The song is a lament about the cost of food, petrol, and electricity in Malaysia. Late last year Najib’s administration removed subsidies for gasoline, diesel, and sugar, and it plans to continue cutting others, including for liquefied petroleum gas and cooking oil. In April it implemented a highly resented consumption tax of 6% on all goods and services. Meanwhile Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor—dubbed “the first lady of shopping”— was likened to Imelda Marcos for her extravagant international shopping trips.

According to Free Malaysia Today, the lyrics translated are as follows:

Maybe if I never came to Kuala Lumpur
Paying for tolls and oil would leave me convulsed
With just enough spending money to eat at dawn
Maybe my life would be darkness
Unable to pay my electricity bills
But it’s alright, I’ll wait for BR1M money and aid
Where did the 2.6 stars go
That should have lit our nightmares and darkness?
Where did the 2.6 stars go
I ask Mr. Sun but he remains silent
Perhaps the sick will continue to be weak
Falling even as they pay for medicine
But PA says it’s good for us
Maybe the prices of goods will go down
With the GST everyone profits
But why are more and more people depressed
Where did the 2.6 stars go
That should have lit our nightmares and darkness?
Where did the 2.6 stars go
I ask Mr. Sun but he remains silent

Besides the nod to the missing 2.6 billion ringgit, there’s a clever play on words at work. “Mr. Sun” sounds like “minister” in Malay: mentari means sun, but sounds a lot like menteri, or minister.

Since the news broke about 1MDB in July, authorities in Singapore, SwitzerlandHong Kong, and the United States have launched investigations into international financial activities linked to the fund. But despite these investigations, and tens of thousands of protesters rallying against Najib in late August, the opposition trying to organize a no-confidence motion, Malaysia’s royalty demanding answers on 1MDB, and international investors increasingly wary of the nation due to the political scandal, Najib has remained firmly in place.

Image above by Dustin Gaffke on Flickr, licensed under CC-BY-2.0.

 

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