Najib’s house arrest row: Malaysian sultan’s comment on royal pardons stirs debate

The sultan of Pahang in Malaysia has urged the public to view royal pardons with “calmness of emotion” and not as “a political gift”, in what analysts describe as a pointed reminder that clemency is a constitutional process, amid a furore over a decree supposedly extended to ex-prime minister Najib Razak.According to Najib, the supplementary royal decree, or “addendum”, would allow him to serve his reduced prison sentence at home, after the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed his bid to enforce a similar document in December last year.The claim has polarised opinion in Malaysia, where Najib’s corruption cases remain a sensitive test of the rule of law, elite privilege and the credibility of institutions.Najib, once the country’s most powerful politician, is already serving a sentence linked to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) sovereign fund scandal and continues to command loyalty inside parts of his former party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), now a key component of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government.At Umno’s general assembly last month, party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi reiterated that the party’s backing for Najib “had never changed”, and appealed to Malaysia’s current king, Sultan Ibrahim, to show “compassion” so Najib could return to his family.In a statement posted by the Pahang palace on late Monday, Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah said the royal “prerogative of mercy” under the federal constitution should not be read “emotionally, or with mixed sentiment”.