Malaysian politics

An almost comical series of events following a move to increase his support base has seen former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad wind up on the opposition benches. Mahathir returned to power in May 2018 as the unity candidate for the Pakatan Harapan coalition, which replaced the corruption-plagued United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) government. It was the first time UMNO was not part of the government. Indeed, all previous Malaysian prime ministers, including Mahathir during his first 22-year stint, were from the party. Unfortunately for Malaysia, the Pakatan Harapan coalition was dogged by political infighting.

Last week a splinter group tried to form an alliance with the opposition, leading Mahathir to resign. He then became interim prime minister till a replacement was chosen by the king. While the palace tried to gauge who had the support of a majority of parliamentarians, Mahathir and long-term frenemy Anwar Ibrahim were able to cobble together what they thought was enough support to return him to power.

But Muhyiddin Yassin, the home minister in Mahathir’s previous government, formed a coalition of his own with the backing of far-right religious parties and the UMNO and convinced the king that he had majority support.

There may be some irony here because Mahathir’s failure to set a date for the pre-agreed transfer of power to Anwar has been cited by analysts as one of the reasons for the infighting that led to his resignation in the first place. Muhyiddin, incidentally, was deputy prime minister under Najib Razak until he was sacked in 2015, amid the multibillion-dollar 1MDB corruption scandal. Najib is personally accused of having siphoned off over $700 million as part of the scam. Muhyiddin left UMNO after the government was sacked and joined forces with Mahathir ahead of the May 2018 election. Now, having become prime minister with the backing of UMNO, it is feared that the ongoing investigation, involving multiple countries, will turn to nought.

Meanwhile, the new ‘Muslim bloc’ comprising Malaysia, Turkey, Qatar, Iran and Pakistan will have to be put on hold while Malaysia swims through this highly unstable phase.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2020.

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