Najib Razak

Najib Razak (born July 23, 1953, Kuala Lipis, Malaysia) is a Malaysian politician who served as prime minister of Malaysia from 2009 to 2018.

Najib was born into a political family; his father, Abdul Razak, was Malaysia’s prime minister from 1970 to 1976, and his uncle, Hussein Onn, was prime minister from 1976 to 1981. Najib attended school in Kuala Lumpur before completing his education in the United Kingdom. There he earned an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Nottingham. He returned to Malaysia in 1974 and worked for Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas), the national petroleum corporation. Upon the death of his father in 1976, Najib was elected to take his father’s place in the lower house of parliament.

Early in his parliamentary career, Najib smoothed relations between the government and the hereditary ruling class in the Pahang region, and he was seen as one of the rising stars within the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). He served in a number of cabinet ministries, including two terms as minister of defense (1991–95 and 1999–2004), and he was appointed deputy prime minister in 2004. At a party congress on March 26, 2009, Najib was elected leader of UMNO, preparing the way for the transfer of power from Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Najib was sworn in as prime minister on April 3, 2009, and became head of the ruling UMNO-dominated National Front (Barisan Nasional; BN) coalition. Although he had once embraced fiercely pro-Malay sentiments, his language softened over time, and he stated that one of his goals as prime minister would be to ensure fair treatment of all ethnic groups within Malaysia. In the May 2013 general election, the BN lost the popular vote but still managed to win the most parliamentary seats, and Najib retained the office of prime minister.

Najib’s support eroded after he enacted a hugely unpopular 6 percent tax on goods and services in April 2015. Later that year he became implicated in a corruption scandal involving 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a Malaysian state-owned investment fund. Separate investigations launched by Swiss and U.S. authorities determined that an estimated $3.5 billion had been embezzled from 1MDB and laundered through various channels. The U.S. Department of Justice’s anti-kleptocracy unit sought to recover $1 billion in assets linked to the scandal, the largest asset recovery operation in the organization’s history. Malaysian authorities confirmed that “Malaysian Official 1,” an unnamed individual referenced extensively in court filings, was in fact Najib.

Mahathir bin Mohamad, a UMNO elder statesman who had served as Malaysia’s prime minister from 1981 to 2003, emerged as a leader of the opposition in the wake of the 1MDB scandal. Najib dismissed Mahathir’s return to politics as a desperate gamble by the opposition, but support began to coalesce around Mahathir, especially after Mahathir announced in January 2018 that he would be the opposition’s candidate for prime minister in the general election. On May 9 Malaysian voters delivered a stunning rebuke to Najib and the BN when the opposition coalition captured a narrow majority in the parliament, ending the BN’s six-decade hold on power. He left office the following day.

Shortly thereafter Najib was barred from leaving the country, and in July 2018 he was charged with various crimes involving the 1MDB scandal. He pled not guilty. Najib eventually faced 42 counts of corruption and money laundering, and in 2019 he went on trial for seven of the counts. In July 2020 he was found guilty of all seven of those charges and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He remained free on bail until August 2022, when Malaysia’s High Court rejected Najib’s final appeal and he began his prison term. In March 2023 the High Court acquitted Najib on one of the charges, that of audit tampering, after ruling that prosecutors had failed to prove his alleged wrongdoing. Nearly a year later, in February 2024, Malaysia’s Pardons Board announced that it had commuted Najib’s 12-year prison term by half and reduced his fine. The board did not provide a reason for the reductions, which led to public outrage. Najib was dissatisfied that he had not received a full royal pardon, and his lawyer indicated that he might seek one.