Those who still believe in the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and suffer from the illusion spread by Najib in his 2016 New Year Message that the Prime Minister’s twin world-class RM2.6 “political donation” and the RM55 billion 1MDB mega scandals have been resolved and are no more issues need only to refer today’s news portals, both locally and internationally, to realise how wrong they are.

It is supreme irony that Najib’s very own Ministers are among those in the forefront debunking the Prime Minister’s delusion that his twin mega scandals are no more issues as they had been resolved.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar said that 1MDB was the exception in the anti-graft movement among Malaysian companies, claiming that most other Malaysian companies have made good progress in improving transparency.

Goodness me, do we have to wait until 1MDB scandal become the norm for all GLCs in Malaysia which will see the country competing with Somali, North Korea, Afghanistan and Sudan for the last four spots on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index? Read the rest of this entry »

by Greg Earl
Australian Financial Review
Feb 3 2016

There was a time when a Malaysian leader only had to slug it out in the opaque but tough forum of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) to remain in power.

And tough it certainly has been, with a leader or rising deputy ruthlessly shoved aside usually amid outbreaks of Malay chauvinism about once a decade during the almost 60 years UMNO has been in power.

Prime Minister Najib Razak produced a masterful performance at the party conference late last year drawing on Malay feudal notions of loyalty and more modernist Islamic principles to fend off a corruption scandal, a weak economy and criticism by his deputy.

Last week the Attorney-General Apandi Ali seemed to take his cue from the conference and declare that there was nothing more to investigate about one of the world’s most amazing political funding sagas in which the Saudi royal family put US$680 million in Najib’s private bank accounts in the run-up to the 2013 election. And after a budget adjustment to cope with the emerging market uncertainty, the attorney-general appeared to clear the way for the prime minister to celebrate his 40 years in politics. Read the rest of this entry »

By WILLIAM PESEK
Barron’s Asia
February 3, 2016

While Swiss and Singapore officials turn up the heat, Prime Minister Najib Razak hides his head in the sand.

I don’t know who Najib Razak’s friends are in Saudi Arabia, but I sure want a few.

Who wouldn’t covet a pal or two willing to toss you $700 million as a “gift,” no strings attached? That’s at least the Malaysian prime minister’s story, and he’s sticking to it. Politicians overseas, meanwhile, would sure love to have Najib’s electorate. Since the Wall Street Journal broke news of his good fortune, Najib has displayed a fatalistic willingness to take an entire economy down so he can stay in office. And his party harbors little fear of losing power.

There’s the “Twilight Zone” and there’s the “Malaysia Zone,” and just try discerning the difference. Najib-gate grew even more surreal last week when Malaysia’s attorney general suddenly cleared him of criminal or corruption charges. In a hastily-arranged press conference, Mohamed Apandi Ali said Najib had returned all but $61 million of that “donation” from the Saudi royal family. Somehow, Apandi kept a straight face as he declared the matter closed. Read the rest of this entry »

By Una Galani
Reuters Breakingviews
February 1, 2016

It’s hard to bury a big scandal. That is the awkward lesson that Najib Razak is learning. The Malaysian prime minister is attempting to draw a line under a multi-pronged financial controversy that almost toppled him. But initial findings from Switzerland’s attorney general that around $4 billion may have been misappropriated from Malaysian state firms is a sharp reminder of the lingering threat posed by foreign investigations.

Even by the standards of Malaysian politics, it has been an extraordinary few days. On Jan. 26, the country’s chief prosecutor concluded that $681 million that was transferred into the Prime Minister’s personal account in 2013 was a donation from the royal family in Saudi Arabia, not money from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, an indebted fund he championed. Najib was cleared of graft. Three days later, however, Swiss authorities published preliminary conclusions from its own probe into 1MDB which found that billions may have been squirreled away between 2009 and 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeevan Vasagar and Michael Peel
Financial Times
February 2, 2016

Malaysia’s government has been battered by international allegations of corruption on a grand scale — yet at home prime minister Najib Razak appears as secure as ever.

While Kuala Lumpur is under pressure from global regulators, with both Switzerland and Singapore shining a light on alleged misconduct, the prime minister’s tightened grip on power has raised concern about growing authoritarianism.

Over the past six months, as controversy raged over $680m transfers into his bank account, Mr Najib has replaced the country’s attorney-general and sacked a critical deputy prime minister. Meanwhile, his administration has imposed travel bans on opponents and rushed through legislation Malaysia’s bar council describes as a “lurch towards an authoritarian government”. Read the rest of this entry »

The Malaysian Insider
2 February 2016

Malaysia may have absolved its prime minister in a huge corruption scandal, but foreign authorities investigating suspicious global fund flows are making clear the affair is far from over and that the net may be tightening.

Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali last week cleared Datuk Seri Najib Razak of wrongdoing in accepting a mysterious US$681 million payment (RM2.6 billion) from overseas, sparking accusations of a cover-up in a case that has shaken Najib’s government to its core.

But within days, authorities in Switzerland and Singapore upped the pressure, pointedly responding that investigations into an array of Malaysian money movements were forging ahead and releasing new information. Read the rest of this entry »

Observer editorial
Sunday 31 January 2016

There is, rightly, widespread concern over Najib and a democratic deficit

Dato’ Sri Mohamed Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak was born to rule. Son of Malaysia’s second post-independence prime minister and nephew of its third, he entered parliament at the age of 23, inheriting his father’s seat and was handed several senior portfolios before being appointed prime minister himself in 2009.

Najib heads the powerful United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the pre-eminent political force. His national and personal dominance symbolises the bumiputera (ethnic Malay) ascendancy in a country with large, constitutionally disadvantaged ethnic Indian and Chinese minorities.

But as the intense firestorm sparked by last week’s arbitrary dismissal of potentially career-ending corruption allegations against him suggests, Najib is also seen by growing numbers of fellow citizens as unfit to rule the country whose leadership he inherited as if by right. His time in government, especially since the 2013 general election, has brought an expansion of repressive laws, multiplying human rights abuses and curbs on media freedoms more reminiscent of Russia than of a supposedly functional, pro-western democracy closely allied to Britain and the US. Read the rest of this entry »

The Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali has rejected the investigations and recommendations of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and exonerated Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of any wrongdoing or crime in the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million SRC International scandals, deciding that no charges would be brought against Najib and even instructing MACC to close all investigations on the matters with regard to Najib.

The immediate reaction of shock and outrage by the MACC special operations director Bahri Mohd Zin to the Attorney-General’s decisions and his comment that the MACC would “most likely” to appeal against the AG decision as the cases were so “straightforward” was a mere understatement considering the firestorm the AG’s decision sparked both inside the country and world-wide.

For the past six days, Malaysia was the “bad boy” of the international media, flayed as a country where the Rule of Law is treated as a joke because of the AG’s decision – a sober reminder to the Najib government that Malaysia operates in an open international society and borderless world where everyone of its decisions and actions must be able to stand up to international scrutiny.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamid did his image as the No. 2 in the country no favours when he tried to stop the conflagration of the the firestorm over the Attorney-General’s decision when he said a few hours after the AG’s announcement that “no one should question the competence or independence of Malaysia’s institutions or our legal process” – for Zahid was acting like Canute trying to stop the tide.

What would have happened to me if I had RM2.6 billion in my bank account deposited from foreign sources? Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Peel in Bangkok and Jeevan Vasagar in Singapore
Financial Times
January 31, 2016

Malaysia’s leaders are battling the most severe international pressure yet over alleged large-scale corruption after Switzerland torpedoed efforts to contain the growing scandal around the 1MDB investment fund.

Kuala Lumpur’s attempts to play down an affair that has rocked the country and embroiled Najib Razak, the prime minister, have been derailed by a Swiss criminal investigation that said on Friday it found “serious indications“ that about $4bn was misappropriated. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sembrong Parliamentary constituency which covers the two State Assembly seats of Kahang and Paloh is the 75th parliamentary constituency I am visiting since my six-month suspension from Parliament on 22nd October last year because the Najib administration refused to give full and satisfactory accountability for his two world-class mega scandals – the RM2.6 billion donation and the RM55 billion 1MDB scandals.

Wherever I went, regardless of whether they are Chinese, Malays, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans, Malaysians are united in their demand that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should come full and clean on his two world-class mega scandals.

Ever since the beginning of the new year, Najib had been declaring that his twin mega-scandals were no more issues as they had been resolved, but the opposite was the case – as Najib’s twin mega scandals have become even bigger than in the past and gone fully international.

Najib’s RM2.6 billion and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals were the reasons why Malaysia was placed as the No. 3 in the world in the “worst corruption scandals in 2015”.

They were also the chief reason why Malaysia had dropped another four notches in the latest Transparency International 2015 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking compared to the previous year, announced a few days ago. Read the rest of this entry »

By TOM WRIGHT and BRADLEY HOPE
Wall Street Journal
Jan. 30, 2016

Swiss attorney general’s office is examining allegations of criminal activity from 2009 to 2013

The Swiss attorney general’s announcement that $4 billion may have been misappropriated from Malaysian state-owned companies opened a new front in the troubles facing 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, the state-investment fund set up by Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2009.

Switzerland’s top prosecutor on Friday named a number of firms in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in relation to the matter, but gave no details of their roles, if any.

The attorney general’s office said it is examining allegations of criminal activity from 2009 to 2013 relating to PetroSaudi International Ltd., a Saudi oil company; SRC International Sdn Bhd, a unit of Malaysia’s Finance Ministry; Malaysian companies Genting Group and Tanjong PLC; and a joint venture between 1MDB and an Abu Dhabi sovereign-wealth fund called the Abu Dhabi Malaysia Investment Company.

The investigation is one of a series of global probes into 1MDB. A Malaysian government investigation last year found that almost $700 million entered Mr. Najib’s alleged bank accounts via agencies, companies and banks linked to 1MDB ahead of a close election in 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since the beginning of the new year, the Prime Minister and his advisers-propagandists have been hard at work to manufacture a mirage for Malaysians, that all is fine in Malaysia and the multitude of political, economic, good governance and nation-building crisis converging in the country are the mere publicity creations of Opposition politicians and anti-Barisan Nasional NGOs and electronic media which have no grounding in reality.

Hence the up-beat 2016 New Year Message by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that his world-class twin mega scandals have been resolved and no more issues in the country, which is supposed to be solidified by the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali’s exoneration of Najib earlier this week of any crime or wrongdoing in the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million SRC International scandals.

But Najib’s “house of cards” that everything is fine in Malaysia started to tumble down immediately when the response to the Attorney-General’s exoneration of Najib, both locally and internationally, was one of shock, outrage and rejection resulting in an ongoing controversy as to whether Malaysia’s parliamentary democracy and constitution permitted an Attorney-General to act like a dictator with no regard to the fundamental precept of the Rule of Law that “every legal power must have legal limits”.

In the past 24 hours, the saying “It never rains but it pours” seems to best describe Najib’s world-class twin mega scandals and the serious multi-faceted Malaysian crisis today. Read the rest of this entry »