Rebooting the Emergency: Najib's Law 'Reform' and the Normalisation of Crisis

Abstract

On the eve of the Malaysia Day national holiday in September 2011, Najib Abdul Razak, president of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and Prime Minister of Malaysia, announced the next phase of the Government Transformation Programme (GTP, Program Transformasi Kerajaan) designed to convert Malaysia into a ‘more open and dynamic democracy… at par with other democratic systems in the world’. To that end, he undertook to make the legal and policy changes necessary for Malaysia to become ‘a functional and inclusive democracy where public peace and prosperity is preserved in accordance with the supremacy of the constitution, rule of law and respect for basic human rights and in..