But he is still tipped to be handed another term in office at elections Wednesday.

Here are five reasons why he is likely to win and extend his coalition’s six-decade hold on power:

Scandal? What scandal?

While the controversy surrounding sovereign wealth fund 1MDB grabbed international headlines, the scandal has faded in many Malaysians’ minds, and alone is unlikely to prompt them to eject Najib from office.

Billions of dollars were allegedly looted from the fund, which was set up by Najib, and used to buy everything from high-end US real estate to a luxury yacht, while huge sums mysteriously ended up in the leader’s personal bank accounts.

Najib and 1MDB deny any wrongdoing.

Many Malaysians are unhappy at having a leader linked to corruption, and the ruling coalition’s share of the popular vote could be dented.

But the scandal peaked a few years ago and is no longer at the forefront of people’s minds, with voters more concerned about other things.

“Rising living costs, and particularly the rising cost of food, seems to be the top issue,” Charles Santiago, a lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Action Party, told AFP.

Skewing the system

Allegations of electoral fraud and skewing the system to favour the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition are nothing new at Malaysian elections, but analysts warn Najib is going further than any other leader in his bid to retain power.

A redrawing of the electoral map in March created constituencies packed with voters from the Muslim Malay majority, who typically support the government, while civil society groups have complained of irregularities in voting lists, including the appearance of dead people’s names.

BN insists the elections will be fair.

Playing the race card

Najib has been shoring up BN’s key Malay support base, which makes up some 60 percent of the country’s 32 million inhabitants, by doling out cash handouts aimed at civil servants and those on low incomes — often from the Muslim majority.

The leader has also warned that a victory for the opposition, which has tried to present a more multi-racial front than BN, would be a “nightmare” for Malays that could threaten their privileged place in society.

Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia expert from John Cabot University, told AFP that Najib had run a “very aggressive, racist campaign to feed off the insecurities of the Malay community”.

Many Malays will continue to back BN as they have benefited from a decades-old affirmative action programme that gives them perks, such as priority for government jobs.

Opposition problems

The four-party opposition alliance, Pact of Hope, got a huge boost when veteran ex-leader Mahathir Mohamad was picked to run as their prime ministerial candidate, and they hope the Malay nationalist will help swing Muslim voters away from BN.

But it may be too little, too late for the long-troubled bloc.

A previous opposition grouping fell apart in 2015 amid a dispute between the DAP and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) over Muslim law. PAS has gone its own way and is fielding candidates separately at the poll, which could split the opposition vote.

The opposition are also missing their long-time leader Anwar Ibrahim, one of the country’s most charismatic politicians, who is in jail after being found guilty of sodomy in a case his supporters say was politically-motivated.

– Robust economy –

Najib’s efforts to maintain power have been helped by a rebounding economy, which posted its best annual growth rate for three years in 2017 at 5.9 percent.

The economy benefited from Najib’s cash handouts to low-income earners, which gave consumer spending a lift, as well an export boom.

A recent rise in oil prices will also help, as Malaysia is the only net exporter of oil among Asia’s major economies.

The international and Rohingya communities have consistently urged Asean to play a greater role in helping end the crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine state after some 700,000 people fled from the conflict to Bangladesh since August last year.

While the United Nations has viewed the issue seriously due to atrocities and hinted at “ethnic cleansing”, Asean, of which Myanmar is a member, has confined its involvement to humanitarian assistance.

Asean leaders said they continued to support Myanmar’s humanitarian relief programme in Rakhine and welcomed the ongoing work of the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) to deliver humanitarian assistance to all displaced persons without discrimination, according to the chairman’s statement issued at the meeting last month in Singapore.

“I hope Asean in the near future can develop things beyond the humanitarian dimension, but Myanmar’s trust must be earned,” Marty told a group of editors and senior journalists at the Asean Media Forum held in Singapore on Friday.

Non-interference, which is the main principle of the regional grouping, is no longer an excuse for Asean to refrain from getting involved in the crisis in Myanmar since the group has played crucial roles in political developments in the country for a long time, he said.

“It is certainly an internal issue of Myanmar but that does not mean there is no potential for regional contribution,” Marty said.

Asean used to work intensively to have the Myanmar authority and the military deliver on its seven-step road map towards democracy and reconciliation, which eventually ended up with the 2008 constitution and a historic election in 2010.

The process paved the way for the current government under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi.

On the Rohingya issue, Marty said many Asean countries – notably Indonesia – used to play a key role to facilitate communication with the government in Nay Pyi Taw to the tackle the problem in 2013.

The communal conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state took place as the Muslim Rohingya have been discriminated against by the authorities and the Buddhist majority. By calling them Bengali, the Myanmar authorities have denied them citizenship.

Another relevant issue for Asean is the territorial disputes in the South China Sea where many members of the group including Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam are contestants with China for a long time.

The way Asean dealt with the issue over the past decades is to prolong the problem, rather than resolve it with drastic action, Marty said, and added that the group had spent time, resources and energy to produce the non-binding Declaration of the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002. But, the situation in the contentious sea has only aggravated since then.

The group is now producing another document known as the code of conduct which, Marty said, was based on a draft he has seen and would not be any different from the DOC.

“I mean diplomats cannot just sit in the room to discuss where to put a comma and hyphen, since things happen at sea, otherwise the code of conduct would be obsolete on the very day it is adopted,” he said.

Experts used ground penetrating radar (GPR) which provided “conclusive evidence of the non-existence of hidden chambers adjacent to or inside Tutankhamun’s tomb,” the ministry said in a statement.

More details will be announced in a speech later in the day by the head of an Italian scientific team, Francesco Porcelli, of the Polytechnic University in Turin, the statement said.

It said Porcelli had submitted a report that “concluded, with a very high degree of confidence… the hypothesis concerning the existence of hidden chambers or corridors adjacent to Tutankhamun’s tomb is not supported by GPR data.”

Previous scans had suggested the possibility of hidden chambers, although experts disagreed on the results.

British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves had theorised that the tomb was in fact that of Nefertiti, the wife of Tutankhamun’s father, King Akhenaten.

The theory held that when the boy king died unexpectedly at a young age, he was rushed into the outer chamber of the tomb in southern Egypt.

Akhenaten was known for trying and failing to force Egypt to convert to monotheism.

DNA evidence has shown that Akhenaten was Tutankhamun’s father, but Egyptologists do not agree on the identity of his mother.//AFP

No injuries have been reported but several homes were destroyed or badly damaged by the quake Friday, the biggest to hit the island since 1975, authorities said. It caused small sea-level changes but no tsunamis.

The US Geological Survey said the quake struck at 12:32 pm (2232 GMT) and was centered on the south flank of the Kilauea volcano, which first erupted on Thursday after a series of tremors.

A 5.7-magnitude tremor hit the island earlier on Friday. The quakes prompted the Kilauea volcano, one of five active on the island, to erupt.

The quakes temporarily cut power to thousands of households.

The Federal Aviation Administration imposed flight restrictions over the area through Monday for all but relief operations.

The quakes triggered rock slides on trails in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and caused a coastal cliff to collapse into the ocean.

Officials ordered a rare closure of the park, which covers more than a tenth of the island’s total surface. About 2,600 visitors were evacuated.

“It is currently not safe to be here,” Park Superintendent Cindy Orlando said in a statement.

Video footage showed orange magma gushing up from cracks in the ground and snaking through a wooded area.

Molten lava could also be seen bubbling up through cracks on streets in the Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens neighborhood, where residents were ordered to evacuate on Thursday.

The area is home to about 1,700 people and 770 structures, and some 10,000 people live in the broader district potentially impacted.

Governor David Ige mobilized the Hawaii National Guard, which deployed about 70 soldiers and airmen to help with evacuation, neighborhood security and other emergency work.

“It seems like a lot of folks have left” with the guard, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said on CNN, adding that she did not anticipate the active volcano threat hurting tourism.

​​​​​– Dangerous gas warning –

Officials warned of extremely high levels of toxic gas emitted from the volcano.

“Hawaii Fire Department reports extremely dangerous air quality conditions due to high levels of sulfur dioxide gas,” the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said.

The mayor’s office added that the young, the elderly and those with respiratory issues must comply with the mandatory evacuation order.

Ige said residents were being housed in community centers until the danger has passed.

The governor visited two evacuation shelters and said he had met “many people who are frightened and deeply concerned about losing everything,” but added that Hawaiians would come together to help. “This is a resilient community,” he said.

Local resident Neil Valentine told CNN he and his wife had been forced to evacuate “our dream home that we’ve been looking for all this time,” calling the situation “just basically heartbreak.”

The lava outbreak came after hundreds of small earthquakes in recent days that followed the collapse of a crater floor on the Puu Oo volcanic cone.

A 5.0-magnitude earthquake early Thursday south of the cone triggered rockfalls and sent a massive pink plume of ash wafting briefly into the air.

Big Island resident Janice Wei, who moved to Hawaii from California — known for its own high earthquake risk — said the eruption was almost a “relief.”

“We’ve been waiting for big movement from the crater, after so many small earthquakes,” she told AFP.

“Hawaiians and local people have lived here forever,” she said. “You know what’s going on; we have warning systems. Everybody should be prepared.”

 – ‘Fire curtain’ –

Using his drone, area resident Jeremiah Osuna captured video footage of the lava flow, which he described as a “fire curtain” that left him feeling “shock and awe.”

“It was like if you put a bunch of rocks into a dryer and turned it on — a lot of earth and pressure and fire just moving around,” Osuna told AFP.

Governor Ige signed an emergency proclamation releasing disaster funds to the Big Island.

He noted the current flow was similar to a 1960 eruption in the Kapoho area that “caused significant damage.”

Geologist Janet Babb of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said scientists had been following an “intrusion of magma” down the rift zone since Monday.

Though the cracks from which lava was emitting had gone dormant, she emphasized that “the overall concern and the overall event has not ended.”

US Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was mobilizing resources, as well as monitoring for forest fires, power outages and water supply issues.

Hawaii Island, or the Big Island, is the largest of the eight main islands that comprise the Pacific US state, an archipelago that includes hundreds of smaller volcanic islands.//AFP

The chairman has assured the public that there is nothing to worry about regarding postal votes.

“I am aware of concerns that some postal voters have not received their ballots but let me assure you that there are no technical problems.

“I am confident that postal votes, including the overseas ballots, will return in time. We still have time so there is no need to worry,” he told a press conference after visiting the Senior Officers Mess early voting centre in Bukit Aman yesterday.

Doing their duty: Two soldiers casting their GE14 votes at Kem Paradaise Kota Belud. — Bernama

In fact, there are those in South Korea who have already received their postal votes and sent back to their respective returning officers, he said.

“We assigned Pos Malaysia (to handle postal votes) and I am sure they are up to the task,” he said.

Postal voting is for the police, armed forces, employees of nine other government departments, members of the media, and Malay­sians residing overseas (except in Singapore, southern Thailand, Brunei and Kalimantan).

On early voting, a total of 278,590 people are eligible to cast their votes for this general election.

“The early voters consist of 159,677 from the armed forces and 118,913 from the police, including retired police personnel.

Done it: Members of the armed forces showing their ink-stained forefinger after casting their votes. — Bernama

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun and his deputy Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim cast their ballots in Bukit Aman.

Others who did so included Mohamad Fuzi’s predecessor Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar and former Commercial Crime Investigation Department director Datuk Seri Mortadza Nadzarene.

Asked whether officers such as Khalid should have changed their addresses after retirement, Mohd Hashim said it was not wrong for retired personnel to be early voters.

“He has the right to change his address but it does not mean you have to do so right after you retired,” he said.

Asked on claims by Bersih 2.0 that they found 500,000 voters with the same address and two million others with no address, Mohd Ha­­shim urged the election watchdog to pass the information to the EC.

Army personnel queuing up to cast their votes at SK Kem Kementah in Kuala Lumpur yesterday in early voting for GE14. The exercise involved 278,590 security personnel including their spouses. See reports on Page 2. — AZHAR MAHFOF/ The Star

On allegations that Barisan Na­­sional representatives in Sekinchan, Selangor, gave away RM25,000 cash as lucky draw pri­zes, Mohd Hashim said the matter came under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s jurisdiction.

At the early voting centre at SK Kementah here, EC deputy chairman Tan Sri Othman Mahmood said the ballot boxes would be kept in designated police stations under lock and key.

“The safety of the votes is ensured. All ballot boxes will be brought to the voting stations on May 9, starting from 4pm.

“All the ballot boxes that have been used will be kept safely. That is our promise,” he said.

Armed Forces chief Jen Tan Sri Raja Mohamed Affandi Raja Moha­med Noor and Royal Malaysian Navy chief Admiral Tan Sri Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin also cast their votes at the school.

Nationwide, early voting proceeded smoothly in all states and federal territories.

The year-old juvenile saltwater crocodiles were found crammed into five boxes coming from Malaysia.

The were bound for a farm in Cambridgeshire, eastern England, where they were to be bred for their meat.

The animals had not been packed in accordance with international regulations, making the importation illegal.

Each box only had room for four crocodiles but 10 had been packed into each one.

”It is just not acceptable for reptiles to be transported in this way,” said Grant Miller, head of the national Border Force Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) at Heathrow.

”The crocodiles had started to fight each other during the flight as space was limited, so little attention had been paid to their welfare.

”We will seize anything that contravenes CITES regulations, so this should serve as a warning to those thinking about transporting wildlife in such conditions.”

The crocodiles were found on April 27. One has since died and the others are being cared for before being rehomed.//AFP