Catching up: Najib, Duterte and votes in Indonesia

Hello friends!

Before we resume proper schedule, thought we better check in on the major stories we’ve missed. Today, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Tomorrow we’ll pop across to the Mekong states and to Myanmar on Friday.

Thanks!

🇲🇾 Home game for Najib Razak?

The High Court last week dropped one of former prime minister Najib Razak’s 1MDB cases. He got one of these infamous ‘discharge not amounting to an acquittal’ after the prosecution failed to table some documents, Bloomberg reports via New Straits Times. ‘Deputy Public Prosecutor Muhammad Saifuddin Hashim Musaimi told the court he had no authority over classified documents,’ the outlet reports. In a final paragraph revealing the overall vibes of this mess, Bloomberg notes Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has denied any involvement in any of the cases jamming up the courts. 

“The court correctly exercised its jurisdiction to discharge our client of the charges, consonant with the law,” Najib's lawyer Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee told Reuters via text following the decision on Wednesday. Reuters notes the faith is wavering that future cases will see their way through the courts — prosecutors last year declined to appeal against an acquittal in a separate case. 

Let me serve the rest out at home will ya, Najib is asking the courts this week. Monday he went up on abuse of power charges and 21 counts of money laundering related to Tanore Finance Corp, ‘which US authorities have said was used to siphon money from 1MDB,’ as the AFP puts it. This is the case he said sorry for back in October. But he’ll be back tomorrow at the Court of Appeal to challenge a ruling earlier in the year that rejected his plea for house arrest. If the court rules in his favour, the AFP notes, that doesn’t mean he’s heading home, it just means he’s back to court. Probably doesn’t matter where he serves these sentences, he’s always in the bloody court.  

🇮🇩 Votes are over (mostly, maybe) the shape of the next five years firms

A round-two or a tight win in Jakarta? Who can say! We’ve won it, says team Pramono Anung and Rano Karno, the PDI-P backed ticket. They booked just over 50% according to a couple of the quick counts. Let’s wait and see, says former West Java governor, and the Jokowi/Prabowo pick, Ridwan Kamil. A second round would give him the chance to grab back his polling lead.  Those quick counts are remarkably accurate — a true feat — but with margins of error around 1% in a race this tight it all comes down to the official count. That’s set to be announced by the General Elections Commission (KPU) within a week. Meanwhile, independent candidate Dharma Pongrekun picked up 10% of the vote after polling around 5% for the last few months. 

It’s one of two wins for PDI-P, though Koster in Bali is far more certain. Across the country races went to candidates backed by the KIM coalition, the broad church of parties supporting Prabowo Subianto. This was all to be expected, to be sure, but for those hoping for a provincial-level balance of power to the national level or a signal that someone – anyone — besides the PDI-P could offer an alternative: sorry. 

Just two women picked up governor spots across the country. Khofifah Indar Parawansa won East Java, where the battle was between three women though she was widely expected to win. In North Maluku, Sherly Tjoanda won after taking over husband Benny Laos’ campaign after he was killed in a boat accident in October. Five others were killed in the shock tragedy. 

But! Now that the regional elections are over, I think the juiciness happens from here. The alliance between Prabowo Subianto and Joko Widodo still largely holds, but for how long? And will Jokowi’s star begin to fade as Prabowo firms up control? And how is this painful male-dominance going to shape the next five years across the country?   

🇵🇭 Duterte faces impeachment calls amid assassin fall-out

Impeachment is the word in Manila and if Vice President Sara Duterte is surprised, she shouldn’t be. The Akbayan group of civil society activists filed the first impeachment complaint against her on Monday, accusing the VP of violating the constitution, betrayal of public trust and that whole threatening to kill the president thing. The Associated Press reports the filing also includes accusations relating to getting super wealthy for no clear, legal reason and continuing the extrajudicial killing anti-drug policy. 

Very grateful to GMA News for this piece explaining how the impeachment process works in the Philippines context. The main takeaway here is: it takes a while and is very tricky. As it should be! While it’s probably not enough to get her out anytime soon, as Akbayan wants, it does suggest a bonkers 2025. “The problem with this impeachment complaint, I think it is a bit haphazard. But then again this will be a prelude to a stronger impeachment complaint that could be filed next year,” Froilan Calilung, from the University of Santo Tomas, told Bloomberg. He flagged that the House Committee would likely reject the impeachment filing in its current iteration. 

Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines has investigated Duterte’s allegations that her life was in danger and found no credible threat. Still, AFP public affairs office chief Col. Xerxes Trinidad noted other agencies were still looking into it: “I think there’s an ongoing investigation coming from the different [agencies], the Armed Forces of the Philippines will be cooperating and would like to wait out for any development from that part,” as per the Inquirer.

This has been updated to add the PDI-P win in Bali, proving my Jakarta-centric problem 😭