Malaysia Confronts Executive Overreach In Its Westminster System – OpEd

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s recent proposal to limit prime ministerial tenure to ten years marks a significant shift in Malaysia’s approach to executive power. Combined with pending legislation to separate the Attorney-General (AG) and Public Prosecutor (PP) roles, these reforms signal that Malaysia is finally confronting the institutional weaknesses that enabled the 1MDB scandal, the largest kleptocracy case in modern history.

The 1MDB scandal demonstrated the dangers of adopting Westminster's parliamentary structure without the accountability mechanisms that make the system work. Malaysia inherited Britain's institutional framework but never fully implemented the informal checks that constrain executive power, ranging from robust parliamentary oversight to genuine prosecutorial independence. The result was a political structure that concentrated substantial authority in the Prime Minister's hands with limited institutional capacity to prevent abuse.

A ten-year tenure limit directly confronts one of the most troubling features of Malaysia's executive system. Under Article 43 of the Constitution, the King appoints the cabinet on the Prime Minister's advice, and nothing prevents the Prime Minister from simultaneously holding the Finance Minister portfolio. This concentration of power places national finances, sovereign wealth funds, and government-linked companies under the control of a single individual.

During his nine-year tenure, former Prime Minister Najib Razak exploited this arrangement, turning 1MDB into a tool for personal enrichment. Oversight bodies were filled with loyalists, key audit reports were classified, and billions were siphoned off while institutions failed to intervene. Tenure limits alone cannot stop determined abuse of power, they merely reduce the time available for it to occur. This is why the proposed separation of the AG and PP roles is equally crucial. 

The 2015 removal of AG Abdul Gani Patail remains a watershed moment in Malaysia's governance crisis. According to reports at the time, Patail was ousted just as he was preparing charges against then-Prime Minister Najib Razak related to 1MDB. Under Article 145 of the Constitution, the AG serves as Public Prosecutor, and his replacement, Mohamed Apandi Ali, subsequently cleared Najib of all wrongdoing. This episode demonstrated how easily prosecutorial processes can be compromised when the AG serves at the Prime Minister's discretion. The proposed bill to separate these positions addresses this structural vulnerability directly. 

Delineating these roles means that the reform ensures the person deciding whether to bring a case to court is no longer the same person giving private legal advice to the Prime Minister. This reform brings Malaysia into alignment with the established “separation of functions” found in jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, specifically codified under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.

In the Westminster system, a clear institutional firewall exists. The AG serves as chief legal advisor to the government, while the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), led by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), manages criminal prosecutions with operational independence. Section 3 of the Act specifies that the DPP discharges functions under the AG's "superintendence." Malaysia should mirror this framework by explicitly defining "superintendence" in its legislation to clarify how the AG and Public Prosecutor will interact. Critically, "superintendence" means oversight without interference, as the AG cannot direct the prosecutor on which cases to pursue or how to handle specific investigations.

Implementing this structure would replace a system prone to executive interference with one in which the AG remains accountable to Parliament but cannot derail specific investigations. A Prime Minister could no longer simply order the AG to drop a case against a political ally, as any such interference would require explaining to Parliament why they are overriding the Public Prosecutor's independent legal judgment.

Yet even these two reforms leave untouched the structural feature that made 1MDB possible in the first place, as the Prime Minister's concurrent control of national finances. Even with tenure limits and prosecutorial independence, a sitting Prime Minister with Finance Minister powers could still manipulate sovereign funds, influence government-linked companies, and obscure financial irregularities. It is as essential as the two aforementioned reforms, Malaysia may need to reconsider over the longer term whether the Prime Minister should continue holding the Finance Minister portfolio. 

Concentrating executive and financial authority in one office creates risks that no oversight mechanism can fully eliminate. While Article 43 permits the Prime Minister to hold the Finance portfolio, it does not mandate this arrangement. The practice is merely tradition, not a legal requirement, making separation feasible without constitutional amendment. Malaysia should establish a new norm in which the Prime Minister coordinates governance while a separate Finance Minister manages economic policy, a model followed in the UK, Australia, and Canada under normal circumstances. This distribution of power creates productive institutional friction that strengthens accountability.

In the long run, critics may fear coordination problems, but 1MDB proved efficiency without accountability enables corruption at scale. These three reforms, tenure limits, prosecutorial independence, and PM-Finance separation, work across time to fundamentally reshape Malaysia's accountability architecture where none suffices alone.

• About the authors:
  
  Muhammad Izzuddin Al Haq is an undergraduate student of International Affairs Management at the School of International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia. He is currently a Cadet Researcher at the Asian Institute of International Affairs and Diplomacy (AIIAD) of Universiti Utara Malaysia and serves as Director-General of World Order Lab concurrently. He is also an Executive Intern at the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) Malaysia. His research interests focus on international security and global governance.
• Zahra Shaffa Kamila is an Analyst at World Order Lab. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Universitas Padjajaran, Indonesia and is currently a Target Gender Equality (TGE) Program Intern at UN Global Compact Network Indonesia (IGCN). Zahra’s research focuses on foreign policy and global governance, specifically exploring the dynamics of diplomacy, regional relations and the intersection of halal practices within international affairs.