Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak vested with sweeping new security powers as backlash over 1MDB scandal intensifies

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak will get sweeping security powers on Monday amid planned protests calling for his resignation over US allegations that millions of dollars from a state fund wound up in his personal bank account.

The new National Security Council (NSC) Act, which comes into force on August 1, allows Najib to designate any area as a “security area”, where he can deploy forces to search any individual, vehicle or premise without a warrant. It also allows investigators to dispense with formal inquests into killings by the police or armed forces in those areas.

Najib’s ruling coalition promoted the law as a means to counter threats to security in predominantly Muslim Malaysia, which has long dealt with a fringe element of radical Islamists. But critics say the law’s expansive powers threaten human rights and democracy in the middle-income emerging nation, and could now be used to silence critics of the One Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund scandal.

“The concern among the civil society and others is because the NSC Act can be used against anything that the government is unhappy with,” said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, adding that it could extend to public rallies. “It does give the PM a huge amount of power.”

The law was passed on the last day of the legislation session in December, surprising the opposition, as Najib came under mounting criticism over the multibillion-dollar scandal surrounding the 1MDB fund, which he founded and whose advisory council he chaired until recently.

The law was enacted without the customary royal assent from Malaysia’s king, who had asked for some changes.