OPINION | Loyalty in Tears, Power in Silence: A Rejoinder to Raja Sara Petra

OPINION | Loyalty in Tears, Power in Silence: A Rejoinder to Raja Sara Petra


31 Dec 2025 • 9:00 AM MYT


Mihar Dias
A behaviourist by training, a consultant and executive coach by profession

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2025/12/26/judge-najib-no-country-bumpkin-attempts-to-paint-him-as-ignorant-doomed-to-fail/203305

By Mihar Dias December 2025


Raja Sara is right about one thing: in Malaysian politics, there was indeed a time when helping Najib Razak was the ultimate loyalty test. https://newswav.com/A2512_xri6mV?s=A_Ep9NNzj&language=en


And there was also a time when failing that test was fatal. Ismail Sabri Yaakob stands as the clearest cautionary tale — not toppled by voters, not felled by policy failure, but politically bled to death by a single accusation: that he did not do enough for Najib. https://newswav.com/A2512_xri6mV?s=A_Ep9NNzj&language=en


That accusation alone was sufficient. No court needed. No evidence required. In this country, loyalty has often been adjudicated faster than justice.


But where Raja Sara’s reflection deserves further interrogation is in what has happened since — and more importantly, in what has not happened.


Najib Razak today is no longer the all-powerful prime minister, nor the unchallenged Umno president-in-waiting.


He is Prisoner No. PFA 02041, serving a sentence that, on paper, stretches to an almost biblical 165 years, but in practical terms has been compressed to 15 years through concurrent sentencing.


Fifteen years that may yet be shortened further — through appeals, reviews, addendums, or that most Malaysian of political safety valves: a royal pardon.


This is where the conversation stops being legal and becomes nakedly political.


Because the addendum’s rejection, the slow grind of appeals, and the conspicuous lack of urgency from those who once swore undying loyalty are not simply about respect for the rule of law. They are about fear. Fear of recalibration. Fear of comparison. Fear that Najib’s return — even partially — would destabilise a political equilibrium built carefully on his absence.


Najib in prison is convenient. Najib out is complicated.


Raja Sara asks whether crying at PAU is enough. https://newswav.com/A2512_xri6mV?s=A_Ep9NNzj&language=en


It is a fair question, and perhaps too polite. Tears, after all, are cheap. They cost nothing politically. They offend no coalition partner, unsettle no Cabinet seat, and threaten no delicate unity government arithmetic. Public emotion, when carefully choreographed, becomes a substitute for action — a performance of loyalty without the inconvenience of risk.


If loyalty were truly alive, it would be noisy. It would be uncomfortable. It would involve names, timelines, and consequences.


Instead, what we see is ritualised grief and strategic silence.


This raises the sharper question Raja Sara hints at but does not fully unsheathe: if Ismail Sabri was removed for not helping Najib, who is helping Najib now? https://newswav.com/A2512_xri6mV?s=A_Ep9NNzj&language=en


Who is willing to stake political capital rather than crocodile tears?


Who will speak when silence is safer than speech?


Who will defend due process not when it is fashionable, but when it is dangerous?


Because silence, in Malaysian politics, is never neutral. It is a choice — often a very calculated one.


Those now pleading patience and “letting the legal process take its course” were rarely this devout when the law moved against their enemies.


Due process is suddenly sacred only when it aligns with political convenience. When it does not, we have seen how quickly morality is replaced with manoeuvre.


Najib remains in prison today. That is an unassailable fact. But the more revealing reality is not his incarceration; it is the choreography around it.


The careful balancing act of leaders who must appear sympathetic without being effective, loyal without being committed, and emotional without being accountable.


The irony is thick. Once, power in Umno was measured by proximity to Najib. Today, it is measured by distance — close enough to mourn, far enough to survive.


Yet, the story is not over. Najib’s name still moves crowds. His shadow still stretches across party halls and Cabinet rooms. The political class understands this, even if it pretends otherwise. That is why the silence is so loud. That is why half-measures are preferred to decisive stands.


When history looks back at this moment, it will not ask who cried the hardest at PAU. It will ask who acted when action carried a price. It will ask whether justice in Malaysia was guided by principle — or by fear of what happens when one man returns to the arena.


On that question, Raja Sara is right to provoke. But the answer, so far, is deeply uncomfortable.