‘Minister of Finance Inc’ – A Political Economist’s Study of Minister of Finance Incorporated and GLICs in Malaysia–Terence Gomez

September 30, 2017

by M Krishnamoorthy @www.malaysiakini.com

 

Dr. Terence Gomez, in his latest book, “Minister of Finance Incorporated: Ownership and Control of Corporate Malaysia”, traces the government’s role in the corporate sector. He provides an assessment of Malaysia’s new political economy, with a focus on ownership and control of the corporate sector.

Gomez, who is a Professor of Political Economy at Universiti Malaya, is also the author of “Politics in Business: UMNO’s Corporate Investments”, a pioneering publication in 1990, which traced how UMNO secured a huge equity interest in Malaysia’s corporate sector.

 

In “Minister of Finance Incorporated”, Gomez (photo above) and his team of researchers offer another pioneering assessment of Malaysia’s corporate sector, though their focus is now government-linked investment companies (GLICs), a type of state enterprise that has long prevailed in the economy but has not been analysed.

Gomez argues that corporate power is now concentrated in these GLICs that are ultimately controlled by the Minister of Finance. Interestingly, Gomez admits that these GLICs are well-managed by highly qualified professionals, though these people can be subservient to the dictates of the Minister of Finance.

By focusing on the GLICs, “Minister of Finance Incorporated” ignites interesting debates about the role of the government in the economy, an issue that requires thoughtful consideration given their dominant presence in the corporate sector. Through in-depth research, novel insights are provided into this question of government ownership and control of corporate Malaysia.

This review is presented as a question-and-answer dialogue with the author, to draw attention to this study’s major findings. Much of what is outlined below is from this book.

The Interview

Professor Gomez, in your latest book, “Minister of Finance Incorporated”, what are your major findings?

Malaysia’s political economy has undergone a major transition since the 1990s that has escaped public attention.

Corporate power has shifted from UMNO and well-connected businessmen to the government. Huge business groups controlled by the government have emerged, seen in the dominance that a mere seven GLICs have over the corporate sector.

During this transition, one extraordinary outcome was the removal of UMNO, its members and the business associates of party leaders as owners of publicly-listed government-linked companies (GLCs).

 

UMNO now has direct equity ownership of only one quoted company, the media-based Utusan Melayu, while no UMNO member figures as a major corporate player.

UMNO’s absence from the corporate sector has major implications. The power nexus involving politics and business has fundamentally shifted at the federal level.

If this political-business nexus once involved numerous powerful UMNO politicians who had enormous influence over the corporate sector, economic power is now concentrated in the Office of the Minister of Finance.

Who are the GLICs?

Seven institutions have been classified by the government as GLICs. These are the Minister of Finance Incorporated (MoF Inc), the government’s holding company, which participates actively in corporate manoeuvres and owns a diverse range of firms known as government-linked companies (GLCs).

The sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, is policy-based and implements major plans, including venturing abroad to support the government’s business internationalisation effort.

 

 

The investment trust fund, Permodalan Nasional (PNB, or National Equity Corporation), is portfolio-oriented, though with a policy agenda to redistribute wealth more equitably between the nation’s ethnic groups.

Two savings-cum-pension-based funds, the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and the Kumpulan Wang Persaraan Diperbadankan (KWAP, or Retirement Fund Incorporated), are portfolio-based with an equity interest in a vast number of companies.

Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT, or Armed Forces Fund Board) is also a savings-cum-pension-based fund but is active in the management and development of large businesses in various sectors.

 

 

Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH, or Pilgrims Fund Board), though portfolio-based, has an organic form of enterprise development, active in the development of Islamic-based products and services.

How are these GLICs owned and controlled?

The Ministry of Finance sits at the apex of a complex business group structure comprising its holding company, MoF Inc, as well as other GLICs, quoted GLCs and a huge number of unquoted private firms.

MoF Inc is the “super-entity”, given its enormous influence over the corporate sector through its substantial ownership and control of the other GLICs and the financial sector, comprising Malaysia’s leading commercial banks. Through its ownership of these commercial banks, the government can control the economy indirectly by acting as a lender to private firms.

However, MoF Inc’s vast network of business interactions constitutes only one part of the government’s complex system of control over the corporate sector. State governments have a similarly sizeable interest in the corporate sector.

In this system, the Board of Directors are important. Directorships function as a primary avenue through which the government can dictate decision-making within GLICs and GLCs.

Our comparison of ownership and directorate patterns in 1996 (prior to the 1997 currency crisis) and 2013 revealed a new phenomenon.

 

Only a small number of UMNO members remain as directors of these government-owned enterprises. These findings are particularly astonishing as Umno remains a party riddled with money politics, patronage and rent-seeking.

How did Malaysia get to this point?

Three major events have contributed to these transitions where the Prime Minister and GLICs have emerged as economic powerhouses. The first was the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1971, which allowed these enterprises to gradually acquire a major presence in the corporate sector.

The involvement of the GLICs in the corporate sector diminished with the active promotion of privatisation from the mid-1980s. With this spate of privatisations, major enterprises fell under the ownership and control of UMNO and well-connected businesspeople.

The second defining event was the 1997 currency crisis and the momentous intra-elite political feuding that ensued the following year. The GLICs’ bailout of ailing well-connected companies and their takeover of firms associated with ousted Umno leaders led to their re-emergence as major actors in the corporate sector.

 

The third defining moment was when reform of the GLICs and GLCs was initiated by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in the late 1990s, though actively implemented by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (photo) from 2003. Najib Abdul Razak continued these reforms when he took office in 2009 as Prime Minister.

The current concentration of economic power in the office of the Prime Minister is particularly salient because when Najib took office in 2009 he voiced his intention to transfer GLCs to the private sector, arguing that the private sector should function as the primary engine of growth.

Unlike Mahathir, Najib appeared personally uninterested in business as a government tool for economic and corporate development when he came to power. Najib, however, soon came to realise the significant economic influence that the GLICs have over the corporate sector.

Why was this type of corporate control structure created?

This complex system of ownership and control of the corporate sector is not one that was designed or envisioned by ruling elites.

In fact, since the 1980s, all Prime Ministers – Mahathir, Abdullah and Najib – have persistently advocated privatisation of the GLCs on the assumption that these enterprises would function far more effectively and productively if under private ownership.

Even when the NEP was conceived, the plan was to transfer corporate equity acquired by the GLICs to bumiputeras, in order to redistribute wealth more equitably among the ethnic groups.

When Mahathir’s vision of creating business groups led by corporate captains was dismantled by the 1997 currency crisis, the GLICs and GLCs were deployed to bail out well-connected ailing, debt-ridden enterprises.

 

When a bitter feud ensued between Mahathir and his Minister of Finance, Anwar Ibrahim, over these bailouts, Anwar was ousted from public office and his business allies lost control of their corporate assets.

When a similar feud ensued between Mahathir and Daim Zainuddin, Anwar’s replacement as minister of finance, companies controlled by his allies and UMNO were channelled to the GLICs. Having had persistent feuds with his trusted allies who he had appointed as Minister of Finance, prime minister Mahathir then took charge of this ministry.

The new structure of Malaysia’s political economy has also arisen out of the need for the UMNO President to reduce the influence of party warlords.

UMNO’s major businesses now under the GLICs include media companies that own the major newspapers, The New Straits Times and Berita Harian, as well as TV3, the party’s cooperative KUB, the huge construction-based UEM Group, the hotel-based Faber Group (now UEM Adgenta) and the Bank of Commerce, now a part of Malaysia’s third largest banking enterprise, CIMB Group. Control of these companies ultimately falls under MoF Inc.

If UMNO members once had many sources of patronage, what is the situation now?

UMNO members now have only one source if they wish to obtain access to federal government-generated economic concessions. This is profoundly problematic in terms of public governance as the minister of finance concurrently holds the position of prime minister, a situation that does not prevail in democracies.

In this governance structure, there is the possibility of checks and balances being deeply undermined, opening space for abuse of power that can have serious implications on the economy and the corporate sector.

Who is accountable for the running of the companies?

The board of directors of these companies are accountable. While most of these directors are professionals who manage the GLCs in a productive manner, since they are appointed by the minister of finance, they can be compelled to follow his dictates.

There are also serious concerns in some GLICs. In LTH, a number of its directors, including its chairperson, are UMNO members who are elected representatives but hold no position in government. LTAT is led by Lodin Kamaruddin (photo), a longstanding close business associate of Prime Minister Najib.

 

There is sufficient evidence that these GLICs could be vulnerable to political interference unless sufficient oversight measures and institutional reforms are introduced to ensure they are well-insulated from such abuse.

In the boards of directors of the GLICs and GLCs, what has also increased is the number of former bureaucrats. These ex-civil servants, like the professional elite, have no political influence. However, they also appear to function as mere figureheads.

The most influential decision-makers are the chairpersons of these boards and the managing directors who, when necessary, take the cue from the Minister of Finance, further indicating his overwhelming influence over the corporate sector.

There is evidence of “inner circles” among the GLICs. One inner circle revolves around Nor Mohamad Yakcop, until recently the deputy chairperson of Khazanah. Professional managers groomed by him lead the GLICs and GLCs.

An inner circle is also evident in the media sector. An obscure private firm, Gabungan Kesturi, controls the leading media enterprise, Media Prima, along with PNB.

The directors and shareholders of Gabungan Kesturi are Shahril Ridza Ridzuan and Abdul Rahman Ahmad, both groomed by Nor Mohamad. Shahril is the CEO of EPF, which also owns a huge interest in Media Prima. Rahman was appointed the CEO of PNB in 2016.

The use of private companies like Gabungan Kesturi obscures the identity of the ultimate shareholder, the Minister of Finance, as well as the extent of the state’s control over major media companies.

Did our leaders “groom and place” executives in GLICs for their vested interests?

Daim Zainuddin (photo) groomed and placed professionals he had trained as executives and owners of companies associated with UMNO.

 

A similar practice of grooming young professionals as executives and CEOs emerged in the late 1990s after well-connected firms came under the control of the GLICs. Professionals trained by Nor Mohamed took over the management of these enterprises.

However, while Nor Mohamad and Daim groomed and placed professionals in control of major quoted enterprises, their reasons for doing so differed.

As Minister of Finance, Daim, also UMNO’s Treasurer and a longstanding businessperson, appeared intent on securing enormous control over the corporate sector to serve his vested business interests. The professional-managerial team groomed by Nor Mohamed was not necessarily trained to manage the GLICs and GLCs.

What are the possible repercussions of this ownership and control mechanism?

Through this pyramiding system, with the Minister of Finance at the apex, the GLICs and GLCs can be subjected to considerable abuse. This pyramiding system allows the minister to secure numerous political and business benefits from the GLICs and GLCs, as well as abuse them.

It is noteworthy that MoF Inc has ownership and control of controversial companies such as 1MDB and the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC).

The GLIC-based business groups have control over companies through majority equity ownership, which accords them significant voting rights. This has serious implications for minority shareholders, and the economy, in the event of abuse of the companies.

Our study noted that the EPF appears to have been forced to take control of RHB Capital from a firm linked with the former Chief Minister (and now Governor) of Sarawak, Abdul Taib Mahmud (photo above ). This financial institution has long been an enterprise that has come under the control of a number of well-connected people and GLCs.

Politics evidently matters, influencing how these enterprises are run. Policies also matter as they shape the different ways in which these institutions are managed.

There can be a link to between politics and policies, especially redistributive policies and enterprise development strategies when determining how these enterprises are employed.

After his party fared badly in the 2013 General Election, Najib announced that contracts and other concessions would be channeled through GLICs and GLCs to bumiputeras, justified by his new ethnically-based affirmative action policy that targeted this ethnic group. This was evidently to consolidate the political support of this ethnic community. 

What reforms are required to deal with this issue?

These powerful GLICs are a clear manifestation of high concentration of corporate ownership in the state. This concentration of corporate wealth is justifiable only if GLICs are managed in an accountable and transparent manner.

Inevitably, to inspire confidence among private investors, political reforms are imperative to enforce stringent institutional checks and balances by independent oversight institutions.

 

The technocratic professional elite at the epicentre of this GLIC-GLC network can remain, but must be subjected to close scrutiny by parliamentary action committees led by the Opposition. And the Prime Minister cannot also serve as the Finance Minister since it is an obvious case of conflict of interest.

Myanmar’s new regime flounders over Rohingya crisis

September 30, 2017

The Big Read Aung San Suu Kyi

 

https://www.ft.com/content/36542620-a2ad-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2

Critics say an unwillingness to deal with the refugee crisis fits a broader pattern of faltering reforms and indecisive leadership

 by John Reed in Naypyidaw

A year ago this month, Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, was welcomed to The White House on the slipstream of a historic election victory and an outpouring of international goodwill.

The Lady and President Barack Obama in The White House

The former political prisoner, whose party had triumphed in a 2015 election, promised a fresh start built on the “true strength of our diversity”, for a country blighted by multiple ethnic insurgencies and decades of military rule.

Then President Barack Obama hailed “a new way of doing business and a new government”, as he lifted sanctions.

A year later, Myanmar’s international reputation, and that of its 72-year-old leader, are in tatters after a brutal military campaign by security forces in the western state of Rakhine that has made homeless nearly half a million mostly Muslim Rohingya over the space of a month.

The refugees streaming into Bangladesh have brought stories of mass killing, rape and torching of villages by security forces, which human rights campaigners say may amount to ethnic cleansing.

The most serious crisis since Myanmar began its transition to democracy in 2011, the conflict has left Aung San Suu Kyi caught between an international community demanding accountability and her own public, which is in a jingoistic and unforgiving mood.

It has also reinforced the fragile state of Myanmar’s incomplete democratic transition, which left the military with three key ministries, a quarter of seats in parliament and control over the army and police.

Burmese and foreign business people, diplomats and others interviewed by the Financial Times, some of whom spoke anonymously because of political sensitivities, are now voicing doubts as to whether Myanmar’s leader will be up to the task.

Worse, they fear that the Rohingya crisis could push Myanmar’s transition from five decades of military rule badly off course. For some of her critics, Aung San Suu Kyi had already proved to be a flawed leader on other counts before the Rohingya crisis erupted.

“In my view, Myanmar’s transition has birth defects — especially the constitutional arrangement of mixing elected government and the guardianship of the Tatmadaw [military],” says Ko Ye Myo Hein, executive director of the Tagaung Institute of Political Studies in Yangon. “If the elected civilian government cannot make attempts to change the game, the transition will die a slow death, in the graveyard of hybrid regimes.”

In her first speech on the crisis , in an auditorium with many empty seats in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s golf resort-like capital city, Aung San Suu Kyi said her government deserved more time, pointing out it had been in office for just under 18 months.

“We want to find out why this exodus is happening,” she told diplomats and journalists in English, in a speech in which she sounded at times chiding, at others pleading. “We would like to talk to those who have fled, as well as those who have stayed.” The remarks gave the impression of a leader either out of touch with events in the western borderlands — which were being broadcast in real time on international news channels — or powerless to control them.

Amnesty International accused the Burmese leader of “burying her head in the sand”, while Human Rights Watch said her assertion that 50 per cent of Rakhine’s Muslim villages were intact after the violence amounted to a “failing grade”.

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In her speech, Myanmar’s leader likened her country to a human body, urging the international community to address it and its problems as a whole, and “not just little afflicted areas”. She said: “It is as a whole only that we can make progress.”

Taking Myanmar as a whole, there are signs that suggest the patient is in a poor state indeed — and some of this is due to factors within her control. Local and foreign observers of Myanmar’s leader, including some who have known her for years, say she is a centralising micromanager who is failing to deliver on several counts.

After a growth spurt that accompanied a surge of inward investment amid the initial steps to democracy, the economy has slowed.

“Either she’s not letting them [her advisers] do their jobs, or she’s not listening to them,” says Khin Zaw Win, an analyst and former political prisoner. “She is obstinate, very self-centred, and undemocratic, but people worship her.”

When Aung San Suu Kyi took power last year after a landslide victory for her National League for Democracy, her administration faced a daunting agenda: calls to reform the 2008 constitution that gives the military the upper hand over civilian governments; pressure for federalism from restive border regions; the need to retool an economy stunted by five decades of isolation.

She took office in the new role of state counsellor because her foreign family members bar her from the presidency. She took three other ministerial jobs, foreign affairs, education and energy, but has since relinquished control over the last two.

Myanmar’s leader put her primary emphasis on a peace process meant to continue the legacy of her father, the Independence leader Aung San, and resolve decades-old insurgencies with minority groups in states that fringe Myanmar’s largely Buddhist, Burmese-speaking heartland. The Rohingya issue is not part of that process.

On the economy, the government claims to have notched up some achievements: bringing down inflation and the budget deficit, and taking a tough line on official graft that was rampant under the former military regime.

“They have been absolutely serious about corruption, especially at the high levels,” says Sean Turnell, an Australian academic who is advising the state counsellor’s administration.

At the central and state government level, however, Aung San Suu Kyi was saddled with a legacy of bureaucrats who served the old regime. In choosing her own ministers, businesspeople and diplomats say she has prioritised loyalty and opposition credentials over fresh blood or real-world experience in areas such as business or law.

“The average age of the executive leadership is pretty high, which means they come with a socialist mindset,” says one international banker active in Myanmar. “She has gone for people who she believes are loyal to her and not corrupt, but the pace of economic reform has suffered because the executive leadership is weak and the bureaucracy is loyal to the former government.”

Because of her long exile, then 15 years under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi is herself strikingly short on basic work experience — apart from a junior UN job she held as a young woman.

The new administration’s limited skills base, combined with the tough line the “Lady” is taking on corruption, has made some ministers either unequipped to tackle spending projects or loath to promote them for fear of accusations of being on the take.

“They don’t have any data sources to evolve policy, so they aren’t very confident making decisions,” says Aung Tun, a consultant to international development agencies in Yangon.

Meanwhile, civil society groups and Myanmar’s Muslim community, who make up about 4 per cent of the population, have criticised Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration for doing little to calm the country’s sectarian tensions.

Myanmar saw deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2013, before her administration took power, and some worry that violence could recur in the event of a bombing or other attack inside the country by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, the militant group whose attacks on police posts and an army base last month prompted the brutal crackdown.

The Burma Human Rights Network this month published research saying that conditions for the Rohingya had worsened in the four years since, and alleged “ongoing systematic persecution” of Muslims well into the current period of pseudo-civilian rule, including a sharp rise in villages erecting signs declaring themselves “Muslim-free”.

“They need some kind of action against ultranationalist groups, who are very dangerous for the transition process,” says Aung Ko Ko, head of Mosaic Myanmar, a civil society group that promotes tolerance between Buddhists and minority Muslims and Christians.

The de facto leader has called for tolerance but in last week’s speech (as in past ones) used cautious language that did not refer to specific religious or ethnic groups, presumably to avoid estranging ethnic Bamar Buddhists, who form the core of her support.

Some observers of Aung San Suu Kyi say the assumptions underpinning western support were flawed from the beginning: the outside world put too much faith in a figure with the instincts of an old-school Asian dynastic leader.

Even so, they say she is Myanmar’s best hope for now. “We’d be really dumb to throw away the democratic transition in Burma over the situation in Rakhine, over which she has very little control,” says a senior diplomat in Yangon.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s supporters believe she is being judged too harshly given her lack of influence over the military. “The context of our country’s situation is different from other countries around the world,” says U Nyan Win, a senior official with the NLD in Yangon. “We can’t control what’s happening on the ground, especially in battle zones.”

Members of the leader’s circle, speaking privately, say the outside world — in pressuring her to speak out more forcefully on Rakhine — is underestimating the fragility of the democratic transition in Myanmar, where the military could still retake power.

However, others discount this, pointing out that the military already has enough real power, not to mention the economic benefits from companies they control. The question is whether the crisis will deliver a blow to investor confidence, already shaky to start with.

Aung Tun Lin, chair of the Myanmar Tourist Guides Association, says foreign tour groups have cancelled roughly 15-20 per cent of pre-booked tours due to what he describes as “fake news” about Rakhine. His group says tourism brings more than $2bn annually in revenues, or 3 per cent of gross domestic product.

Business people say the crisis could also dent foreign investment. “You wanted to make a $100m investment in Myanmar?” says a western executive in Yangon. “In your annual report, you’re going to have to defend that position.”However, most multinationals were steering clear of Myanmar. The biggest foreign investors have been from China, Japan and other Asian countries, most of which have hesitated to criticise the military campaign.

“In terms of economics, the effects won’t be as great as people expect,” says Mr Turnell, the adviser. “Western investment mostly hasn’t been here anyway.”

The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide

September 30, 2017

Book Review:

The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide

by James T Davies@www.newmandala.org

 

Newborn babies crushed under the weight of a soldier’s heavy boot. Children having their throats slit as they try to protect their mothers from rape by security forces. Women and girls facing rape or sexual assault and humiliation. The elderly and infirm burnt alive in their homes. 1,000 killed and another 75,000 displaced to Bangladesh. These atrocities were documented in a disturbing February 2017 United Nations report which concluded that they are ‘very likely to amount to crimes against humanity. More recently, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Yanghee Lee has named them ‘definite crimes against humanity’.

The most recent reports have not emerged in a vacuum. In 2015, the Yale Law School found ‘strong evidence of genocide against the Rohingya’. The same year, the International State Crime Initiative from the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London concluded that genocide was taking place in Myanmar. In 2013, Human Rights Watch identified crimes against the Rohingya which it argued amounted to ethnic cleansing.

The government of Myanmar has denied this charge. U Win Htein, a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s now more than one year old National League for Democracy (NLD) government, rejects claims of crimes against humanity, and says this is an internal affair that has been exaggerated. This rhetoric is eerily close to that of the previous governments that the NLD vowed departure from.

Certainly, this is not a popular concern domestically. The Rohingya are not recognised in Myanmar, and are instead called Bengali. Their history in Rakhine State and rights to citizenship are heated issues of contention. While the NLD has appointed several commissions to investigate the situation in Rakhine State, they are lacking either the mandate or capacity to deal with the situation that has arisen since October 2016.

Given this, there is a need for an accessible publication which brings together the complex history and discussion of the increasingly brutal persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar today. Unfortunately, Azeem Ibrahim’s The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide is not that book. Instead it is hastily written and poorly considered, offering an inaccurate rehashing of history, no new arguments and a failure to engage with current debates.

A large section of the book summarises convenient arguments from the contentious debate over the origins of the Muslim community in Rakhine State and the Rohingya ethnic label, despite recognising that the discussion is peripheral. There are numerous factual errors throughout not just this section but the whole book, such as the claim that most rulers of the Arakanese Mrauk U dynasty were Muslim (p. 24). There are other claims which would be significant if any evidence was provided. Rather, unreferenced passages assert that the 1784 Burmese invasion of Arakan was ‘in part as there were so many Muslims in Arakan’ (p. 65); and that the British never used the term ‘Rohingya’ in their records because the administration was in the habit of categorising the population by religion, not ethnicity (p. 31) — the latter simply an untenable statement. Errors such as these are surprising, given the author’s extensive academic qualifications.

There is little discussion of genocide before the reader arrives at the chapter devoted to the topic. Here, we find that the book is not actually arguing that there is genocide underway, but that the Rohingya are ‘on the brink of genocide’ (p. 99).

While invoking the term genocide is sure to attract interest, the discussion is lacking in depth. The 2015 Yale Law School report noted, significantly, that it was difficult to establish intent for genocide on the part of the Myanmar state. However, this book does not engage with this report or the question of intent, despite it being crucial to any allegation of genocide. Instead, outcome appears to be equated with intent. The overwhelming focus on the crime of genocide could perhaps have been substituted with a discussion of other crimes against humanity in relation to the Rohingya, as noted by the UN and others.

One of the most striking flaws of the book is its failure to consider Rakhine perspectives. This is reflected not only in the considerable confusion and misinformation about contemporary Rakhine political parties (p. 121). The author appears to have spent very little time in either Rakhine State or Yangon, and not to have consulted the Rakhine communities who have long lived alongside the Rohingya. In a chapter devoted to solutions there is little mention of the Rakhine, despite the fact that any resolution must include both communities. Instead, solutions offered refer primarily to international pressure, reflecting the publication’s target audience.

In this respect, the book makes an important point about the failure of the international community to address this issue. Western governments’ vision of what is occurring in Myanmar has been blurred by their ‘indulgence’ of Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD, the book argues (p. 133). There is a reluctance to pressure her government, which was hailed in the US as a foreign policy success of the Obama administration. Ibrahim pushes back both against the argument that Aung San Suu Kyi is doing her best as well as claims that the plight of the Rohingya is a hiccup to be expected during a difficult transition from military rule to democracy. The book rightly notes that such a perspective flies in the face of evidence that Aung San Suu Kyi has proved herself unwilling to show leadership and to prioritise the Rohingya issue — and that ultimately she must hold responsibility.

Therefore, the book argues, international pressure is going to be crucial for the Rohingya. We are told via a ‘Media Pack’ on Ibrahim’s website that he has an address book to rival a Prime Minister’s. If the book serves to bring attention to this desperate situation, then it may redeem itself somewhat.

James T Davies is a PhD candidate researching Myanmar at UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

 

The Public Prosecutor, Politics and the Rule of Law

September 30, 2017

by Walter Woon For The Straits Times

http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/the-public-prosecutor-politics-and-the-rule-of-law

Former Attorney-General of Singapore Walter Woon and the brilliant Ambassador at Large Tommy Koh

The Attorney-General occupies the hottest legal seat in Singapore. This is because the Attorney-General is the public prosecutor. Under Article 35(8) of the Constitution, the Attorney-General “shall have power, exercisable at his discretion, to institute, conduct or discontinue any proceedings for any offence”.

In recent times, we have seen the President of a country, which is not shy about wagging its finger at others while lecturing about the rule of law, threatening to remove prosecutors and special counsel when investigations cut too close to the bone for comfort.

Closer to home, there has also been loose chatter online and off that question the Attorney-General’s decisions to prosecute. This is based on a misunderstanding of the Attorney-General’s function as public prosecutor. Ignorant criticism is unfair to the Attorney-General and his officers. Misinformation, deliberate or otherwise, erodes confidence in the system of justice.

It is necessary first to understand the nature of prosecutorial discretion. As a preliminary matter, a distinction must be made between a prosecution and a civil suit. When a person defames someone else, for instance, the “injured” party (the plaintiff) may seek compensation by means of a civil suit.

The public prosecutor is not involved in this. The commencement of civil litigation is a matter solely for the plaintiff. No one can stop him from suing. If he wins, he gets compensation (which does not have to be a substantial sum). If he loses, he pays the defendant’s costs.

Criminal defamation is an offence under the Penal Code. It is up to the Attorney-General to decide whether or not to lay charges. This is termed a prosecution, in contrast to civil proceedings. The object is not to obtain compensation for an injured party but rather to protect society’s interests by imposing some sort of punishment, often as a deterrent to others.

As provided in the Constitution, the Attorney-General has discretion over this. The accused person (defendant) and the injured party (complainant) are not involved in the decision. The defendant might tender an apology and offer to pay damages to the complainant, but the public prosecutor may decide to press on regardless if he thinks that there is a public-interest issue involved. The complainant cannot “drop the charges”, contrary to popular misconception.

Not every offence is prosecuted in court. If it were mandatory to prosecute every time an offence is committed, the courts would be jam-packed with jaywalkers and litterbugs. This is where prosecutorial discretion comes in. The public prosecutor can decide whether or not to prosecute. The question is, on what grounds?

It is obviously not possible for the Attorney-General to look at every individual file to decide whether to prosecute.

In practice, that is left to deputy public prosecutors (DPPs). There are currently two prosecution divisions in the Attorney-General’s Chambers: the Criminal Justice Division, and the Financial and Technology Crime Division. The legal officers posted to these two divisions are designated DPPs.

Generally, investigatory agencies (for example, the Central Narcotics Bureau, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, the police, to name a few) send investigation papers to one of the prosecution divisions. A junior DPP will then make recommendations as to whether charges should be laid, and, if so, what charges. The recommendations are considered by more senior DPPs -the heads of the various directorates, the chief prosecutor of the division, the Solicitor-General, the Deputy Attorney-General. The most serious cases end up on the desk of the Attorney-General, where the buck stops. In most cases, however, the buck stops far down the line from the Attorney-General.

Steps towards prosecution

In deciding whether or not to prosecute, there are, in general, four steps:

•Step 1: Find out what happened. This is the job of the investigatory agencies. It is the stuff of novels, TV and films. The DPP can ask for clarifications or further investigation.

•Step 2: Ascertain if an offence has been committed and, if so, what offence. This is a legal question – it is the reason DPPs have to go through four years or more of law school. Laypersons are seldom, if ever, qualified to appreciate the intricacies of Singapore criminal law.

•Step 3: Can the elements of the offence be proven in court? The prosecution must prove the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt. It is not for the accused to prove his innocence.

At Step 3, the DPP has to decide whether there is enough evidence that will stand up in court. It is often possible to piece together what happened with a fair degree of certainty. However, there are cases where witnesses will refuse to testify in open court. In other cases, a witness may implicate others when questioned, but when it comes to actually testifying, he will have an attack of selective amnesia.

If the DPP thinks that the witnesses cannot be relied on, the prosecution will probably be dropped. If he decides to carry on, there is a chance that the judge may not be convinced beyond reasonable doubt. In that case, the defendant is acquitted.

Again, contrary to popular misconception, a verdict of “not guilty” is not synonymous with “innocent”. In some cases, it just means that there is a reasonable doubt. Thus, for instance, in a rape case the man may contend that the “victim” consented. The woman may be equally vehement in denying that she did consent. If the judge cannot be sure, then the accused is found “not guilty”, even though it may, in fact, have been rape.

Assuming that we have got past Steps 1, 2 and 3, the final step is: Should there be a prosecution at all?

The writer notes that the Attorney-General of Singapore has two roles: first, that of the Government’s legal adviser and, second, public prosecutor. ST FILE PHOTO

Prosecute or not prosecute

The public prosecutor must decide whether it is in the public interest that the matter should be laid before a judge in open court. He has discretion over this.

This is where the biggest problems arise. For good or ill, the public prosecutor must make a judgment call. There are many reasons why a decision may be taken not to prosecute.

The offence may be a trivial one, not worth tying up prosecutorial and judicial resources over. A person who drops torn-off tabs from parking coupons on the ground may be guilty beyond reasonable doubt of an offence but, in most cases, this will not end up in court. Composition fines may be imposed instead.

Sometimes, the prosecutor may decide that the accused should be given a second chance. For example, if two teenagers are caught having consensual sex, this is an offence if the girl is under 16 years of age. But would it be in the public interest to prosecute a 17-year-old boy for having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend?

The prosecutor may (note, “may”, not “will”) decide that, under the circumstances, a conditional warning is better. If the boy does not heed the warning and repeats the offence, he will be prosecuted for the previous offence as well as the new one. But if he mends his ways, then there is no prosecution.

When Politics may cloud the picture

Politically charged cases are often a source of controversy.

Suppose that an opposition politician is charged with deliberate incitement of racial unrest. It is a given that his supporters will scream that the prosecution is politically motivated.

When one analyses the issue dispassionately, if the accused is indeed guilty of deliberately inflaming racial feelings, it does not matter whether the decision to prosecute is politically motivated. But the fact that it is perceived to be so undermines the credibility of the public prosecutor, especially if ruling party politicians are not similarly treated.

The public is not stupid. People have a sense of justice. That sense is outraged if double standards are practised – a lenient one for the rich and politically influential, a stricter one for ordinary persons and the strictest one for oppositionists. The public prosecutor has to maintain a scrupulous neutrality so as to avoid being accused of partiality.

Take a purely hypothetical example: Say that a powerful minister is accused of embezzling a substantial sum of money from a government-linked company. How does he avoid retribution? Bribing judges is risky – this can backfire spectacularly. Interfering with investigations is more promising, but in the age of social media, this may not stop the process. The best bet is to nobble the prosecutor.

There are many ways to pressure the public prosecutor. In some places, the threats are physical. I attended a conference of prosecutors in Canada some years ago. Several of my colleagues said that they carried guns for protection. One colleague from a Caribbean country did not even live there – his life would have been worth nothing in his home country.

But physical threats are crude. There are better ways.

The favoured way, as seen in some countries elsewhere, is to appoint as Attorney-General someone who can be counted on to bend when pressure is applied. If the Attorney-General decides that charges will not be laid, no one can challenge that decision. Not even the Chief Justice can compel him to prosecute, legally and practically.

So the question is: What can be done to strengthen the system? We accept it as a given that judges should be politically neutral and not take instructions from politicians.

I would argue that the same must hold true for the public prosecutor. Indeed, one should remember that if the public prosecutor declines to prosecute, the case will never reach a judge, even if there has been a blatant breach of the law.

Two Roles of the A-G

Many people mistakenly think that the Attorney-General is part of the political executive. This may have been so in colonial days, but under our present Constitution, it is not so.

Unlike in many other countries, the Attorney-General of Singapore is not a party politician or a member of the Cabinet. This mistake arises because the Attorney-General has two roles: first, that of the Government’s legal adviser and, second, public prosecutor.

When giving advice on civil cases by or against the Government, on legislation, on matters of international law, the Attorney-General is the Government’s Attorney-General. He is obliged to defer to the Cabinet when it comes to issues pertaining to civil litigation, international law and the drafting of legislation. If he is instructed to fight a case, he must follow his client’s instructions just like any other lawyer, even if he thinks the case cannot be won or that it is ill-advised.

But when it comes to his role as public prosecutor, the Attorney-General is not the Government’s Attorney-General. He is given discretion over prosecutions by the Constitution. It cannot be the case that he should just prosecute if a senior minister wants that to be done.

The rule of law is not the natural state of human society. For most of history, in most societies, the system has been rule by the powerful. The rule of law cannot be imposed by force or governmental decree. Citizens must accept it and actively cooperate in upholding it. Prosecutions are a tangible manifestation of the rule of law.

When the prosecutorial machinery is abused for political ends, ordinary citizens’ faith in the rule of law is shaken. If people do not believe that the system is fair, they will subvert it. Building a society based on the rule of law takes a generation and more – tearing it down can be the work of a single electoral term.

A quick look at the state of the world will show that pressure on prosecutors is common, even in countries that consider themselves to be shining examples of the rule of law.

It is foolish to wait until a hurricane hits you to strengthen your roof. Fix it now, when the sun is shining and the dark clouds have not gathered.

If one accepts the premise that the public prosecutor should be independent, the first step is to separate the two functions of the Attorney-General. As the Government’s legal adviser, he must take instructions from the Cabinet, whatever his own judgment may be. Take this function away from the Attorney-General. Give it to the Solicitor-General, for example. The three non-prosecution divisions of the Attorney-General’s Chambers – civil, legislation and international affairs – can come under the Solicitor-General or whoever is designated as the Government’s legal adviser.

The prosecutorial function should be left with the Attorney-General, who would have the two prosecution divisions in his charge. It is necessary for the Attorney-General to be the public prosecutor. A certain stature is required to resist politicians, foreign diplomats, domestic pressure groups and non-governmental organisations, not to mention the assorted people who try to influence prosecutions. In the legal hierarchy, the Attorney-General ranks immediately after the Chief Justice.

The next question is: Who should appoint the Attorney-General? At present, the Constitution provides that the Attorney-General is appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister. The President does not have to accept the Prime Minister’s advice, which is the major safeguard against blatant abuse by appointing a political hack to the post.

Since the President has an independent mandate from the people and constitutional discretion, he (or she) should be the one to make the decision, ideally in consultation with the Chief Justice and the incumbent Attorney-General. This will ensure that, optically, the Attorney-General is not seen to be a political creature of the ruling party.

This is a vital consideration. All too often, when someone who opposes government policy is prosecuted, accusations will be made of political motivations.

Even where it is clear that the accused has broken the law (for example, by making a nuisance of himself in public), there will always be those who will say that the Government is trying to silence the opposition.

People posing as human rights activists will attract the knee-jerk support of foreign human rightists. Prosecute a journalist or blogger for insulting religions and you can be sure that there will be howls at home and from abroad about political persecution and restriction of freedom of speech.

These criticisms will be flung even if the Attorney-General has acted in good faith and the politicians have scrupulously avoided trying to influence him. This is grossly unfair to the Attorney-General and his officers, not to mention the politicians themselves. If the public prosecutor is truly independent and seen to be so, it will go a long way towards refuting such criticisms.

Finally, the Attorney-General’s term of office should be long enough to be useful. The Constitution originally envisaged that the Attorney-General would serve until the age of 60.

This provision was amended to allow the appointment of an Attorney-General for a fixed term. The norm in recent years has been two to three years.

Frequent changes of the Attorney-General are disruptive and not good for the morale of the DPPs. Different attorneys-general have different views about how prosecutorial discretion should be exercised. For the sake of stability, I would suggest a five-year term, renewable by the President at his or her discretion.

Some may ask, why change the system at all? If one believes that all is well and that the system will not buckle in future under the pressure of an unscrupulous powerful executive , then fine, don’t change anything.

But if the system can be abused, then the right thing to do is to address the weakness before it does become a problem. A quick look at the state of the world will show that pressure on prosecutors is common, even in countries that consider themselves to be shining examples of the rule of law.

It is foolish to wait until a hurricane hits you to strengthen your roof. Fix it now, when the sun is shining and the dark clouds have not gathered.

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• The writer, a Senior Counsel, is a former Nominated MP who was also attorney-general and public prosecutor of Singapore from 2008 to 2010.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on September 29, 2017, with the headline ‘The public prosecutor, politics and the rule of law’. Print Edition

 

Beware of Religious Zealots of All Stripes–Not The Christian Threat

September 29, 2017

Beware of Religious Zealots of All Stripes–Not  Christian Threat

I have retitled Ambassador Dennis Ignatius’ article . The reason is that the subject of his article is not only of the perceived threat of Christianity (and Christmas) but also of religion and politics. It is about the present state of relations between Malaysians of the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and  others, and Malaysian Muslims.

Hannah Yeoh is not the only one to be brutalised. We have just read about the treatment of Mustafa Akyol, a scholar, author and researcher who is a Muslim, by JAWI (read my post on this blog).

Ambassador Ignatius is right to point the finger at our Prime Minister who has been playing the religion card for his political advantage. His tacit endorsement of Islamic zealots and open endorsement of Indian preacher Zakir Naik has produced a reaction from members of other faiths. As a result,  he created a climate of fear of the other. He has, of course, done a lot more so that we have become a nation divided along racial and religious lines. He should stop stoking the flames of bigotry and racism before he loses control and bring irreparable harm to the soul of our country. Our Prime Minister should emulate HRH Sultan of Johor.–Din Merican

 

By Dennis Ignatius @www.freemalaysiatoday.com

Yet again, a Muslim group is raising the specter of a Christian threat to the security of the nation and the position of Islam in Malaysia.

A group of NGOs led by Jaringan Muslimin Pulau Pinang (JMPP) is demanding that the police investigate a “seditious” video by a foreign pastor which they claim would incite local Christians to start their own jihad to take over the country. The group also claims that references to “building the Kingdom of God” were somehow a sinister plot against Islam.

In addition, the group gormlessly regurgitated baseless allegations that Hannah Yeoh, the Speaker of the Selangor State Assembly and arguably Malaysia’s most prominent Christian, is using her book Becoming Hannah to spread Christianity and cause confusion among Muslims.

I wouldn’t be surprised if her book makes it to the Guinness Book of Records for having attracted the most number of police reports in the world.

Lost in translation

Admittedly, Christian phraseology does not often translate well in non-church settings and can give rise to misunderstanding.

“Invading” a country with the presence of God or building the “Kingdom of God”, for example, might sound ominous even though it simply means to pray that God’s presence and godly values will fill the land. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a physical invasion or a call to wage war against non-Christians. Similarly, the Kingdom of God has nothing to do with acquiring political sovereignty.

Christians certainly need to be more sensitive about how their phraseology might be perceived in a pluralistic culture, particularly when everything these days quickly ends up on social media. It might help, as well, if Christians are more judicious in what they put out on social media; not everything needs to be broadcast to the whole world.

Notwithstanding this, however, only the most delusional, irrational or obtuse would actually believe that Christians are planning an armed invasion or plotting to overthrow the government.

Becoming confused

As for Hannah’s book, as far as I know, Hannah has not encouraged Muslims to read her book and neither has she promoted it among Muslims. In fact, the vast majority of Muslims in the country would never have even heard about Hannah’s book if extremist groups had not created a fuss about it.

There are, in fact, thousands of Christian books, videos and articles available in Malaysia and, of course, millions more on the internet. That JMPP would single out the book by Hannah, who also happens to be a DAP politician, suggests that their motives are more political than religious.

In any case, it is simply asinine to blame Hannah, or any other author for that matter, if some confused and insecure person somewhere feels threatened by a book. Going by that kind of logic, we would have to close bookstores and shut down the internet just to ensure that no one gets confused. Or, perhaps, to let them remain confused and unable to think for themselves.

A spiritual matter

JMPP and its fellow travelers might also want to note that Malaysian Christians have always eschewed violence. We don’t go around threatening to attack those who don’t agree with us, burn down their places of worship or rowdily demonstrate against religious events we don’t like.We don’t resort to guns and swords because our struggle is purely spiritual. Our “weapons” are prayer and intercession, the kind you use on your knees before God rather than with your fists raised in anger.

Like other Malaysians, we love our nation and we want to see peace, justice, good governance, integrity and godly values prevail. We pray for the prosperity and success of our nation and for all its citizens. We pray constantly for our rulers, our prime minister, for the government and for the security forces too, because our Bible demands it of us.

And we try to reach out to all who are in need and defend the rights of the persecuted and marginalized irrespective of race or religion. Many Christians, including Pope Francis and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have, for example, spoken out forcefully against the persecution of the Rohingya. In Malaysia, churches and Christian NGOs are also in the forefront of caring for refugees and other disadvantaged groups.

Rising intolerance

Of late, our nation has witnessed increasing incidents of racial and religious intolerance that threaten our very existence as a plural society. Unfortunately, intolerance and extremism appear to enjoy the tacit approval of some politicians and officials.

Every time the lalang moves somewhere in the country, PAS, for example, immediately seems to conclude that it is part of some Christian conspiracy against Islam and jumps into exploiting it for maximum publicity and political mileage.

A few months ago, they went to town on a church event in Malacca. Using highly provocative and inflammatory language, they accused the church concerned of challenging the sensitivities of Muslims and of conspiring with Zionist interests to target Malaysia. They went so far as to call on the ummah “to rise before it’s too late” as if Malaysia was on the verge of being invaded.

Even Special Branch plays to this sort of anti-Christian messaging by participating in Muslim-only seminars that discuss the so-called Christian threat. And this at a time when real jihadists and terrorists are threatening our security and well-being.

UMNO-PAS partnership will result in a talibanisation of a liberal, open and inclusive Malaysia

 

Whatever it is, those who make much of the Christian threat ignore the obvious reality: after nearly 500 years of Christianity in Malaysia, after decades of educating countless millions of Malaysians of all faiths and all walks of life in Christian schools, Malaysia remains as Muslim as ever.

Clearly, groups like JMPP do their fellow Muslims an enormous disservice when they make them out to be weak, vulnerable and frivolous in their faith. Let me suggest, if I may be permitted to, that Muslims in Malaysia are a lot more resilient than they are given credit for.

The only ones who appear to profit from all the scaremongering are the politicians and the extremists who cynically exploit religion for their own nefarious ends to the detriment of all Malaysians.

A leadership vacuum

Thankfully, Christians in Malaysia, unlike Christians in the Middle East, do not have to stand alone. It is heartening that several moderate Muslim NGOs and leaders are challenging the rising tide of extremism and intolerance in our land.

What’s missing, however, is leadership from the government itself. The Prime Minister, in particular, has allowed things to drift for too long. His silence, indifference even, on many of these sensitive issues has created a leadership vacuum which fringe groups and extremists, including some from his own party, are now rushing to fill. His abdication of responsibility only allows sensitive issues to fester and infect our society as a whole.

Each day, our values, culture, politics, and religion are being reshaped and redefined by extremists; the longer it goes on, the harder it will be to get back on track again.

HRH Sultan of Johor has shown what inspired leadership can do in curbing extremism and intolerance. By firmly and decisively taking a stand on intolerance in his state, overruling even his own religious officials, he quickly nipped a dangerous trend in the bud.

Little wonder why Johoreans, and a great many other Malaysians as well, look up to him. If only all our politicians would follow his courageous example.

Dennis Ignatius is a former ambassador.

Well Done, Tian Chua, for Standing Up for What is Right

September 29, 2017

Tian Chua jailed a month after withdrawing appeal

 by Ho Kit Yen

Batu MP tells the Court of Appeal that he is ready to go to jail in order to highlight the wrongs of the government.

 In an unexpected move, Batu MP Tian Chua today withdrew his final appeal against his conviction and one-month jail sentence for refusing to obey a police order to leave a restricted area following the Bersih 3 rally in 2012.

Going to Jail for Justice–Tian Chua, Vice President, Parti KeADILan Rakyat–Lawan Tetap Lawan

Addressing the three-man panel led by Justice Mohtaruddin Baki at the Court of Appeal today, Tian Chua said he had decided to discharge his lawyer, N Surendran, and was ready to go to jail.

He said in his statement to the court that he had been arrested along with 500 other people during the Bersih rally on April 28, 2012, and sent to the Police Training Centre (Pulapol), which was a restricted area.

“I was not charged with taking part in an illegal assembly but in connection with my presence in Pulapol,” he said, adding that he had been detained in the police training academy that day.

“My lords, in my opinion, it is an absurdity to penalise me for being in Pulapol’s compound in a situation in which I was brought against my will.

“Subsequently, I was convicted by the Sessions Court and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment and fined RM1,000,” he said.

Tian Chua said he had participated in the Bersih rallies as part of the struggle for a fairer and better Malaysia. He added that he and other Malaysians wanted change, and a better world where justice, liberty and fairness are upheld.

“We want to speak up freely and share our thoughts openly without fear, as this is our right guaranteed under the Federal Constitution.If the price for changing this repressive and corrupt system is to go to prison, I shall say I am more than ready to accept.”

Tian Chua added that accepting his custodial sentence was not an admission of wrongdoing but rather an effort to highlight the wrongs of the government.

After hearing his statement, Justice Mohtaruddin along with Justices Zakaria Sam and Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil struck out his appeal and ordered Tian Chua to serve his one-month sentence from today.

Tian Chua was seen shaking hands with his fellow PKR members and Bersih 2.0 Chairman Maria Chin Abdullah before he was escorted to the court’s detention room.

In an immediate response, PKR President Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said she was taken aback by her Vice-President’s decision. “He was inclined to tell us about his decision yesterday,” she told reporters outside the court.

Last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court upheld the Session Court’s 2014 decision to fine and jail Tian Chua for refusing a police order to leave the Pulapol premises.

The court ruled that the conviction was safe, even though the written judgment from the late trial judge Mahmud Abdullah was not signed or dated.

“The disputed judgment did not create any prejudice against him.The unsigned judgment’s irregularity can be cured by Section 422 of Criminal Procedure Code,” said Justice Nordin Hassan, who heard Tian Chua’s appeal.

Mahmud, who died in May 2014, had only delivered an oral decision on the matter.

Justice Nordin said the judgment was nonetheless valid as the PKR Vice-President’s case had gone through a full trial.

Tian Chua was found guilty of refusing an order from DSP A Rajagopal to leave the Pulapol area on Jalan Semarak at 2.30am on April 29, 2012, a day after the Bersih rally.

Police said Pulapol was listed as a protected area according to the Protected Areas Order (No 2) 1975.

On May 15 that same year, Tian Chua was charged under Section 4(2) of the Protected Areas and Protected Places Act 1959 for allegedly disobeying police orders by refusing to leave Pulapol after his release.

During his original trial, Tian Chua testified that he was not aware that the zone he had entered was restricted from the public, adding that he only discovered this after he was charged with the offence.

This is Tian Chua’s second conviction in 2016. He was also fined RM1,800 and jailed for three months by another Sessions Court on Sept 28, for making seditious statements during a forum four years ago.

Earlier this year, he was fined RM3,000 by the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court for insulting a police officer using vulgar words, three years ago.

He risks losing his qualification to stand in the general election if he cannot reduce his RM3,000 fine.

This is according to Article 48 of the Federal Constitution, which disqualifies a person from being an MP for five years should the elected representative be convicted and sentenced to more than one year in jail, or fined more than RM2,000.