Graphic artist Fahmi Reza moves warily through Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown.

Key points: Malaysian general election will be held on May 9

Malaysian general election will be held on May 9 New laws can make it illegal to be critical of the Government

New laws can make it illegal to be critical of the Government Party of only serious challenger to Najib Razak disbanded

Dressed all in black, the veteran activist looks around to check who's watching before he slaps a sticker of his own design on a power pole.

It's a caricature of Prime Minister Najib Razak, drawn as a kind of horror movie clown — more Pennywise from the film IT than Ronald McDonald.

"For me it's an act of defiance," said Mr Reza.

"Because I recently got sentenced to jail for designing a bunch of clown stickers of the Prime Minister.

"It's a middle finger to the authorities, they're taking away my right to dissent, my right to speak out about their corruption."

Mr Reza's talking about the 1MDB scandal, in which the US Department of Justice says that billions of dollars of taxpayers' money was siphoned off under the watch of Mr Najib.

Under a new "fake news" law, suggesting the Prime Minister did anything wrong is punishable by jail.

Najib Razak's Government is using new laws to silence dissent. ( Reuters: Olivia Harris )

"It's another attempt by them to silence any criticism of them, using cyber laws," said Mr Reza.

"I think the purpose of the fake news law is just to create a chilling effect, to make people afraid to post stuff critical of the Government.

"I get people messaging me on Facebook saying, 'can they be charged under the law for retweeting or shared any of my postings on social media?'.

"I think that shows they're becoming afraid, and it's working."

Fahmi Reza says he's not worried by the prospect of being targeted by authorities. ( ABC News: Phil Hemingway )

With the new laws and a range of administrative roadblocks, the Malaysian Government is making life difficult for its opponents.

The political party of the only serious challenger to Mr Najib, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, was disbanded the day before this election was called.

While Kuala Lumpur is a sea of flags and posters bearing the smiling face of Mr Najib, the face of Dr Mahathir is invisible: another rule prevents his image being displayed on campaign material.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 10 minutes 23 seconds 10 m Dr Mahathir Mohamad speaks to The World program earlier this year

New laws to crack down on dissent

The election is being held mid-week, in what the opposition says is an attempt to restrict voter turnout, and an electoral gerrymander is in place that heavily favours the ruling party.

And then there's the clampdown on users of sites like Facebook and Twitter.

"We have been seeing over the past few years a crackdown on dissent," said lawyer Syahredzan Johan, who represents some of the young social media users who've been arrested for their posts.

"They have used a number of legislations. The primary legislation would be the sedition act.

"They've also used legislation that is primarily targeted at the internet, and of course there's the anti-fake news act. All these are being used to silence dissent.

"I think it is a situation where the state is trying to reclaim what it once had.

Fahmi Reza places his stickers — caricatures of Prime Minister Najib Razak — around Kuala Lumpur. ( ABC News: Phil Hemingway )

"Once, before this, information was monopolised by the state. Now the state is just another purveyor of information.

"It has become the situation where the state wants to regain control of information and these are means by which the state is trying to assert its control.

"I think that Malaysia, in terms of the laws, is regressing, but at the same time I think there's more awareness.

"Hopefully there will be more challenges, because we have a constitution here — laws can be challenged here."

One of the goals of Mr Najib's party, Barisan Nasional, is to win a two-thirds majority in Parliament on May 9 — which will let it amend the constitution.

Mr Reza is facing another trial for his Najib criticism. He insists he is not worried.

"Cause I've been doing this for the past 15 years — I've been locked up a few times already … I've been beaten up for my art and I've been banned from university and even banned from travelling overseas.

"By now I'm used to it already, they're going to come down and come down hard."