Corruption tables turn on Muhyiddin in Malaysia

Ex-premier arrested on corruption charges in a move that could blow back on Anwar’s ‘unity’ government at coming state polls

Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin is the latest Malaysian politician to face legal trouble and potential jail time after a court in Kuala Lumpur charged him with graft and embezzlement on March 10, a day after authorities arrested and questioned him over the alleged misuse of funds from a Covid-19 stimulus initiative.

The 76-year-old faces four counts of abuse of power involving 232.5 million ringgit (US$51.4 million) and two counts of money laundering of 195 million ringgit ($43.1 million), charges that are punishable by up to 20 years in prison and heavy fines. Muhyiddin has maintained his innocence and has described the charges as a political vendetta.

“This selective prosecution is a political ploy done with malicious intent,” the former premier told reporters after being charged, claiming the move intended to “suppress and destroy” the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition he leads. “It is aimed at embarrassing me by dragging me to court… Therefore, no matter what explanation I provide, I will still be charged,” Muhyiddin said.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had been investigating allegations that beneficiaries of an economic relief program for ethnic Malay contractors had funneled kickbacks to Muhyiddin’s Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) political party, funds that are suspected to have been used for PN’s well-funded general election campaign in November.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Goldman Sachs and Anwar in 1MDB settlement showdown

Malaysian premier pressing US investment bank to honor agreement guaranteeing the return of $1.4 billion of seized assets worldwide

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s three-month-old administration won a key legal victory last week when Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) and its Aabar Investments PJS unit agreed to pay US$1.8 billion to settle a legal dispute linked to the sprawling 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, scandal.

The two sides had been locked in proceedings at the London High Court since 2018, when Malaysia challenged the validity of an arbitration award that had been negotiated between 1MDB and IPIC a year earlier during the premiership of Najib Razak, with the then-government arguing that the 2017 settlement was procured by fraud.

Anwar recently called the settlement a “huge success” for Malaysia and heaped praise on the country’s civil servants for their negotiating prowess, remarking that the amount reclaimed had exceeded his expectations. The premier now hopes to claw back even more money in a separate 1MDB-related dispute with Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.

In January, Anwar called on Goldman to honor a settlement agreement reached in July 2020 under which the US bank, which helped to raise $6.5 billion from three bonds for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013 that would later be misappropriated, agreed to pay $2.5 billion while guaranteeing the return of $1.4 billion of 1MDB assets seized by authorities around the world.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Big spender Anwar buying political staying power

Malaysian leader’s record-breaking budget seeks to tax the rich, subsidize the poor and boost his popularity

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has unveiled the largest budget in his nation’s history replete with measures aimed at lowering the cost of living through subsidies and direct cash payments, even as his three-month-old administration claims to be trying to narrow the fiscal deficit.

The record 388.1 billion ringgit (US$87.5 billion) spending plan for 2023 was tabled in parliament by Anwar, who is also finance minister, on February 24 with a self-claimed emphasis on good governance and fiscal prudence. But with state polls due in July, the first electoral bellwether for the premier’s “unity government”, analysts and observers also see political dimensions to the budget.

With a projected slowdown in Malaysia’s export-driven economy, the supply bill’s ostensible focus is on shoring up economic resilience in the face of intensifying global headwinds. Economic growth is expected to moderate to 4.5% this year, down sharply from a stronger-than-expected 8.7% in 2022, the highest rate in two decades.

Whether or not Anwar, who came to power with support from former arch-rival the United Malaysia National Organization (UMNO) and others after November polls, can successfully navigate Malaysia’s economy through geopolitically precarious times will be key to his political staying power, say analysts, with the nation having gone through four premiers in as many years.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Singapore to tax and spend through global headwinds

Expansionary budget aims to soothe the sting of inflation and slowing growth but unpopular sales tax hike is still in the cards

Finance Minister Lawrence Wong expects “positive but slower” growth in Singapore this year due to high inflation and a slowing global economy, headwinds the city-state hopes to address through an expansionary budget designed to help households and businesses.

Unveiling a S$104 billion (US$78.4 billion) spending plan in parliament on February 14, Wong said Singaporeans will have to brace themselves for “a period of relatively higher inflation” that would remain elevated in the city-state at least for the first half of this year. Singapore’s headline inflation rate reached a more than decade-high of 6.1% in 2022, up significantly from 2.3% a year earlier.

Wong, who is also deputy premier and heir apparent to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, stressed that while the economy has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, the country’s fiscal position remains tight, compelling the government to step up efforts to trim its budget deficit and raise revenue while pursuing a more targeted approach to aiding lower-income earners.

In what he previously described as his “Valentine’s Day present” to Singaporeans, Wong announced a slew of assistance measures including a S$3 billion ($2.26 billion) boost in subsidies to lower-income households to offset a higher goods-and-services tax (GST). He also announced higher taxes for multinational companies and on high-value properties and cars.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Anwar puts economy in focus amid fraught politics

Malaysian prime minister takes political heat for ‘nepotism’ and eyes economic overhaul as coalition partner UMNO culls dissenters

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim finds himself in a difficult position, facing economic challenges against the backdrop of rising prices at home and increasing risks to the global economy coupled with domestic political challenges that risk widening disenchantment from his own support base.

Anwar’s fledgling coalition government could only look on as its former nemesis-turned-key partner, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), recently expelled and suspended a number of prominent politicians for disciplinary breaches, including former ministers who had long been opposed to party chief and deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s leadership.

The purge wiped out nearly all of Zahid’s detractors and eliminated the threat of them taking any top posts ahead of an upcoming party election set for March 18. It followed a motion passed at the party’s general assembly last month blocking an electoral contest for UMNO’s top two posts, enabling Zahid to tighten his stranglehold over the once-dominant party.

Anwar named Zahid as his deputy, despite his being on trial for corruption and abuse of power, after UMNO lent its support to his multiracial Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, giving it a parliamentary majority after November 19 elections resulted in a hung parliament. Many of Anwar’s supporters saw the move as the price to pay for political expediency and stability.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

The Straits Times caught in a readership lie

Singapore’s state-funded paper of record under fire for hyper-inflating circulation figures with more damning revelations likely to come

SPH Media Trust, the publicly-financed publisher of The Straits Times, Singapore’s newspaper of record, and other daily broadsheets, is under parliamentary scrutiny after an internal review found the circulation numbers of its titles to be arbitrarily inflated by up to 95,000 copies, or about 10% to 12% of average daily circulation.

The Straits Times disclosed on January 9 several practices used to inflate circulation, including instances where copies of SPH Media titles were printed, counted for circulation and then destroyed. Lapsed contracts had continued to be counted in circulation data and a project account had even been injected with additional funding “to purchase fictitious circulation.”

The internal review covered circulation figures for the period spanning September 2020 to March 2022. Still, SPH Media has not said for how long such practices took place, nor has it named any of the staff involved, noting only that four employees had left the company over the incident in December while three staff had been served warning letters.

Not only have the revelations opened the publisher to legal action by advertisers and shareholders, but its taxpayer funding has been cast into uncertainty as well, with the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) undertaking a review of its decision to finance SPH Media to the tune of S$900 million (US$685 million) over a five-year period.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

UMNO already giving Anwar political headaches

Malaysian leader’s pact with erstwhile rival party is quickly taking the shine off his reform credentials

Anwar Ibrahim’s long-time supporters always believed his rise to the premiership would mark a new era of clean governance and democratization in Malaysia. But few anticipated that when the 75-year-old politician finally clinched the top job, his government would include the very United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party he spent the bulk of his career lambasting as corrupt and anti-democratic.

UMNO was arguably true to that critique at its recently concluded general assembly meeting, where the party’s top two leadership posts were closed to a vote and its incumbent president castigated the judiciary for supposedly politically persecuting imprisoned ex-premier and UMNO stalwart Najib Razak.

While Anwar may have benefited from UMNO leader Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, his graft-accused deputy premier, maintaining his leadership position uncontested by a potential challenger opposed to cooperation with his governing Pakatan Harapan (PH) bloc, concerns are rife that the two politicians’ Faustian bargain will eventually end in political betrayal.

Meanwhile, in the Borneo state of Sabah, Anwar’s “unity government” faced an early stress test when a Zahid-aligned UMNO leader tried and failed to topple the state’s pro-Anwar administration through political defections. While the attempted political putsch was foiled, analysts say the drama is still evolving and could have implications at the national level.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Singapore’s 2023 hinges on smooth China reopening

City-state’s economic growth as low as 0.5% in 2023 if China’s ‘zero-Covid’ exit fails to produce a fast and strong rebound

Singapore’s export-reliant bellwether economy is bracing for tough times in 2023 with trade expected to shrink or record no growth amid weakening global demand, tighter liquidity and persistent inflation. Accordingly, many economists foresee a possible technical recession in the first half of next year.

Though the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) does not forecast a recession in its baseline scenario, official 2023 projections show gross domestic product (GDP) growth petering to a slow crawl of anywhere between 0.5% and 2.5%. Growth prospects are brightest for tourism and consumer sectors but it remains unclear whether falling export demand can be sufficiently offset.

Singapore’s key non-oil domestic exports, or NODX, which range from petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals to semiconductors and other electronics, tumbled 14.6% year-on-year in November, marking the second consecutive decline following a 6.1% contraction in October. Flagging orders from Hong Kong and China were the largest contributors to the fall.

Beijing eased many of its strict “zero-Covid” rules earlier this month in a policy U-turn following widespread protests, but its reopening has since been complicated by the unchecked spread of the virus and overwhelmed health services. Nonetheless, the potential for a Chinese economic rebound could help Singapore to outperform its downbeat official growth forecast.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Perilous pact keeps Anwar on top, for now

Malaysian leader wins shoo-in confidence vote and cements controversial cooperation deal in bid to steady his ‘unity’ government

Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim won crucial backing for his premiership on Monday (December 19) when parliament passed a motion of confidence, helping consolidate his position as head of a royally-brokered “unity” government formed after last month’s election delivered a hung parliament.

The confidence motion was not a formal requirement but was held at the discretion of the 75-year-old premier in a bid to cement his legitimacy after rival and former premier Muhyiddin Yassin cast doubt on his support, accusing his Pakatan Harapan (PH) bloc of committing the “biggest electoral fraud ever” in cahoots with the former ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

Neither the government nor the opposition pushed for lawmakers to vote individually; the confidence motion instead passed by a simple voice vote. But the government’s command of 148 out of 222 parliamentary seats, enough for a two-thirds majority to table and pass constitutional amendments, was ostensibly demonstrated through votes for the new house speaker and two deputies.

Hafidzi Razali, a senior analyst at the BowerGroupAsia consultancy, said the move “allowed Anwar to officially record his coalition’s numbers in the parliament, and not through untransparent political maneuvering,” a reference to the use of signed statutory declarations (SDs) from individual lawmakers that the two most recent administrations have relied on to shore up support.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Anwar’s ‘unity’ government a fraught Faustian bargain

Malaysian leader puts his avowed ‘clean governance’ principles on the line in coalition with corruption-tainted UMNO

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s strategic allocation of key cabinet seats appears to have bolstered the near-term stability of his new royally-brokered “unity government”, but volatile political fault lines and strong economic headwinds will test his leadership in 2023.

While selecting a cabinet of past political foes was never going to be easy, the 75-year-old premier’s choice of graft-accused United Malays National Organization (UMNO) president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as deputy prime minister has been an especially bitter pill for Malaysians who voted for Anwar’s good governance and anti-corruption agenda.

The November 19 election delivered a hung parliament where Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) bloc won the most seats with 82 but fell well short of a majority. The PH chief was appointed by Malaysia’s constitutional monarch to lead a unity government after Zahid’s Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition agreed to back Anwar’s bid, prompting key Borneo-based parties to do the same.

While the UMNO president’s top-level appointment has raised eyebrows, it is widely seen as a compromise of political necessity. Zahid, who served as deputy premier from 2015 to 2018 under the scandal-plagued Najib Razak administration, was not appointed to serve in the two governments preceding Anwar’s due to the various corruption-related court cases he faces.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.