Umno-BN has been conning the Malaysian people so comprehensively and for so long that it’s amazing to me that so many, if not most, still haven’t been fooled.

On the contrary, in fact, as evidenced by the fact that the majority of those who bothered to vote in the 2013 general election had demonstrated their mistrust of this contemptible regime.

And even though they were cheated out of a change of government by Umno-BN’s special election-rigging system, millions of citizens are continuing to express their outrage at still being taken for a ride.

As they most certainly are being taken. As always, and apparently increasingly, as I wrote in a 2011 column ‘1Malaysia.con’ and later used as a title of a subsequent book, everything in Umno-BN’s Malaysia is a fake, a fraud and an outright con.

Everything from its skewed if not outright screwed version of so-called “democracy”, regime-compliant and ridiculously overstaffed civil services, politically perverted institutions of ‘justice’ and propagandist mainstream ‘news’ media to corruption-riddled public works projects and ‘trusts’ systematically plundered of public funds.

And the current commander-in-chief of this catastrophic state of affairs, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, has emerged as not just a consummate conman at home, with his endless, empty promises like ‘the world’s best democracy’ and ‘zero tolerance of corruption’, but is rapidly emerging as a major player on the global stage by means of massive cons involving billions in his personal bank accounts from alleged overseas ‘donors’ and mysterious offshore shell companies.

More commissions again

As always when its members are threatened with such damning revelations as these, the Umno-BN regime has been quick to set-up a whole slew of commissions - or more accurately ‘conmissions’ - to prove the guilty innocent if possible, or if not, to so prolong ‘investigations’ into the current scandal that it will eventually be overshadowed by the next outrage.

But meanwhile, in this case - to try and keep things as quiet as possible - the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has set up a committee to control critics in the social media.

Oops! Let me try that again with more appropriate spelling, and hope that Spel-Chek won’t change it back: the Malaysian ‘Conmunications’ and Multimedia ‘Conmission’ (MCMC) has set up a ‘conmittee’.

Enough cons in there now? I certainly hope so, as this is a dodgy exercise even by Umno-BN standards. For a start, the ‘conmittee’ is composed of a collection of notorious regime con-artists.

And in announcing the results of this inglorious group’s initial meeting, ‘Conmunications’ and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak, tried to kid his audience that the purpose of the committee is to combat the use of social media to “instill hatred towards the institutions of government”.

This was an attempt to carry on a very old Umno-BN con - deliberate confusion of the institutions of government with the incumbents of government in order to justify the spurious charge of sedition against critics of current office-holders.

In other words, critics of the current prime minister or any other unfitting occupant of a position in the Umno-BN regime is deemed to be disrespecting not just the person, or personage, in question, but the person’s title and function, and by extension the institution of government.

Thus the innocent and ignorant can be conned into believing that derogatory comments about the lamentable state of democracy under the regime are subversive of Malaysia’s constitutional system of government, and those accusing Najib of embezzlement, grand theft or any of the other crimes alleged against him as being disrespectful of the office of prime minister.

When in fact, as even the half-witted among us are by now well aware, it is not the critics of Najib and his accomplices who are guilty of bringing the office of prime minister in particular and the institution of government in general into disrepute or disgrace, but Najib and the gang themselves through their deceit, corruption and alleged criminality.

Best intentions of protecting public interest?

Apparently not satisfied that he had conned us all sufficiently on this score, however, Salleh then went on to claim that “the formation of the special committee (i.e. ‘conmittee’) should not be misinterpreted because it was done with the best intention of protecting public interest.

“It is a safeguard and preemptive measure to avoid the social media from causing unnecessary havoc by spreading lies, hatred and religious extremism, among others,” he added, thus implying, at least to my mind, that he and his Umno-BN masters consider that the havoc caused by the lies, hatred and religious extremism that they, their fake NGOs, mainstream media and online minions endlessly disseminate is somehow “necessary”.

On the following day, however, Salleh was singing a somewhat different tune, this time openly admitting that he is on a mission to not so much protect the institutions of government or even to prevent unnecessary havoc, but to save his bosses’ skins.

Or, as he put it in announcing that amendments to the Communications and Multimedia Act will be tabled in Parliament in March, the purpose of this exercise is to “coordinate enforcement to block sites from defaming the national leadership”.

Of course, thanks to the global media, the whole world knows by now that Malaysia’s national so-called leadership is nothing but an exercise in blundering ‘bleedership’. So, while Umno-BN tries to con itself that its attempts to block Sarawak Report , Asia Sentinel and other online news portals and social media sites will somehow save it, every day countless members of the regime get closer to that other con they so richly deserve: criminal conviction.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.