Happy Deepavali to all who are celebrating, and happy holidays to the rest of us.
It’s a long weekend, so travel safe, eat merrily and enjoy the festivities.
Today’s newsletter is about Najib Razak. Quite apt, because of all the key minority blocs, the Indians are the ones he charmed most.
For a long time no one took them seriously. Unlike the Chinese, they couldn’t swing a result on their own, least of all at a general election, or so the reasoning went.
Then someone noticed they were no longer a fixed deposit for Pakatan Harapan. And that, hey, every vote actually counts.
Now everyone’s scrambling for them.
So here’s to the most politically fluid minority in the country, or at least in the peninsula.
Ah, and there’s a small group of Chinese Malaysians who count themselves Hindu, so season’s greetings to them too.
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Last week’s hottest story has to be Najib Razak’s house arrest.
The former PM was all set to leave Kajang prison and spend the rest of his incarceration at his mansion in Kuala Lumpur.
Umno pulled off the RM50 million raise needed to pay the fine that would let their former commander-in-chief go.
How exactly they pulled it off remains a mystery.
And there’s really no point asking for receipts because we never did put political financing front and centre.
But just as Najib was leaving, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) put a pause on the arrangement, asking for clarification on what the pardon, and the court order that followed, actually mean in law.
This despite Anwar’s government gazetting Najib’s posh mansion as a prison.
Malaysia’s Agong, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, was not amused.
The palace issued a statement that any argument disputing his decree verged on defying the King’s command.
All in all, we are watching a chain of events that could easily make for a constitutional crisis.