.
He stayed deliberately ambiguous about branding his bossku (the moniker used by Najib’s diehards) as outright corrupt.
But anyone clued in on Malaysian politics knows Khairy was a Najib enabler through and through.
Right up to the eleventh hour of the 2018 general election, he helped prop up Najib (remember the infamous mamak video?).
Wright’s softball interview with Khairy did little to hold the former minister and Najib cabinet member to account.
It would have been reasonable to expect Wright to apply at least some pressure on Khairy.
Instead, we got Wright posting on X that Khairy was supposedly leading “growing calls” for Jho Low to be brought back to Malaysia to face justice.
That felt like some serious revisionism — or a PR stunt.
Sure,post-2018, Khairy did raise 1MDB as the cause of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) defeat and shared what he suggested to Najib in the run to GE14 i.e. “throw Jho Low under the bus”.
But what do you make of someone who hits a wounded animal? Would Khairy continue singing the same tune if BN won that decisive election? Surely not.
More importantly, Wright’s interview is just one example of the gaps (and, to some extent, naiveté) that have benefited Gen-X politicians like Khairy, who are busy rebranding themselves for a younger audience.