He’s the 61-year-old scion of Malaysian political royalty with UMNO, the Malay nationalist party that has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1957. His father was the country’s second prime minister and his uncle its third. Mr Najib inherited his late father’s seat as an MP at 23 and later rose through the party ranks as chief minister of his home state and the serving in the Cabinet portfolios of education, defence and finance as well as deputy prime minister.