“If you want a government where you can sleep easy at night, if you want a government that can ensure certainty for the future, then support Barisan Nasional.”

- Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak to Chinese businesspeople in 2013

"Corruption is widespread in this country and must not be tolerated, or Malaysia will not emerge as a first world country."

- V Sithambaram

COMMENT | Najib Abdul Razak's conviction is no doubt some sort of catharsis for Harapan supporters. The long and twisty road to Najib’s conviction has been littered with the kind of astonishing political shenanigans that characterise the “immaturity” of the polity that some folks use as an excuse to not push forward fundamental reforms.

Keep in mind that when Najib made the statement, which serves as the opening quote of this piece, in 2013, his regime was voted back into power.

For instance, when DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said that he would even work with Najib to “save Malaysia… if the prime minister is prepared to admit that he had led the country on a wrong tangent and that Malaysia must be saved with far-reaching democratic and institutional reforms”, all this seems like a bad dream now.

For many of us old-timers, we never thought we would see the day when a former prime minister of this country, someone who has – let us be honest – unfettered power, would be sentenced to jail by a court of law for essentially stealing money from the rakyat.

This is just another day of infamy for Malaysia, which counts towards...