BY UNA GALANI

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has won a bizarre exoneration. The country’s attorney general has declared that $681 million transferred into the prime minister’s personal bank account in 2013 was a “gift” from the royal family in Saudi Arabia. Even more astonishingly, he returned $620 million because it was not used. Though the ruling clears Najib of criminal wrongdoing, it won’t draw a line under the funding furore.

While it may be hard for outside observers to grasp, the news is actually a political victory for the 62-year old leader. Najib’s political opponents have failed to oust him using local laws and also failed to link the payments to 1Malaysia Development Berhad, an indebted sovereign fund the prime minister championed. This is not exactly a surprise given that Najib fired the chief prosecutor’s predecessor last July, in the middle of a probe into the fund. It is, however, more evidence that the prime minister has seen off a challenge from inside his own party led by Mahathir Mohamad, the country’s former leader.

Malaysia’s weak political funding rules allow plenty of room for political patronage. The country does not prohibit foreign donations. Past efforts to reform the system have failed, though the government is now revisiting the issue. Besides, Saudi Arabia is well known for liberally dispersing funds from Bahrain to Egypt to help prop up foreign governments that it deems friendly.

Yet even if the explanation gives Najib the legal all-clear, such overt buying of political influence is still embarrassing. It’s unclear what the Saudi royals expected in return, or why the prime minister decided to hand back all but $61 million of the “gift”. With so much money at his disposal, it also begs the question why his ruling coalition only managed to win a minority of the popular vote in the 2013 general election.

Incontrovertible evidence of direct foreign funding from a fiercely conservative Muslim country will further strain relations between the majority Malay Muslim population and ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, many of whom are leaving the country in search of more equitable homes. Though Najib may have survived, the circumstances of his exoneration are no less awkward than the details of the scandal that threatened to topple him in the first place.

First published Jan. 26, 2016

(Image: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni)