Do we like them?

Do we like Muhyiddin Yassin?

Our score: 3 out of 10. His own words objected to a clause he said covered LGBT people, the main case is unfinished, and we could open little documented good to set against it.

Muhyiddin came up through Umno: Johor chief minister, then deputy prime minister under Najib Razak until he was sacked in 2015 for questioning the handling of the 1MDB scandal. He then co-founded Bersatu with Mahathir Mohamad. He became prime minister in February 2020 on a Malay-first alliance, then quit in August 2021 after losing his majority, a 17-month stint.

The big story is the trial over Jana Wibawa, a pandemic-era projects scheme. He was charged with seven counts. Prosecutors alleged he used his positions as PM and Bersatu president to obtain bribes for his party, not his own pocket, and he pleaded not guilty to all seven. Separately, a video allegedly showed Mahathir accusing him of taking party funds. Muhyiddin answered: “I have never stolen party funds.”

On 15 September 2026 came a big win. Prosecutors sought a discharge not amounting to acquittal on four charges (one abuse-of-power count and three money-laundering counts involving RM200 million). The defence pushed for a full acquittal and the judge gave it. Three charges, alleging RM25.3 million, remain before the court, so this is not the end of it.

The harm check is where it gets uncomfortable. In September 2024 he argued that a government agreement banning discriminatory statements would, in his words, include the LGBT and stop Perikatan MPs opposing future laws allowing LGBT behaviours; he said it was “conflicting with Asian societal values”. As PM in 2020 he said Malaysia could not take more Rohingya refugees, though he also pushed the UN to speed resettlement and to act on trafficking. We found no climate record and nothing on trans people specifically.

There is a second legal front. He was charged with sedition over a speech at the 2024 Nenggiri by-election campaign and pleaded not guilty. In November 2026 his lawyers told the High Court he would make a fresh representation to the Attorney General's Chambers, and the court vacated the trial dates. That is a push to have the charge dropped, not a ruling on the speech.

His own coalition is a mess too. In June 2026 he said Bersatu was staying put in Perikatan, and by mid-July he was saying Perikatan had shut Bersatu out. The party's future, and his place at the top of it, looks shaky.