Malaysia political crisis

[jaichind]

PPBM expels Mahathir and his faction from the party.  Mahathir  claims that he is still the chairman of PPBM and that PM Muhyiddin  should be the one facing being sacked.  This move pretty much rules out some sort of rapprochement between   Mahathir and Muhyiddin and will weaken the hand of both factions within their respective alliances. 

[jaichind]

I am still confused on why UMNO-PAS does not just pull the plug on this Muhyiddin government and go for early elections.  This recent political battle has further tainted Anwar as someone that might be under the control of DAP and the Chinese which in turn will further consolidate the Malay vote behind UMNO-PAS.  PH knows this so in an election there will be splits within PH trying to project a different face for PH (Mahathir or someone else).  UNMO-PAS will be running against a divided PH plus a rump PPBM and easily win a majority if not a 2/3 majority.  Dragging this out merely associates them with any mistakes  Muhyiddin might make as PM and actually could reduce their chances of a landslide victory.

[jaichind]

My current count of political alignments in the Parliament

Ruling bloc
PPBM (Muhyiddin faction)   32
BN                                   42
PAS                                 18
GPS                                 18 (old BN bloc in Sarawak)
GBS                                  3 (old BN and anti-WARISAN bloc in Sabah)
Total                              113

Opposition
PH                                  92
PPBM(Mathahir faction)      5
WARISAN bloc                 10 (Sabah based, pro-Mathahir)
PSB                                  2 (Sarawak based old BN splinter, pro-Mathahir)
Total                             109

There were some confusion on if PSB backed Muhyiddin instead during the 1 hour sitting of Parliament but the 2 PSB MPs have clarified their pro-opposition position.

The main Muhyiddin avenue of expanding their majority seems to be to target PSB and the WARISAN bloc.  The WARISAN bloc is unlikely to join up since the pro-ruling bloc GBS will be their main opponent in the next Sabah election.  

Likewise the opposition is hoping to rope in GPS to join their side to bring down the Muhyiddin  government.  That is unlikely to work as tin the next  Sarawak election GPS will be facing PH (mostly PKR-DAP) as their main opponent.   The only hope the opposition has is to be clear about who will be PM (Mathahir or Anwar or someone else), stay united on that consensus and then lure disgruntled ruling bloc MPs (mostly from hidden pro-Mathahir MPs within the PPBM (Muhyiddin faction) to come with the promise of office and power sharing.

As things stand the compulsion of electoral competition makes shifting of the battle lines fairly unlikely on the short run.  

 

[jaichind]

What is also interesting about the PPBM (Muhyiddin faction)  is that it is made up mostly of defectors.  Out of the 32 MPs in PPBM (Muhyiddin faction) only 7 (including Muhyiddin himself) were elected in 2018 on the PPBM ticket with 5 of the 13 elected in 2018 going with the Mathahir faction (including Mathahir and his son.)  10 MPs were elected in 2018 as PKR and were part of the Azmin Ali faction that split out to join PPBM.  15 MPs were defectors from UMNO. 
 

[jaichind]

First counter-defection away from the Muhyiddin bloc.  A PPBM (Muhyiddin faction) MP and deputy works minister, resigns from the government and goes over to the PPBM (Mathahir faction)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/malaysia-politics-deputy-works-minister-resigns-bersatu-12804504

So now PPBM (Muhyiddin faction) has 31 MPs from 32 while PPBM (Mathahir faction) has 6 MPs instead of 5 MPs.  The government majority falls from 113-109 to 112-110 and its majority falls to 1.

[jaichind]

http://freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/06/05/pkr-veep-from-sarawak-quits-party-pledges-loyalty-to-muhyiddin-gps/

And the counter-defection is immediately cancelled out by a Sarawak PKR MP who defected to PN, ostensibly so that his constituency can continue receiving aid from the federal government. Because of its historical reliance on federal aid, the Sarawak political scene is very machine-oriented and dominated by a few former UMNO bigwigs (most notably the PPBM-aligned and famously corrupt former Chief Minister Taib Mahmud), who famously led all of Sarawak's Barisan MPs away from the coalition to form a new party known as GPS (which nevertheless caucused with BN in Parliament). Now, of course, GPS has returned to Muhyiddin's side and their political gravity in the state remains strong. While the defecting MP is nominally registering as an independent, I fully expect him and the several other "independent" Muhyiddin-aligned MPs to formally register with Perikatan Nasional soon – such candidates in Sarawak have historically been quick to move to a party, the most recent cases being this MP himself as well as the then Pakatan-aligned (and now state party chief) Larry Sng, both of whom won in 2018 as independents with Pakatan's backing, then formally registered with the party the morning after the election.

While Larry Sng who is the son of a BN rebel and founder of BN splinter SWP ran with PH support in 2018,  Jugah Muyang who just defected to PN, was a BN component party PRS rebel and won in a 3 way race beating out both BN and PH before joining PKR after the election.  Since he has a BN (now GPS) background I totally expect him now to join up with GPS.

[jaichind]

It seems PH is going to fall apart.  PH, PPBM (Mathahir faction), and WARISAN bloc had been meeting to come up with an consensus PM candidate and then make a push to recapture power.  In seems that PKR insist the PM candidate should be Anwar while DAP, AMANAH, WARISAN and PPBM (Mathahir faction) were for Mathahir with Anwar as DPM who will then take over half a year later. 

According to DAP and AMANAH sources they gave PKR some time to get the Sarawak based GPS to back Anwar as PM in which case they will switch their support over to Anwar.  It seems PKR missed the deadline so DAP and  AMANAH are insisting that PKR back Mathahir so he can rope in GPS in support a PH goverment.  Due to the compulsion of electoral politics this was unlikely to take place one way or another.  Anyhow PKR came out with "It has to be Anwar or the highway" position and seems to be threatening to leave PH over this issue.

If so this sounds like a great time for a snap election where even if the UNMO-PAS alliance does not hold across the board UNMO will sweep back to power with a massive majority.  The Malaysia 2018-2020 experience really looks like the 1977-1979 India experience with a coalition of the opposition forces plus splinters from a long time ruling party finally defeats a dominate ruling party only to bicker and splinter in power leading to the fall of the government followed by a landslide defeat to the former dominate ruling party.

[jaichind]

The latest Mathahir maneuver given the deadlock between him and Anwar is to have WARISAN leader Shafie Apdal  as the PH PM candidate with Anwar and Mathahir's son Mukhriz as DPM.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/06/27/shafie-apdal-being-pushed-as-pakatan039s-pm-choice

Clearly this both a move to diminish Anwar but also make an argument that  Shafie Apdal could potentially pull in GPS to back a PH government out of Borneo solidarity against Peninsular Malaysia domination of Malaysia politics since the foundation of the Malaysia federation.   I doubt this will work but I guess if there is any chance of getting GPS to defect this is that way.  It is also a way to pull in votes for PH in Borneo when the midterm election does come.

DAP and AMANAH are all onboard for this with Anwar and PKR trying to figure out how to counter this idea without being viewed as Anwar for PM or nothing.

[jaichind]

https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/malaysia-prime-minister-wins-test-of-support-ousts-house-speaker/

PM Muhyiddin wins another battle against Mahathir by ousting the AMANAH Speaker with one of his own.  The vote was very close 111-109 which sort of shows that neither side have moved the front much over the last month or so.

[jaichind]

https://www.kob.com/business-news/malaysia-court-sentences-ex-prime-minister-najib-razak-to-serve-up-to-12-years-in-jail-for-crimes-linked-to-1mdb-scandal/5808954/?cat=602

Former UMNO PM Najib Razak  found guilty of all charges in his corruption trial and sentenced to 12 years in jail.  He can still appeal but in the meantime he will lose his position as PM.  Obviously for Muhyiddin  this means losing one MP on his side but he will gain it back in the by-election.   In certain ways this is good news for Muhyiddin as Najib Razak is the only politician in UMNO that has broad Malay electoral appeal and can unite the UMNO base.  Now with Najib Razak out of the way UMNO might have no choice but back Muhyiddin as the leader and PM candidate of PN in a snap election that is sure to come within the year.

[jaichind]

Two big news which seems to be related to the aftershocks of Najib Razak being found guilty

1) Sabah WARISAN-PH government falls with large number of government MLA defecting to PN.  The driver for this is former UMNO CM Musa Aman was recently acquitted of  corruption charges and have been using the power of central government subsidies to buy back MLAs.  WARISAN CM Mohd Shafie Apdal has convinced the governor to call a snap election over Musa Aman's objections claiming that he can prove a majority of the MLAs.  With the WARISAN-PH vote share likely to still be significant some of the WARISAN-PH defector MLAs might defect back to get a WARISAN-PH ticket.

2) At the national level PN seems to be have dissolved.  UMNO has announced that it is not longer in the PN alliance led by PPBM PM Muhyiddin Yassin and that UMNO will continue to support Muhyiddin Yassin but not as a part of the PN alliance.  It seems UMNO will focus MN alliance which is its alliance with PAS.  UMNO' plan seems to be getting ready for a snap election where they will either kick out Muhyiddin Yassin's PPBM or allow them to join up as a marginal force.  Muhyiddin Yassin has indicated that he wants to have PPBM join MN in response as he knows PPBM running by itself in the next election will mean certain wipe out.

[jaichind]

It would seem to me that Sabah is so dependent on federal subsidies that if PH is not in power at the federal level, even if WARISAN-PH wins the Sabah assembly election defections of MLAs.  UMNO pulled this off back in 1994 after the 1994 assembly elections produced a PBS majority but was overturned when UMNO bought off various PBS factions to split out from PBS and join forces with UMNO to from the government.  I assume what Shafie Apdal is trying to do is to delay this and hope by the time WARISAN-PH wins the assembly election the national picture would have changed.

[jaichind]

https://www.therakyatpost.com/2020/08/12/dr-mahathir-unveils-his-new-party-name-in-a-poem-condemning-corruption/

Mahathir forms new party called Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (PPTA) which means Party of Homeland's Fighters.   In theory he plans to have this party separate from the PH alliance and will angle to be a kingmaker in the post midterm election world.  In practice unless PPTA forms an alliance with PH it will have no chance of winning any seats.

[jaichind]

Anwar has a history of claiming defectors to come that will get him to a majority to make him PM.  He did this right after the 2008 election.  Of course these so called defectors never showed up.  Looks like he is up to his old tricks again.

[jaichind]

At this point it makes more sense to throw a snap election than go through several more government changes/collapses. Clearly the Malay political leadership are unable to reach a consensus bar a majority to overrule leading party personalities.

We have to get past the Sabah mid-term election first.  That will help calibrate the relative strength of the ruling bloc and opposition as well as the relative strength within the ruling bloc (UMNO, PAS, PPBM) and will have a large impact on seat sharing talks between UMNO-PAS-PPBM.  If PPBM does not so well in the Sabah election this weekend UMNO-PAS might just cut PPBM out of seat sharing talks in the upcoming federal midterm elections which are certain to come soon.

[jaichind]

If I had to guess what is going on is

a) Anwar is trying to rattle the GPS (UMNO-PPBM-PBS) alliance in the upcoming Sabah assembly election and push marginal Sabah voters that are focused on federal subsidies to vote for  WARISAN-PH over the GPS alliance in the weekend election

b) It seems some UMNO MPs are playing along perhaps to grab a share of power but with tacit support from UMNO high command who want to use this to extra greater pound of flesh in power sharing at the federal level from Muhyiddin/PPBM.  The way UMNO figure it even if this blows up in their face what will most likely happen is a snap election where UMNO clearly will gain seats.

[jaichind]

Now would be a useful time list out the Malay MP list

BN
  UMNO       39 (38 elected in 2018, 1 by by-election) (Malay party)
  MCA           2 (1 elected in 2018, 1 by by-election) (Chinese party)
  MIC            1 (1 elected in 2018) (Indian party)
  PBRS          1 (1 elected in 2018) (Sabah Christian tribal)

PAS            18 (18 elected in 2018) (Malay Islamic party)

GPS (Sarawak ruling bloc)
 PBB          13 (13 elected in 2018) (Sarawak Muslim tribal)
 PRS           2 (2 elected in 2018) (Sarawak Christian tribal)
 SPDP         2 (2 elected in 2018) (Sarawak Christian tribal)
 SUPP         1 (1 elected in 2018) (Sarawak Chinese)
 GPS Ind     1 (PRS rebel elected in 2018 then joined PKR then defected to GPS)

PN
  PPBM       31 (6 elected in 2018, 10 PKR defectors (Azmin Ali faction), 15 UMNO defectors)
  PBS           1 (1 elected in 2018) (Sabah Christian tribal)
  STAR         1 (1 elected in 2018) (Sabah Christian tribal)

PH
  DAP         42 (42 elected in 2018) (Chinese)
  PKR         38 (36 elected in 2018, 2 independents that joined after 2018) (Multi-ethnic)
  AMANAH  11 (11 elected in 2018) (PAS moderate splinter)

WARISAN bloc (Sabah ruling bloc)
  WARISAN  9 (8 elected in 2018, 1 UMNO defector) (Sabah Malay)
  UPKO        1 (1 elected in 2018 as BN alliance then defected to WARISAN) (Sabah Christian tribal)

PSB            2  (2 defectors from PRS) (Sarawak Christian tribal) (pro-PH)

PEJUANG     5 (5 elected as PPBM, Mahathir faction) (pro-PH)

MUDA         1 (1 elected as PPBM, youth splinter from Mahathir faction) (pro-PH)

Right now the ruling bloc has BN PN and PAS which adds up to 113 vs 109 for the opposition.

For Anwar's claim to be true (2/3 majority) it will have to be the 91 from PH, 1 from MUDA, 10 from WARISAN bloc and 2 from PSB plus most if not all of UMNO.  Mahathir is against Anwar becoming PM so PEJUANG's 5 is out.

Anwar led PH-UMNO alliance will be truly farcical.  I suspect it will work on practice as DAP will most likely leave such an alliance to join up with  Mahathir.  Perhaps Anwar convinced most UMNO MPs to leave UMNO and join PKR ?  

[jaichind]

Past history of Anwar claiming a majority for him being PM which never showed up

Anwar: Pakatan Rakyat can take over Fed Govt by Sept 16 - 23 Apr 2008
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2008...govt-by-sept-16

Anwar says he has majority to rule - SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia...0080916?sp=true

Anwar says Pakatan Harapan has the numbers to form Malaysia's government - FEB 29, 2020
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/a...sias-government

Will this be the 4th ?

[jaichind]

It seems part of the defectors that Anwar is talking about seems to be GPS or the Sarawak ruling bloc.  If so most likely this is a GPS scare tactic to extract concessions from PPBM PM Muhyiddin.  GPS's main electoral competition in Sarawak is PKR-DAP.  It makes no sense for GPS bloc to form an alliance with PH.

[jaichind]

My guess what is going on

Muhyiddin's plan: Wants snap elections and is the only one to be able to call one but does not want one unless there is a rock solid UMNO-PAS-PPBM seat sharing agreement.   So his plan is PN does well in Sabah assembly elections this weekend which increases his hand to force UMNO-PAS to have a seat sharing alliance with Muhyiddin as the PM candidate and then call a snap election.

UMNO plan: Wants a snap election which UMNO-PAS will win but does not want Muhyiddin and PPBM in the alliance where they have to share power.  Problem is  only Muhyiddin can call an election. So if UMNO allows some of his MPs to "defect" to Anwar it will destroy Muhyiddin's majority and a PPBM out of power will completely collapse.  So for Muhyiddin to save himself he has to call elections even if there is no seat sharing agreement between UMNO-PAS and PPBM.

UMNO "15 defector plan": Try to get the most out current situation.  If defecting to Anwar means more power for them personally.  Great. Since their "defect" is tactically sanctioned by UMNO high command they even if Muhyiddin just then call a snap election they can still run on UMNO ticket and come back as a part of a UMNO-PAS majoruty.  Win-win situation 

Anwar plan:  Anwar is sort of the Hillary Clinton of Malaysian politics.  There were many situations where Anwar could have become PM but somehow lady luck always pass him by.  Getting these UMNO defector is his last chance to become PM so he is charging forward even though he knows it could be a UMNO trap.  The way he must be justifying it to his allies must be: this gambit could help the  WARISAN-PH alliance in the Sabah assembly election this weekend so please play along since coming back to power or stopping a Muhyiddin snap election that UMNO-PAS will sweep involves a Sabah assembly election victory.

It seems UMNO played this very well if what I think is going on is true.  What UMNO will achieve is to play Muhyiddin  and Anwar against each other to force a midterm election where it will be UMNO-PAS vs PPBM vs PH where most likely it will be a UMNO-PAS landslide especially when Anwar has shown himself to be a political opportunist by doing deals with the "corrupt" UMNO. 

[jaichind]

Mahathir  said he will not run in the next general election which means the death of PEJUANG  after the next election.

[jaichind]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/25/malaysia-power-struggle-set-to-drag-on-as-king

Anwar will not disclose the names of the "defectors" that came to his side until he meets with the King.  But the King is now in the hospital for a week and cannot see anyway.   For Anwar most likely this is a feature and not a bug and has the side effect of provoking conflict between PPBM and UMNO  with an eye on the Sabah assembly elections tomorrow.

[jaichind]

Now that the Sabah mid-term assembly election has resulted in a narrow victory for GPS with PPBM doing reasonably well, on paper mean Muhyiddin will move forward with a mid-term federal election soon. 

Of course there is the issue of Anwar and his claim of a large number of defectors (mostly UMNO and Sarawak MPs.)  The election results most likely means that if any of these "defectors" were real, most if not all of them have pulled back their support for Anwar.  Any of these possible "defectors" are almost now certainly doing so to increase their leverage with respect  to Muhyiddin and seat sharing talks.

And seat sharing talks will be a clear glaring problem for the BN-PN-PAS landslide to come once the election is called.  In  Kelantan, Kedah, and Terengganu, PAS will demand UMNO accommodate them in the seats PAS won in 2018 if not more, something the local UMNO will not accept.  Likewise PPBM will demand UMNO accommodate PPBM in seats PPBM currently hold.  But most of those seats are really UMNO defectors, especially in Sabah.  It is hard to see UMNO will accept ceding these seat which UMNO consider its core.   Now that GPS won Sabah, I can see both UMNO and PPBM read the election as "their victory" and ramp up their demands in seat sharing talks.  I can even see a situation where seat sharing talks fall apart and it ends up being BN vs PPBM-PAS in the general elections.  If that were to come to pass then the GPS government in Sabah might fall apart and  WARISAN-PH come back to  power if certain parts of GPS were to defect due to the collapse of the BN-PN alliance.

One way or another there is more fun to come and soon.

[jaichind]

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/malaysia-ruling-partys-pick-for-sabah-minister-could-fray-ties

In Sabah, GPS goes with PPBM  leader Hajiji Noor to be the new CM.   PPBM PM Muhyiddin seems to be calling UMNO's bluff by pushing in his candidate to be CM over the objections of UMNO.  I guess what PPBM PM Muhyiddin is saying to UMNO is "we won in Sabah because of me, I should get to call the shots there since the victory is my"

In the meantime Anwar is still waiting to meet with the hospitalized King to show him the list of supporters and convince the King to appointment him PM.  Plenty of time for maneuvers by all sides. 

[jaichind]

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/09/29/claiming-umno-bullied-by-bersatu-in-sabah-lokman-demands-bn-chair-pull-reps/1907885

Signs of rebellion within UMNO on how its was out-maneuvered by PPBM in Sabah in the race for CM.  There are not demands for UMNO to leave the ruling alliance.  I guess this is the basis of Anwar's gambit.  I doubt it will pan out but still UMNO high command is now in a tough position.  All this can be solved by a mid-term election but UMNO does not seem to be able to move the chess pieces to that election where UMNO will most likely make large gains.