THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION
Lawyers and political analysts tracking Najib’s legal campaign note that the latest strategy to latch on to the dissenting judgment by Justice Abdul Rahman is aimed at shifting the debate over the former prime minister’s plight into the court of public opinion.
Already, Najib’s supporters in his United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a party that is currently part of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government, have stepped up their campaigns on social media alleging that the dissenting judgment has only reinforced the view among members of the party that Najib once led that their leader had been wrongly convicted.
On Apr 4, UMNO vocal youth wing chief Akmal Saleh called on the government to establish a royal commission of inquiry to “ensure justice” for their former boss.
The party took the “Save Najib” campaign up a notch on Apr 7 when the powerful policy-making UMNO supreme council announced that it would be seeking an audience with King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah to present an application to consider a royal pardon for the former prime minister.
Lawyers and political analysts are sceptical over the prospects of the campaign by Najib and his legal team. They note that the Malaysian judiciary is held in high regard by ordinary Malaysians and verdicts handed down by the top three uppermost tiers of the judiciary – the Federal Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court – are stacked against the former prime minister.
A campaign led by UMNO, which suffered serious setbacks in the November general election after being rejected by the country’s politically dominant ethnic Malay community, is also unlikely to gain much traction because the party has failed to reform and shed its image as a graft-tainted political organisation.
Leslie Lopez is a senior correspondent at CNA Digital who reports on political and economic affairs in the region.