2026, institutions to fix!

HAPPY New Year! Apologies for missing a month of writing, which was quite inadvertent.

However, comfortingly, this brought a few readers out of the woodwork, checking to see if I’m still alive and one complaint of being “deprived” of my views on key developments in Malaysia and abroad. Not, I suspect, because they are genuinely interested in my views, but more to check that I agree with theirs!

On Dec 22, 2025, the Malaysian High Court made a sensible ruling that a supplementary order issued outside the Pardons Board is not valid and cannot be enforced. There was an attempt to frame this decision as challenging the powers of the monarchy, which is a dubious argument.

A week before that, on Dec 15, I returned to Seri Negara, which was being relaunched after a rehabilitation by Khazanah. The physical restoration is beautiful, but there is more curation to do. I hope that they treat with utmost dignity and appropriate historical weightage the room in which the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1957 was signed by the Malay Rulers — highlighted in an exhibition I co-curated with some brilliant people in 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of Merdeka (and also where I launched the first of my compilation of articles, Abiding Times, in 2011 when it was still part of a hotel famed for its afternoon tea).

The substance of that agreement was of course the Federal Constitution. It is worth recalling the titah, or royal address of the first Yang di-Pertuan Agong at the first opening of Parliament in 1959:

“The Constitution… is a democratic achievement of the highest order. It is the product of many minds working with a common aim, to evolve a basic charter… It vests Our office of Yang di-Pertuan Agong with executive authority on the advice of our Government; establishes Parliament as the marker of our laws; preserves the status and dignity of Our Brother-Rulers; defines the powers of the Federation Government and of the various States of our united nation; provides for amendment of the Constitution; and asserts the electoral rights of citizens in our democracy. In this way it ensures that the voice of the people is the will of the people.”

The Rulers of course contributed — alongside statesmen and jurists in consultation with the Reid Commission — to the authorship of the Federal Constitution, including the bit about how pardons work. There have indeed been important contests of interpretation when it comes to Rulers’ powers when it comes to appointments (for example of Menteris Besar and senior judges), but the procedure for pardons has long been clear.

In addressing some twisted narratives about royal views about 1MDB, it is also worth recalling the only unambiguous, explicit and official view of the Rulers.

In a statement — never shrouded in secrecy! — issued by the Keeper of the Rulers’ Seal on Oct 6, 2015 in conjunction with a meeting of the Conference of Rulers (which the Constitution empowers to “deliberate on any matter that it thinks fit”), their Royal Highnesses called for a thorough investigation into 1MDB whose findings “must be reported comprehensively and in a transparent manner so that the people will be convinced of the sincerity of the government which shall not at all conceal facts and the truth.”

The verdict of the people in the subsequent general election was that the government did not respond sufficiently appropriately to this royal inclination.

And up until today, the courts continue their work in judging the actions of the people responsible. This, more than any deal among the political elite (for there is talk about a reciprocal withdrawal of corruption charges against politicians), is what must continue for Malaysians to restore their faith in the institutions of the country.

The capture and rendition of Nicolas Maduro by US special forces on Jan 3, 2026 offers a glimpse of the downward spiral when institutions do not enjoy public confidence. Within and outside Venezuela, the position of long-controversial Maduro as President was questioned because the elections were declared not free and unfair by international observers. And within and outside the US, power between institutions has shifted to the extent that norms and constraints that once existed are simply not working as they did.

This deficit of accountability and limits to authority will inspire wannabe dictators everywhere, who will see accumulating power at the expense of other institutions as a key priority.

It is therefore insufficient for countries which claim to be democratic or morally superior to merely chant about the international rules-based order. They need to be honest about themselves, and at least try to sustain institutions that the majority of their populations can believe in.

* Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin is Founding President of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS).