No probe into allegations against Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) donation in his personal bank accounts can be truly independent, Umno minister Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan said, amid calls for the prime minister to step down over fears he may influence ongoing investigations.

Rahman, who is also Barisan Nasional's (BN) strategic communications director, said any investigation team would be influenced by those to whom it was answerable, regardless of whether Najib resigned or not.

"A lot of people are saying, just because the prime minister is there, the investigation is no longer independent. Which organisation is independent? No one is independent. They are answerable to someone.

"And that someone has interests, has favours. He might like one guy but not the other guy," Rahman told a press conference in Wangsa Maju, Kuala Lumpur, today.

Even if the investigation team was answerable to Parliament, BN lawmakers still made up the majority when it came to calls for a vote, he added.

"So at the end of the day, a democracy is that – no matter what happens, you can vote. You can either vote us in, or you can vote us out."

He urged the people to turn to the ballot box if they disapproved of Najib and the present government, instead of pressuring the the prime minister to resign ahead of the next general election.

Rahman added that Najib would survive any motion of no confidence against him in Parliament.

"The (BN) MPs from Sabah and Sarawak will all support him. Najib is still the best prime minister for Sabah and Sarawak so far. We are behind him."

Yesterday, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) said Najib should step down while authorities investigate the donation to ensure the probe's independence.

"If you apply natural, legal principles when a person is being investigated, normally that person steps down so a clean independent investigation can take place," the coalition's chairman, Manzoor Hasan told The Malaysian Insider on the sidelines of the 16th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Putrajaya.

But Rahman today said Najib had personally called for the investigations, adding that it showed transparency and that he was not running away from the allegations.

Najib had called for a probe by the auditor-general into debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) earlier this year, the findings of which were to be reported to Parliament's Public Accounts Committee.

But the committee's work has been temporarily halted after four of its members were given ministerial posts in a Cabinet reshuffle on July 28.

The reshuffle also saw Najib removing Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as deputy prime minister and Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal as a minister. Both had been critical of him over 1MDB.

At the same time, the attorney-general was also replaced in the midst of a probe into 1MDB, as well as into the RM2.6 billion donation in Najib's personal accounts.

Transparency International chairman, Jose Ugaz, had said the moves were not becoming of a government claiming to fight corruption. – September 5, 2015.