Disgraced Malaysian PM’s Sentence Reduced
‘Bossku’ likely to resume kingmaker role in bid to keep Anwar in power
The decision by Malaysia’s Pardons Board to free the disgraced former Prime Minister Najib Razak on what amounts to parole from his 12-year prison term, a sentence delivered for legendary crookedry, is yet another signal that Anwar Ibrahim, once regarded internationally as one of Asia’s most important reformers, is willing to do just about anything to stay in power.
Malaysia faces difficult economic and governance problems, many of them stemming from the political chaos that has enveloped the country almost since the current Pakatan Harapan coalition came to power in November 2022 – following 22 previous months of deadlock and multiparty infighting. Political analysts say the Anwar government has struggled to find its way since it came to power, with the leadership instead concentrating on the means of staying in power politically. Political figures from the opposition, on holiday in December, reportedly met in Dubai to scheme ways to peel away coalition MPs to topple the government although with a 154-68 bulge in the Dewan Rakyat, or parliament, he appears unassailable and likely to stay that way until the current government’s term ends in 2027.
Nonetheless, the country’s problems, including capital flight and a nagging brain drain, both as Chinese have fled the country in reaction to rising ethnic Malay xenophobia, have begun to cause international investors to lose confidence. GDP recorded anemic full-year growth of 3.8 percent, a sharp fall from post-Covid recovery of 8.7 percent in 2022 as exports slowed sharply, with inflation recorded at 3 percent over 2023 although it feels higher at the petrol pump and the grocery checkout, consumers say. Its currency’s worth has descended by 15 percent, from RM4.01 to the US dollar to RM4.72 since January 2022.
Anwar, analysts say, believes he can solidify his Unity Government coalition with the help of the 70-year-old Najib, who despite myriad legal problems remains “Bossku,” a kingmaker well admired by ethnic Malays who is believed to possess access to vast financial resources amassed from years of sleaze going back to his days as defense minister and later prime minister. Najib is a strong organizer who proved his mettle by winning a long string of by-elections following the 2018 electoral debacle that ended the 70-year reign in power of the Barisan Nasional even while he was free during trial or appeal from his prison sentence.
Anwar resigned from the Federal Territories portfolio and thus his seat on the pardons board several months ago, which gives him a minuscule bit of cover to deny he had anything to do with the decision. The outgoing king, Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, the Sultan of Pahang, and the pardons board decided on January 30 to cut Najib’s 12-year sentence to six years, meaning he can be released after serving just two. It is the sultan’s last official decision before he gives way today, January 31, to Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, Johor’s erratic ruler, under the country’s unique rotation system for its nine sultans.
Najib was jailed 17 months ago on charges of having stolen RM42 million (US$8.79 million at current exchange rates) from SRC International, a now-defunct subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Bhd, which collapsed in 2016 in one of Asia’s biggest financial scandals, leaving the Malaysian government with debts of US$7.8 billion. By serving another five months, he became freed on what amounts to parole for another two years.
Under the terms of his release from his 12-year sentence, which was actually a 72-year sentence on six charges being served concurrently, the suave former prime minister (2009-2018) who favored London-tailored suits and Hermes neckties, faces two additional trials – which appear likely to disappear. He won’t be allowed to participate in politics until the end of 2026, and then only as long as he keeps his nose clean. But while he can’t be a member of a political party, according to well-informed sources in Kuala Lumpur, he can likely unofficially return to his role as kingmaker with the ability to rally ethnic Malays to Anwar’s side – Anwar hopes – and stop their drift away from the now thoroughly-discredited United Malays National Organization, a component of Anwar’s ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition, to the rural fundamentalist Parti Islam se-Malaysia, or PAS, and the Malay supremist Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, or Bersatu, headed by former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
For months, rumors have been circulating in Kuala Lumpur that the king would pardon Najib, whose transgressions against the law went far beyond the relatively paltry RM42 million that he pocketed from SRC. He was not only the architect, with then financial wunderkind Low Taek Jho, known during his freewheeling Broadway days as Jho Low, of what the US Justice Department described as "one of the world's greatest financial scandals” but was involved in a long list of other scandals as well involving, according to his now-imprisoned bodyguards, at least one murder, of the Mongolian beauty Altantuya Shaariibuu, and possibly a second of former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigator Kevin Morais although most people don’t believe Najib was involved in the two murders despite the allegations.
Najib owes RM210 million in fines in lieu of another five years in jail on another charge, but should be able to pay it after the government returned all the money and valuables seized from him amounting to more than RM1 billion.
It is believed that the fines have been reduced to 50 million ringgit to be paid in five annual installments. If he does not pay the fines, he will be sentenced to 12 months in jail.
He is believed to have amassed far more than that from his years in power. When he was arrested in 2018 when the ruling Barisan Nasional fell from power, investigators found the equivalent of US$273 million worth of jewelry, handbags, and other valuables and cash in 26 currencies totaling US$28.6 million. At least US$681 million is known to have been transmitted into his accounts and out from 1MDB when he was still prime minister.
Can he still provide enough help for Anwar? That may be questionable, although apparently, Anwar thinks he can. UMNO, once the strongest party in the country, has fallen sharply to just 26 seats in the 122-member Dewan Rakyat, or parliament. It is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is saddled with 47 counts of corruption related to his looting of a charity, although the charges were recently put off via a “discharge not amounting to an acquittal.”
Several other UMNO politicians have faced corruption charges and are known as the “court cluster.” Najib’s own wife, Rosmah Mansor, who is considerably less popular than he is, is free on appeal of a 10-year prison sentence for seeking and receiving bribes in exchange for government contracts, just days after her husband was jailed for corruption. Rosmah, who also owes fines of RM970 million, became a figure of derision for her extravagant lifestyle and her influence over the government.
The decision to free Najib is likely to earn the enmity of a good deal of the judicial profession, and the reformers who had put their hopes on him during his long periods of incarceration at the hands of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Najib. But years of lack of success in cleaning up the government make it likely they will have little success this time around either.
Really, it comes as no surprise that the last king, who has now returned to his throne in Pahang state, from which Najib hails and holds the Pekan seat, would so stupidly agree to release Najib. I am not in the habit of mincing my words. Najib's old man, Abdul Razak (who presided over state-sponsored racism fostered by the astonishingly racist New Economic Policy, along with the vile racist Mahathir Mohamad, will be spinning like a top in his grave that his son has turned out to be one without a shred of decency, far less principles, and who brought untold ignominy to his entire family. With his enormously ugly and overbearing wife Rosmah (there, I said it!), they will forever be known as morally bankrupt -- personally and in terms of their totally discredited Islamic devoutness. It questions just what Islamic values are delivered to Malays like Najib and his corrupt cronies, most of whom will probably escape facing justice. the last king has set a dangerous and stupid precedent. Malaysia's most hideously criminally-minded couple robbed the people of Malaysia -- including all Malay-Moslems -- royally blind, and the king and the pardons board of morons -- as they can only be called -- personally and collectively bear the responsibility for unleashing more rottenness in the fabric of Malaysia's so-called society, otherwise so mindlessly, so unintelligently called 'rakyat'. But only in totally blinkered Malaysia where education across the board has the value of the depositories of Malaysian toilets.
What comes when Najib plays kingmaker will not be political stability but chaos. He will not be able to unite the deeply fractious nature of heinously corrupt and selfish Malay parties. Not one of them. Not even Anwar Ibrahim's PKR, which long ago lost the K -- Keadilan (justice) in PKR -- to the Malaysian jamban (toilet). The judicial system is weaked by the decision of the last king and the pardons board
and, under the tutelage of Najib and the hopelessly incompetent and untruthful Anwar, will return to its former glory of being a tool of Malay state power and the return to Malay despotism and autocratic rule. The rule of law that so many were pedaling so unthinkingly since 2018 will rear the ugly old head of rule by law. It's a matter of time. This is one way Najib and Anwar will desperately seek to keep a lid on the very likelihood of Malay internecine warfare not for the soul of the "nation" -- it has never had a soul -- but for structural power, control of the country's -- not "nations" -- purse-strings for self-aggrandizement of Malay "invested interests". The jockeying isn't about to begin; it began quite a while ago, soon after the spineless Anwar Ibrahim took over the reins in the false name of "reformasi" and "democracy". Anwar Ibrahim lied to the people, especially the incredibly gullible urban Malays, Indians and Chinese -- especially the 'politically desperate' Chinese -- with a straight face.
The economy is destined to take a big hit. The Philippines was one time known as Southeast Asia's basket-case with an economy that was being plundered left, right and centre by dictator and despot Marcos, his wife and their cronies. Just as Indonesia was under Soeharto, his family and their cronies. Malaysia could easily become the region's basket-case economy after Burma when -- not if -- manic corruption is resurrected to the levels seen since the beginning of Mahathirism, who isn't the founder of "modern Malaysia" but the father of racism, corruption lies and division. Najib followed in Mahathir's footsteps and, thinking he was infallible, given he was the son of political royalty -- my foot) -- openly and brazenly allowed his greed and stupidity to rape Malaysia for his own, his wife's and his family's despicable gratification. Najib and Rosmah are despicable Moslems who sold Islam down the river as they did Malaysia that they'd ruled like sultanate-age Malay despots and autocrats.
Rafizi Ramli, the economy minister, can spin all he wants about how gung-ho the Malaysian economy, how it's going to bring 'tiger economy' prosperity to Malaysia but the tide will turn very sour once the political risks are totaled by foreign multinational firms and Chinese conglomerates for the economy. All business investment MOUs will be re-thought, even revised, if they do not flee Malaysia altogether. The capital flight that has been underway is not laughing matter but Rafizi and finance minister and the trade minister might be laughing through the other side of their faces before long. If disinvestment in Malaysia is on the cards, the greater the capital flight and the worse the 'brain drain' and out-migration, especially the Chinese (China isn't an option for them as that economy is drowning in its broken economic model; somebody should have told Emperor Xi models like his have short and disastrous life-spans, that he could have taken lessons from his region and elsewhere. Ahh, the greed and the corruption of the Chinese capitalist class.)
Does the jailbird Najib's freedom from prison mean Zahid Hamidi, another Malay-Moslem crook who sold Islam and Malays and 'his country' down the river will not see another day in court, will never see the four walls of a prison? Probably, not plausibly. But what will this mean for Umno and its leadership? Umno is sunk, has been sunk for years, and will likely die a cold, deserved death for being a corrupt party of corrupt Malay leaders, liars, racists, bigots and criminals. Hamidi's days are numbered as Umno head-huncho now that najib is being released. But Najib will not revive Umno. John Bertelsen is probably correct in suggesting Anwar Ibrahim -- despite his denials, i.e. blatant lies for not playing a part in Najib's freedom -- will go into bat for Anwar when Anwar has so miserably failed, in spite of his attempt to play the populist in the worst possible guide, to win broad-based Malay suppoprt for him, personally, and for his so-called Unity coalition of what I will called low-life Tossers and Scumbags and the idiocy of his Madani ideological hoodwink.
The other interesting question, then, is what happens to Taliban PAS, to Perikatan (Pengkianat) Nasional, to the next-to-useless Bersatu?
All in time. But it won't be all sparkling gold. Guaranteed.
When the Madani regime tells the media and the people not to jump to conclusions over Najib's release from prison, you can -- reading between the lines of such remarks over a long time -- that Najib's release looks certain. If Najib keeps hogging the headlines, Anwar may as well resort to selling peanuts by the kerb. He has been losing traction and he's likely to lose even more of it as the time nears to his Najib's release. All the noise at Malaysia's Bar Council membership and in and around Kuala Lumpur is fixed on the Great Najib Escape. One would have thought it would be in Anwar political interest to speak up and speak out against Najib's release. But then he is a weak politician, a spineless dude, who is afraid he may lose his Umno sidekick Hamidi on whose succor he has been relying to maintain the Madani regime. My guess is that Anwar and the Madani regime will start practicing more opacity, just as Umno had practiced it during its long reign. After all, Anwar learnt from Umno when he allowed himself to be coerced by his master Mahathir to join that party from ABIM in the 1980s. How long will be Anwar's reign?