Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – In September 2011, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak spelled out his vision for a modern Malaysian democracy, repealing a raft of repressive laws and vowing a year later to jettison the colonial era Sedition Act, which critics said had too often been used to stifle dissent.

It appears that those promised reforms have been abandoned.

After an intense debate in parliament that went on until the early hours of April 7, the lower house passed a new anti-terrorism bill, which restored detention without trial.

… “In order to strengthen and consolidate his position, which is at the moment slightly precarious, Najib has to appeal or, you could say, pander, to the right wing [of his party],” said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, who was a political secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2009-11.

“He has to demonstrate that he means business in the sense of being in control and he has to show that he is superficially or ideologically with them.”