In Malaysia, money squabbles cast long shadow over passing of Sarawak’s ex-governor Taib Mahmud

There, alongside members of Taib’s extended family, they received a long line of national and state leaders who arrived to pay their last respects.

Taib was accorded a state funeral, his casket placed on a pedestal and draped in the Malaysian flag, surrounded by vigil guards.

The former Sarawak governor’s body was later flown back to Kuching, where the state government will arrange for a second wake at his residence before burial on Thursday.

Taib’s death followed a frantic final few weeks in the life of a wealthy fief who helmed Sarawak for decades with shrewd, ruthless politicking and a network of business connections.

On February 3, his cross-country journey for treatment began amid allegations that he had been forcibly removed from a hospital in Kuching in Sarawak by Raghad, flanked by security and butlers.

Raghad has vehemently denied the allegations, saying on her Instagram on Monday she “would never undertake uninformed action to jeopardise” Taib’s well-being.

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Her account is awash with posts of her and Taib at state banquets and hosting VIP guests including sultan of Brunei and Malaysia’s former king, and spending time together as a couple.

Raghad is currently embroiled in a lawsuit brought by Taib’s two sons, Mahmud Abu Bekir and Sulaiman Abdul Rahman, over the patriarch’s wealth.

The men are seeking to stop the transfer of shares to her held by their father in Cahaya Mata Sarawak (CMS), a sprawling conglomerate founded during his earlier three-decade rule as Sarawak chief minister.

In their lawsuit, the brothers questioned the authenticity of Taib’s signature on documents transferring ownership of the shares to Raghad.

But as grief and condolences poured out, some were quick to raise a reminder of the alleged excesses of Taib’s long rule of Sarawak, which last year had a gross domestic product US$30.5 billion, according to state government data, from under US$1 billion in 1981 when Taib first took over as chief minister.

Taib was widely seen as the chief architect of Sarawak’s economic rise. His supporters credited him for leveraging the state’s abundant land and natural resources to develop a strong base of commodity and agriculture exports such as natural gas and black pepper, while also driving a successful global tourism campaign.

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Environmental and rights groups, however, have said economic expansion came at the expense of native communities and vast swathes of pristine forest cover that were mowed down to feed a burgeoning timber industry, expansion of oil palm plantations and multibillion-dollar dam projects.

While some will remember him as one of Sarawak’s founding fathers, the fact that he was in power for so long would have raised questions as to how he was able to sustain himself, said Adib Zalkapli, a Malaysia director with political risk consultancy BowerGroupAsia.

“The opposition campaign against him in his last decade in power as the chief minister had focused on his alleged abuse of power and corruption; naturally these accusations will not be forgotten,” Adib said.

Critics have long accused Taib of abusing his position as chief minister to enrich himself and his family, allegedly amassing billions of dollars in wealth and assets through nepotism while arranging for lopsided deals that fed the political elites.

Erstwhile rivals in the Democratic Action Party – which has since chummed up with Taib’s long-ruling Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) under Anwar’s unity government – had in 2018 called for fresh probes into “many reports and allegations” of corruption linked to Taib during his time in power.

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His eldest son Mahmud is the deputy group chairman of CMS – which has interests spanning construction and infrastructure development to IT – while Sulaiman is group managing director of the firm.

No one has so far been able to reliably measure the extent of Taib’s wealth. But a bitter divorce between Mahmud and his ex-wife gave a fleeting glimpse into the vast sums they have amassed.

Mahmud had in 2014 told the sharia High Court that he had bought a Ferrari Modena worth 950,000 ringgit (US$198,000) for his son when he was just eight years old in 1999, as an asset to provide for his then-wife Shahnaz Abdul Majid and their son when they separated that year.

He said then this was on top of a 2 million ringgit bungalow in an upscale neighbourhood in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, three luxury cars worth a total of 2.1 million ringgit and a 10,000 ringgit monthly allowance.

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Shahnaz, the sister of Malaysian jazz queen Sheila Majid, had filed for a 400 million ringgit (US$83.5 million) divorce settlement, claiming that Mahmud had amassed assets worth 1 billion ringgit domestically, along with US$700 million in assets overseas.

Mahmud had denied the claim as “lies, distortions and misrepresentations”.

The sharia court later ordered Mahmud to pay a 30 million ringgit settlement.

Taib married a 29-year-old Raghad in 2010, a year after his Polish-born first wife Laila died of cancer at 68.

Little is known about Raghad, who was a former air hostess, according to earlier media reports, and has two sons from a previous marriage. Through her marriage to Taib, she and her sons gained Malaysian citizenship.

She was also granted voting rights and native status – which allows direct ownership of limited native land in Sarawak – sparking outrage among activists fighting against strict state regulations that they say make it difficult for natives to inherit ancestral land.

The Taib family history is filled with domestic dramas played out in public.

In his first few years in power, Taib – who took over as chief minister from his uncle in 1981 – had to fend off his uncle’s attempts to topple him amid a deepening rift between their two camps in the PBB.

The feud blew up in 1985 after Taib removed his uncle from the post of governor, leading to an attempted political coup two years later.

Taib pre-empted the coup by calling for snap state polls, which he won by a slim majority – a position that was later strengthened by a string of defections from his uncle’s camp.

Political analyst James Chin said Taib’s death marked the end of an era, but one that will not be soon forgotten.

“History will not be kind,” Chin said in a post on X.