A year since victory, can Mahathir run Malaysia’s economy without blaming Najib or ‘1MDB mess’?

Slumping investor confidence in Malaysia has put the issue of economic management right at the prime minister’s feet, and he cannot keep blaming slowed progress on his disgraced predecessor Najib Razak, experts say

This is the first of a four-part series on Malaysian politics a year on from the Pakatan Harapan coalition’s historic election victory on May 9, 2018

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 9:15am, 27 Apr 2019Updated: 11:18am, 9 May 2019

“It won’t be a celebration, more of a reflection.”

That is how a senior member of Malaysia’s government described the televised speech Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is expected to deliver on May 9, the first anniversary of the Pakatan Harapan coalition’s stunning election win.

The government official said the address – yet to be publicised – would be billed as a “state-of-the-union type of speech” and would list the administration’s successes since it toppled the Barisan Nasional bloc that had dominated the country’s politics for six decades.

Among the achievements that the 93-year-old comeback prime minister is expected to coo about is his government’s swift action over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB corruption scandal – including the 42 criminal charges levelled against his deposed predecessor Najib Razak, a one-time protégé.

But with one leading think tank on Friday reporting the government’s approval rating had plunged to 39 per cent from 67 per cent last August, some humble pie will have to be eaten too, according to Mahathir’s critics as well as his lieutenants.

The top question the administration is battling is whether it has the economic management chops to steward Southeast Asia’s third largest economy.