Najib Razak is having a good week. Although the prime minister has spent much of the past year denying any role in a dizzying financial scandal linked to 1MDB—a beleaguered state-investment firm now under investigation in half a dozen countries—his coalition, Barisan Nasional, has just secured thumping wins in a pair of by-elections. National polls are not due until 2018, but Mr Najib may now decide that a snap election is the safest way to secure a new mandate for Barisan, which in various guises has ruled the country since the 1950s. The coalition retains broad support from the country’s ethnic-Malay majority, who trust it to defend laws granting them advantages over their ethnic-Chinese and Indian compatriots, and who seem not much moved by allegations of corruption. But it is also benefiting from the hopelessness of Malaysia’s opposition parties, which are now consumed by bickering.