The credence Malaysians give foreign media reports on the prime minister’s culpability in the 1MDB affair is less an effect of colonisation than a reflection of the loss in credibility of local institutions.

DAP national vice-chair M Kulasegaran termed as “specious” the argument by Umno lawyer Hafarizam Harun that some Malaysians’ inclination to believe the reports of the Wall Street Journal and other foreign media on Najib Abdul Razak’s culpability over the findings of local investigative agencies which have exculpated the PM as “colonisation”.

“As well claim that the option being offered by some schools to their pupils that they can choose English as their medium of instruction is an effect of the colonisation of the mind of some Malaysian parents and their offspring,” said the MP for Ipoh Barat.