Mahathir down but not out in topsy-turvy Malaysia

Bid to oust ex-leader from ruling Bersatu party could backfire badly on PM Muhyiddin's razor-thin majority coalition

Malaysia’s former premier Mahathir Mohamad may be down, but the 94-year-old political veteran is not yet out. Mahathir was sacked on Thursday (May 28) from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), or Bersatu, the governing party he co-founded in 2016 and led to victory in 2018’s general election, heralding the nation’s first-ever democratic transfer of power.

His dismissal from the party, along with his son Mukhriz Mahathir and three others, is the latest ante-upping twist in a bitter intraparty feud pitting Mahathir loyalists against supporters of incumbent Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

Muhyiddin, a mild-mannered machine politician who served as a minister in Mahathir’s previous two governments, was royally appointed as the nation’s leader following a political crisis in February that saw Mahathir tender his resignation.

In a theatrical show of defiance, the nonagenarian elder statesmen made a surprise visit to the party’s headquarters on May 29, in which he sat at his desk and dared Bersatu officials to personally inform him that he had been expelled.

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 guarded reopening risks viral revival

City-state plans phased emergence from lockdown to revive a collapsing economy but risks of a 'third wave' are apparent

Faced with contracting growth and the worst recession in its history, Singapore is preparing to gradually reopen its economy as it struggles to contain a Covid-19 outbreak that has rapidly spread among foreign workers, resulting in the highest per capita infection rate in Asia.

The city-state’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Tuesday (May 26) downgraded its full-year growth forecast for 2020 to between -4% and -7%, down from an initial projection of -1% to -4% in March. MTI cited deep uncertainties in the global economy and risks of subsequent waves of infections in major economies as reasons for its revised outlook.

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat shortly after unveiled an unprecedented fourth budget, dubbed the “Fortitude Budget”, containing various measures to bolster job creation and support affected workers and businesses that will be unable to immediately open as Singapore begins a three-phase plan to lift virus-curbing restrictions from June 2.

The city-state’s strategic national reserves will be drawn upon to fund the additional S$33 billion (US$23.2 billion) spending package. Singapore has thus far committed S$92.9 billion ($65.4 billion) – equivalent to around 20% of annual economic output – to stoke its economy since the beginning of this year.

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.

Malaysia’s Najib may walk free from 1MDB charges

Questions of judicial integrity are swirling over ex-premier's corruption trial after prosecutors drop charges against his stepson

Najib Razak’s corruption hearings resumed this week in Malaysia amid growing speculation that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government could be prepared to facilitate more lenient treatment of the scandal-tainted ex-premier than had been the case under the preceding Mahathir Mohamad administration.

With Muhyiddin’s three-month-old premiership propped by an alliance with the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the long-ruling party Najib led and over which he still wields a degree of influence, observers wonder whether the new leader has the political will to press ahead with top-level prosecutions initiated by Mahathir’s government.

State prosecutors’ recent decision to drop money-laundering charges against Riza Aziz, Najib’s film producer stepson, as part of an asset forfeiture deal has, moreover, raised new questions about judicial independence, a persistent concern under Najib’s tenure.

The plea bargain also has stoked a backlash that continues to play out among top lawyers, with the country’s ex-attorney general emphatically rebutting claims by his Muhyiddin-appointed successor that he had agreed “in principle” to the controversial settlement’s terms.

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.

Mahathir vs Muhyiddin in a fight to the finish

One-time allies are now on opposed political sides in an intensifying struggle that will test stability in the months ahead

Malaysia’s first meeting of Parliament this year ended as quickly as it began on May 18 in an unprecedented one-day sitting, nominally to protect lawmakers against the spread of Covid-19. That’s at least what Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government maintains.

Elder statesmen and ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad, who yesterday sat on opposition benches for the first time in his decades-long political career, contends the truncated sitting was to stymie debate and prevent a planned no-confidence vote that would have tested the legislature’s support of Muhyiddin’s three-month-old premiership.

Opposed camps have been locked in a bitter contest since the country’s political battle lines were redrawn in late February, when a tussle for power led to the surprise collapse of Mahathir’s governing coalition, triggering the nonagenarian leader’s resignation and the royal appointment of his erstwhile deputy, Muhyiddin, as premier.

The rivalry between the two is set to intensify as their factions vie to consolidate leadership within Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), or Bersatu, a political party both co-founded in 2016 along with Mukhriz Mahathir, the former prime minister’s son, who was days ago toppled as chief minister of the state of Kedah in a political tit-for-tat.

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.

Swiss bank folds under 1MDB corruption cloud

Zurich-based Falcon Private Bank made fraudulent 1MDB transfers including to Malaysia's then-premier's bank account

Falcon Private Bank, a Zurich-based wealth manager implicated in the transfer of alleged illicit funds into the personal bank account of Malaysia’s then-premier Najib Razak, is in advanced negotiations to sell-off its assets and cease operations, capping off a four year struggle with Swiss and other financial regulators.

The bank’s demise follows a string of consecutive annual losses accrued since 2016, when the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) found that it violated money-laundering regulations in its dealings with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund by failing to carry out adequate compliance checks.

Aided by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), Swiss authorities determined that Falcon had approved dozens of fraudulent transfers, including one wherein US$681 million was transferred from an account at the bank’s Singapore branch into Najib’s personal AmBank account in March 2013.

Singapore later revoked Falcon’s banking license and jailed its branch manager for failing to comply with anti-money laundering rules. The bank weathered regulatory sanctions and attempted to reinvent itself as a cryptocurrency asset manager following the scandal with financial backing from shareholder Aabar, the financial investment arm of Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Company.

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.

Malaysia’s ‘Game of Thrones’ set for a sequel

Two years after Mahathir's historic election win and three months after his shock fall it's not clear the wily nonagenarian is done yet

The second anniversary of Malaysia’s first-ever democratic transfer of power was never meant to be a somber affair. The reformist, multiracial Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition made history on May 9, 2018 when it won the support of voters weary of the long-dominant Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s endemic corruption and institutional racialism.

An alliance between elder statesman and long-time premier Mahathir Mohamad and his once bitterly estranged former protégé Anwar Ibrahim brought together unlikely bedfellows in a big umbrella coalition. Their hatchet-burying political triumph, however, was short-lived.

A political coup in February staged by both men’s deputies saw the PH coalition implode after just 22 months in power. But it’s not clear Malaysia has seen the last of Mahathir and Anwar as political and economic pressures build around the unelected, royally appointed Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who in a cruel twist is reliant on the support of BN’s scandal-plagued lynchpin party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), and its hardline Islamist ally, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), already faces a moment of political truth.

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.

Malaysia’s rush to reopen risks a viral revival

Malaysia seeks to balance life and livelihood after a lockdown but policy missteps risk a new wave of cases

Malaysian businesses may resume operations beginning today (March 4) in a partial easing of Covid-19 restrictions that aims at to revive the nation’s shuttered economy. Time will tell, however, if the government has moved too soon in easing amid concerns that relaxing restrictions could give rise to new infection clusters, including among foreign workers.

A movement control order (MCO) has been in force since March 18 which has closed non-essential businesses and schools in a military-enforced stay-home lockdown. The nationwide quarantine, which has been extended three times to date, is due to end on May 12.

Many were thus surprised when Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced plans to begin an earlier easing on economic activity on May 1, with businesses given just a weekend to prepare to reopen in compliance with sector-specific standard operating procedures (SOPs) designed to prevent a new wave of infections.

The easing has already been criticized as too abrupt amid concerns that a hasty reopening could undo the success Malaysia has had in flattening its epidemic curve. The Muslim-majority nation previously had the highest number of cases in Southeast Asia, but movement curbs, mass testing and aggressive contract tracing turned the viral tide.

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.