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Can Malaysia’s Mahathir survive by-election humiliation?

By Murray Hunter - posted Friday, 22 November 2019


It could be argued that the result was also a rejection of Ketuanan Melayu politics with Wee as the challenger to the Bersatu candidate, with his religious background. Not only Chinese voted against PH, many Malays also left PH to vote for a Chinese candidate.

The message is loud and clear to Pakatan. Unless there is a total change in direction, PH will be completely decimated in the next general election. This is particularly so of Mahathir’s Bersatu party. The Muafakat-BN also showed it will be a formidable opponent, come general election time.

For Mahathir personally, the defeat of Bersatu in Tanjung Plai last Saturday is probably his greatest failure since he lost his parliamentary seat to Yusof Rawa of PAS in the 1969 general election. Any of Mahathir’s residual prestige within PH is diminished. His bargaining power over both PH and opposition MPs has also been greatly weakened.

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PH has many problems currently. Infighting between Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali in the open, the silence of those within PKR and DAP, and the poor job ministers are doing is losing public support. However, Mahathir is now perceived as the scapegoat. His unpopularity is a liability to the survival of the PH government.

A prime minister would not normally resign after a poor showing in a by-election. However, the context of Tanjung Plai is different. Ubah voters wanted Anwar as their prime minister, and agreed to Mahathir as a caretaker, as he promised he would be for two years. That’s what the Malaysian electorate was told and that’s what they understood.

Its unlikely Mahathir will stand down in the foreseeable future. We are now entering a phase where more and more people will see his premiership as illegitimate.

Tanjung Plai has played into Anwar’s hands, who looked to have pushed himself completely out of the picture after the Inspector General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador indirectly blamed him for instigating a sex video of Azmin Ali, chief rival for primacy in the coalition.

This leaves the Malaysian political landscape in total instability. Mahathir will be looking for ways to maintain his leadership and control, encouraged by party cadres who are unlikely to survive in an Anwar led government. Anwar believes that the prime ministership is justifiably his. There is no doubt after Tanjung Plai his cause will attract fence sitters. Anwar knows, if he doesn’t make a move sooner rather than later, at age 72 his chance of leading the country will be gone.

Correctly any formal Anwar move should be at the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council. This requires direct confrontation on the issue of coalition leadership, which could rupture the coalition. Mahathir’s refusal and reasons for not stating a handover date are wearing thin. Covert confrontation is already occurring, but being direct to Mahathir is something so far DAP, AMANAH, and PKR have not done.

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Anwar’s second option of collecting Statutory declarations of a majority of MPs and visiting the Yang Dipertuan Agong (the king), is long, cumbersome, and would lead to an uncertain result. Without Mahathir of his own free will standing down, the job of removing him could cause great political turmoil, something the Anwar forces want to avoid.

Anwar’s track record on political moves isn’t good. However, he is good at building alliances. That’s his strong point. Anwar has his own 47 PKR seats in Parliament. However, he could lose around 10 seats through a breakaway Azmin faction if it drifted to Mahathir. Together with the 42 seats the DAP has and 11 seats AMANAH has, the Anwar faction would have around 90 seats needing 22 more to form a government. Anwar could garner these seats from Sabah and an approach to the Sarawak GPS, which could get him over the line.

In contrast, Bersatu is now seeing a reverse defection to UMNO. Bersatu’s entry into Sarawak has alienated the GPS. DAP and AMANAH will follow Anwar. There are too many animosities for Mahathir to team up with an UMNO with Najib and PAS. Many UMNO members would now think twice about supporting a Mahathir government now.

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About the Author

Murray Hunter is an associate professor at the University Malaysia Perlis. He blogs at Murray Hunter.

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