Najib’s pardon and release will result in Perikatan Nasional - that coalition between PAS and Bersatu - winning the next general election. It was repeated corruption that resulted in dwindling support for Umno and it will result in a fatal loss for Harapan as well from which it will not recover.

Look at the track record of Umno under Najib. In 2013, he garnered 88 parliamentary seats for Umno. In 2018, when 1MDB was all the news and the public realised that Najib was a thief, it dived some four-tenths to 54 seats. He lost the elections, the first time ever for Umno.

Under his crony, Zahid, it declined further by a disastrous more than half to 26 in 2022, making it all but irrelevant. Zahid also campaigned on the platform of getting a pardon for Najib, which really backfired. Now Harapan has set itself up to go under together with Umno.

Just look at the extent to which the system has bent over for Najib. On July 4, 2018, just under two months after the Harapan government came into power, he was charged with offences of corruption, abuse of power and money laundering involving RM42 million.

After a long exhausting trial, dramatic appeal processes and rearguard delay tactics, Najib was finally, after four years, told to begin his sentence of 12 years in jail and a fine of RM210 million on August 23, 2022, when Ismail Sabri Yaakob from Umno was prime minister.

He has not even served two years in jail and his sentence has been halved through the pardon process and his fine reduced to RM50 million. Typically a person serves at least half of his sentence even before a pardon is entertained.

Najib has expressed no remorse for his actions, maintains he is a political victim and many allegations were made against the judge who convicted him and against the entire judicial system itself. However, no action has been taken against anyone for such blatant, unwarranted and unprecedented attacks on the judiciary.

All this effort is for a person who is facing multiple other charges. There are three other pending high-profile court cases against Najib, which include 25 charges involving RM2.3 billion, six criminal breach-of-trust cases involving RM6.6 billion and money laundering involving RM27 million.

In addition, Najib faces a colossal US$1.18 billion (RM5.5 billion) civil suit against him from SRC International, another government corporation.

What deterrence against corruption can there be?

In the wake of all of this, there is the unbelievable current move now about house arrest for a convicted felon who faces many other charges and is responsible for the greatest theft in the world at the time it was committed.

Coincidentally, of course, this comes at a time when the government, in its sudden unbidden compassion for prisoners, is thinking of allowing them to serve their last four years of sentence at home. Come August, Najib would have served two years of his halved six-year sentence, leaving four years remaining.

Talk about bending over backwards! Is it any wonder why the ringgit continues to decline? It’s partly because stretching the law to breaking point calls into question the very principle of crime and its attendant punishments with the looming prospect of a major criminal serving time at his home. Would anyone have respect for our legal system after this?

Najib has injured this country for far too long and far too much. The best thing to do is to put him away for a long time - legally of course - so that others won’t follow his lousy example.

What deterrence against corruption can there be when the most corrupt person the country has ever produced gets away with a rap on the knuckles, whiling away his time in the luxury of his own home?

Those who do not understand this are unfit to be political leaders. It's not a matter of whether he can be pardoned, it's whether he should be. The answer is as clear as crystal.