New Malaysia and Mahathir
Promises of reform to state-owned companies have gone unfulfilled
It is coming up for two years since Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was
removed from power by Mahathir Mohamad’s Pakatan Harapan, or Coalition
of Hope. The new government promised to put a halt to decades of crony
capitalism which culminated in the scandal of 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
This involved $4.5 billion being misappropriated from the 1MDB state-owned
infrastructure fund by high-level fund officials between 2009 and 2014,
according to the U.S. Justice Department. Najib set up 1MBD and is on trial in
Malaysia on charges related to the fund, which he denies.
There have been improvements in certain areas, including investigations into
corruption cases as well as relaxing media restrictions, and these have been
captured in the new Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency
