Malaysia political crisis

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-26/malaysia-s-anwar-says-he-s-confident-of-forming-next-government

Ruling PH alliance broke up Monday with PM Mahathir resigning.  Now there is a 3 way race between Mahathir, ally turned rival turned ally and now turned rival Anwar Ibrahim, and the UNMO-PAS bloc to capture power

[jaichind]

2018 election

PH bloc      123
PKR             47 (Anwar Ibrahim's party)
DAP             42 (Chinese based)
PPBM           13 ( Mahathir's party, UNMO splinter)
AMANAH      11 (PAS splinter)
WARISAN      8  (Sabah based)
IND              2

BN bloc       79
UNMO         54
MCA             1 (Indian based)
MIC              2 (Chinese based)
PBS              1 (Sabah)
UPKO           1 (Sabah)
PBRS            1 (Sabah)
PBB            13 (Sarawak)
SUPP           1 (Sarawak)
PRS             3 (Sarawak)
SPDP           2 (Sarawak)

PRS rebel     1

PAS           18

USA bloc      1
STAR           1 (Sabah)

Changes after the election

1) 2 pro-PH independent MP joined PKR
2) PRS rebel MP joined PKR
3) 14 UNMO MPs joined PPBM
5) 1 UNMO  MP becomes pro-PPBM independent
6) 1 UNMO MP (in Sabah) joins  WARISAN
7) USA bloc in Sabah becomes GBP with PBRS and PBS leaving BN to join it
8 ) UPKO leaves BN to align with WARISAN
9) GPS bloc formed in Sarawak with PBB SUPP PRS and SPDP leaving BN to join it
10) by election where MIC seat became UNMO
11) by election where a PPBM seat became MCA
12) One PRS MP leaves PRS and joins PSB

Then over the weekend as it seems that at timeline was set for  Mahathir to step down later this year to hand power over to Anwar PPBM leaves PH while an anti-Anwar bloc within PKR led by Azmin Ali led 11 MPs out of PKR.

All those changes led to the following blocs


PH bloc              92
DAP                   42
PKR                   39
AMANAH            11

WARISAN bloc    10 (Sabah)
WARISAN            9
UPKO                  1

PPBM bloc         38
PPBM                26
pro-PPBM Ind      1
Ali PRK rebels    11

BN bloc             42
UBMO               39
MCA                   2
MIC                    1

PAS                  18

GBS bloc            3 (Sabah)
STAR                  1
PBRS                  1
PBS                    1

GPS bloc           18 (Sarawak)
PBB                  13
SUPP                  1
PRS                    2
SPDP                  2

PSB                    1

What the PPBM and  Azmin Ali  PKR rebels planed was for Mahathir to continue as PM but dropping the PH parties and getting BN, PAS and the Sabah and Sarawak blocs to join in.  Mahathir  seems to have rejected having a government where UNMO will have a significant presence and resigned Monday more to try to regain control of PPBM and also also get PH to support him and drop this entire Anwar succession plan.

Initially PH indicated they will continue to support Mahathir as PM but it seems that Mahathir position  is to form a grand coalition PH instead switched to backing Anwar as PM.  UNMO-PAS seems to want a snap election.

So now it seems that  Mahathir will try to form a government with PPBM bloc (38) plus WARISAN
bloc (10) with some outside support from Sabah and Sarawak blocs with some PH, UNMO, PAS defectors.

Anwar's path is to form a majority based on PH bloc (92) and then try to get  WARISAN
bloc (10) as well as GPS(18) to back it.

And if both fail there will be a snap election where it seems if UNMO and PAs forms an electoral alliance they are poised to win given the sudden breakup of the PH goverment.

[jaichind]

The core issue here is the role of the Chinese in Malaysia.  An Anwar PH government will more heavily depend on the Chinese based DAP.  Given the Chinese minority already dominate the Malaysian economy there is a legitimate fear from the Malay majority that the Chinese will also now capture the political heights. 

I really recommend DAP sees this danger and swing behind Mahathir so the government is continued to be viewed as a government for Malays and a Malaysia as a the homeland of the Malays.  If not political chaos will continue even if Anwar is able to form a government and there will be a surge of ethnic tensions.   

[jaichind]

Anyway this seems to be the second time Mahathir will most likely cheat Anwar out of a PM succession.  Back in the 1990s when Mahathir was the UNMO PM, Anwar was his #2 and was groomed to take over UNMO and become PM when Mahathir steps down.  Instead they had a massive falling out in 1998 leading to Anwar expulsion and then later imprisonment

In 2017-18  Mahathir and Anwar renewed their alliance to take on UNMO and PH defeated BN with  Mahathir as PM with the understanding that Anwar will take over after a year or two.  Now this  Mahathir broke this succession again 20 years later.

[jaichind]

PKR rebel Azmin Ali who is now leading an anti-Anwar bloc of 11 MPs seems to have hoped that he becomes Mahathir's successor when he retires versus Anwar.

[jaichind]

A earlier writeup by me on the history of Mahathir's masterstrokes

A history of Mahathir and Malaysian politics since 1998 to today shows that Mahathir should win the Senator Palpatine award.  

1998: UNMO PM Mahathir has a falling out with his deputy and successor Anwar.  Anwar is put in jail and the pro-Anwar bloc within UNMO splits to form what became PKR.
1999: BN suffers a significant loss of seats and vote due to the PKR split.  The Chinese vote which votes on economic issues comes in to save BN due to the Chinese need for economic stability in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis. Mahathir's authority in UNMO is weakened as a result of losses in Malay support for UNMO
2000-2003 Pressure grows on Mahathir  to step side to make way for his new deputy Badawi to take over UNMO and become PM in hopes that Badawi can recapture the Malay support Mahathir has lost.
2003: Mahathir  steps down to make way for Badawi  to become UNMO leader and PM.
2003-2004: Badawi reaches out to PKR supporters.  Badawi who is fairly religious also appeals to PAS supporters.  Badawi is also a moderate on Malay nationalism and is also able to appeal to the Chinese vote.
2004: Badawi leads BN to the largest landslide in history pulling in support from opposition voters across the board.  Badawi releases Anwar in the aftermath of his victory to try to heal the wounds of 1998-1999.
2004-2005: Relationship between  Badawi  and Mahathir breaks down.  In theory it is over policy over carmaker Proton but the real reason is  Badawi  is able to crave out his own political base and identify away from Mahathir as a result of his 2004 landslide victory.  Mahathir sees his legacy under threat as Badawi  goes his own way.
2005: In order to create his own pressure group within UNMO Mahathir shifts to a radical Malay nationalist position and begins a movement to overthrow Badawi   within UNMO based on this radical base.
2006: Mahathir tries to overthrow Badawi in the UNMO conference but fails.
2008: Mahathir does not quit UNMO but actively works against BN behind the scenes as well as driving away Chinese voters with his radical Malay nationalist rhetoric  
2008: Badawi leads BN to its worst election result ever losing its 2/3 majority.  The Chinese vote swing away from BN was critical.  BN also lost a lot of ground in Kedah which is Mahathir's home state and has a lot of influence over.  In the aftermath of this election Mahathir quits  UNMO to protest Badawi not resigning as UNMO leader and PM.
2009 Badawi  resigns as UNMO leader and PM and Mahathir's preferred candidate Razak is installed as UNMO and PM.  
2009-2013 Razak wants to chart a moderate course the Malay nationalism issue to regain the Chinese vote but runs into Mahathir's pressure to keep the Malay nationalist line. Razak and Mahathir relationship gets frostier but not to the breaking point. Razak saw what took place with Badawi  and moved to a more radical Malay nationalist line to keep  Mahathir in good humor.
2013: Razak runs the 2013 election on a Malay nationalist platform and while there was a massive swing of Chinese and Indian voters away from BN, Razak  won re-election with a reduced majority based on Mahathir's  support and a swing of the Malay vote back.  BN regains ground in Kedah with Mahathir's support.
2015: 1MDB scandal breaks for Razak.  Mahathir breaks with Razak and starts to call for Razak's ouster.
2016: Mahathir and his bloc of key supports (including his son who is the CM of Kedah) moves in to push out Razak and have Mahathir  supporter DCM Yassin take over.  This coup attempt fails.  Mahathir and his bloc bolts from UNMO and forms what became PPBM.
2017: Mahathir leads PPBM into an alliance with the PH opposition bloc and becomes the leader of the opposition.  Mahathir now shift to a moderate position on the Malay nationalist issue so he can be in-line with PH position.  Razak's BN shifts in the opposition direction forming de facto alliance with PAS to short up the Malay nationalist vote for BN.
2018: Mahathir  leads PH to victory based on a PPBM grabbing some of the UNMO vote over to PH as well as an additional swing of the Chinese and Indian vote toward PH based on animosity of Razak's de facto alliance with PAS.

This history shows that Mahathir never really gave up power and is always looking to get it back either directly or behind the scenes.  

[jaichind]

Now UNMO and PAS will back PPBM President Muhyiddin Yassin to be PM now that Mahathir as rejected UNMO as partner.  Muhyiddin Yassin was the UNMO DPM but broke with UNMO in 2016 with Mahathir to form PPBM.

[jaichind]

The general dynamic of blocs is working against Anwar and PH.  The Sarawak based GPS bloc is much more likely to align with UNMO-PAS and/or PPBM.  The reason is in Sarawak GPS's main rival are PKR-DAP of PH bloc.  So for GPS to support Anwar and PH would make the upcoming 2021 Sarawak assembly election awkward with rival blocs as allies at the federal level.   Also Anwar's age of 72 means that if he becomes PM he will be there for a while which make various ambitious MPs of all parties to be wary of backing him.

[xelas81]

The general dynamic of blocs is working against Anwar and PH.  The Sarawak based GPS bloc is much more likely to align with UNMO-PAS and/or PPBM.  The reason is in Sarawak GPS's main rival are PKR-DAP of PH bloc.  So for GPS to support Anwar and PH would make the upcoming 2021 Sarawak assembly election awkward with rival blocs as allies at the federal level.   Also Anwar's age of 72 means that if he becomes PM he will be there for a while which make various ambitious MPs of all parties to be wary of backing him.

I mean 72 is old, just less old than 94 (Mahathir's age)
Is Mahathir's end goal to make his son PM?

[jaichind]

The general dynamic of blocs is working against Anwar and PH.  The Sarawak based GPS bloc is much more likely to align with UNMO-PAS and/or PPBM.  The reason is in Sarawak GPS's main rival are PKR-DAP of PH bloc.  So for GPS to support Anwar and PH would make the upcoming 2021 Sarawak assembly election awkward with rival blocs as allies at the federal level.   Also Anwar's age of 72 means that if he becomes PM he will be there for a while which make various ambitious MPs of all parties to be wary of backing him.

I mean 72 is old, just less old than 94 (Mahathir's age)
Is Mahathir's end goal to make his son PM?

It is clear that if Anwar becomes PM he will for sure run for re-election while Mahathir seems to just want to hold on to power as long as possible which is the end of this term.  Not sure what Mahathir's ideal plans are for succession but it seems PPBM head Muhyiddin Yassin would be his choice of successor if he could pull it off.

[jaichind]

UNMO-PAS came out to say that the news that they support PPBM head Muhyiddin Yassin to be PM is false.

[jaichind]

Mahathir meet with the King and indicted that the King could not find anyone with majority support.  So the parliament will meet March 2nd to cast vote for PM and if no one can win a majority there will be midterm elections.

Mahathir in the meantime have resumed his position as Chairman of PPBM.  Also in Jahor PPBM CM have formed an alliance with UNMO and PAS while dropping the PH parties.  These two moves clearly are a signal to Anwar that Mahathir will not back down.

So now Mahathir and Anwar are in prisoners dilemma, if they could not work out a deal where they combine forces to vote for a common PM candidate on March 2nd then there will be fresh elections which UNMO-PAS are certain to win a plurality  if not a majority.

So far this the 2018-2020 crisis seems to match India 1977-1979.

In 1977 the long time ruling INC led by Indira Gandhi was defeated by JNP which is a coalition of opposition parties and INC splinter.  Main problem is that JNP had 3 possible PM candidates (Charan Singh, Morarji Desai, and Jagjivan Ram)  In the end Morarji Desai became JNP PM but tensions remained.  Charan Singh in 1978 had a falling out with Morarji Desai and left the cabinet in 1978 but came back in early 1979 as DPM as part of a compromise.  That fell apart in mid 1979 as Charan Singh split JNP leading to the fall of the government and early elections.  Charan Singh's JNP(S) and  Jagjivan Ram's JNP split the anti-INC vote leading to the return to power of Indira Gandhi's INC in early 1980

Mahathir  and Anwar are now looking at such a scenario.  The only good news for them  is that UNMO does not have a mass base leader like Mahathir and Anwar unlike Indira Gandhi for India's INC.  Still that most likely would both overconfident and get crushed by a Malay consolidation behind UNMO-PAS.

[jaichind]

So now horse trading will have to take place between now and Monday.  It seems that if anyone can cobble up a majority it would Mahathir.  There does not seem to be any room for PH/Anwar to rope in another other bloc other than Sabah WARISAN but that would not be enough.  If PPBM/Mahathir dig in and refuse to work with PH then PH/Anwar will not find anyone else that can join them.

[jaichind]

PKR rebel leader Azmin Ali with his bloc of 11 PKR rebels will pay a heavy financial prices for their defection.  Back in 2018 fearing horse trading, all PKR candidates were asked to sign a legally binding document that said if election and they left PKR then they have to pay PKR a fine that amounts to $2.5 million.  I guess if the  Azmin Ali does find their way to be part of the ruling bloc somebody will pay this fine for them.  The nightmare scenario for them is for no government  to be formed and midterm elections called where they are almost certain to lose re-election and they are still on the hook for $2.5 million each.

[jaichind]

UNMO have told their party workers to prepare for an early election soon and that UNMO will be contesting with PAS as an ally.  Granted that UNMO have lost a bunch of its MP and some of it support base to PPBM but a UNMO-PAS alliance would be very powerful and would almost certainly sweep the polls outside of Chinese dominated districts given that Mahathir and Anwar will be contesting separately and the disappointment the PH base would be in how the PH government collapsed.

The main problem of a UNMO-PAS alliance are in states like Kelantan, Kedah, and Terengganu UNMO and PAS are main rivals of each other so it is not clear how they work out an alliance there.  Perhaps the UNMO-PAS alliance would have "friendly" fights in those states but work out a common candidate in the rest of Peninsular Malaysia.

The logical move for Anwar would be to back a Mahathir government and then try his luck in the 2023.  I suspect Anwar might feel that he has been cheated out of power so many times that this time it is now or never.  Of course in a UMMO-PAS sweep DAP will keep most of their seats in Chinese dominated districts and it is PKR that will lose most of their seats.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

wow, personally I am shocked that Mahathir would be a massive snake in power again. How out of character!

Also is it me, or is a new election campaign in the midst of the coronavirus a very bad idea?

[jaichind]

Malaysia Malaysian National News Agency Bernama summery of the crisis so far
 
https://www.bernama.com/en/general/news.php?id=1817050

[jaichind]

wow, personally I am shocked that Mahathir would be a massive snake in power again. How out of character!

Also is it me, or is a new election campaign in the midst of the coronavirus a very bad idea?

To some extent the Anwar gang provoked this.  The plan was for Mahathir to hand over power to Anwar "in about two years" after the 2018 election.  Last week the pro-Anwar forces pressured Mahathir to announce a date of Nov 2020 which then provoked the anti-Anwar bloc within PH to act, most likely with tacit but not explicit agreement from Mahathir.  When Mahathir  found out the deal these anti-Anwar forces worked out with UMNO-PAS gave up to much to UMNO he then balked.

[jaichind]

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/02/27/im-okay-if-more-lenient-muhyiddin-gets-support-for-pms-post-says-dr-m/

It seems PPBM, in order to get itself out of the mess it got into, will try to push  Muhyiddin Yassin as its PM candidate.  Muhyiddin Yassin seems more accommodating of UMNO than Mahathir can could pull off some sort of PPBM-UMNO-PAS alliance.  PPBM will also get killed in any midterm election so they would have an incentive to try to pull this off.  The problem is that UMNO-PAS now having the upper hand in an midterm election will be much harder bargainers. 

So in the end PPBM and PH might need to come together again to avoid a mid-term election.  It is just so much bad blood have flowed to make this difficult for both sides to back down and lose face. 

[PSOL]

Mahathir could have ended his term by overturning to a new era in Malaysian politics, now he’s cursing them to more years of stagnation because of his ego. I hope breaking Malay politics over nothing is worth it to him, because not even his corrupt cronies want him.

[jaichind]

PPBM bloc seems to be converging toward supporting PPBM head Muhyiddin Yassin who was UMNO DPM during 2009-2015 as its PM candidate.  Now it seems that UNMO-PAS will also back Muhyiddin Yassin.  It seems what is going on is Mahathir does not want to go on record in taking support from UMNO to form a government but is ok with  Muhyiddin Yassin doing so.  So this way  Mahathir  gets his main goal (stopping Anwar from becoming PM) but does not ruin his legacy of 2018 of being opposed to the corruption of UMNO. 

If all these news are true and Muhyiddin Yassin can really get PPBM bloc (38) and UNMO-PAS (42 and 18) to commonly support him, then it will not be hard to GPS bloc (18) and WARISAN bloc (10) which would be a fairly stable majority.   If he does this then in this round of Mahathir vs Anwar, Mahathir wins again.

[jaichind]

Main outstanding issue for Muhyiddin Yassin is to lock up the Sabah and Sarawak parties.  While it is clear that WARISAN and GPS blocs will in the end most likely back him they are certain to demand their pound of flesh in terms of federal subsidies and more favorable revenue sharing for the two states as   WARISAN and GPS blocs are the ruling parties of Sahah and Sarawak  respectively.   

[jaichind]

It seems that 10 out of the 11 PKR rebel bloc led by Azmin Ali have joined PPBM.  So the PPBM bloc is now 36 PPBM, 1 pro-PPBM Ind, and 1 PKR rebel.  Not clear which one of the PKR rebel led by Azmin Ali choose not to join PPBM.

[jaichind]

Not sure why UMNO-PAS agreed to this.  They would be in pole position to sweep in a mid-term election.  I suspect the reason why is if they played hardball PPBM will go back to PH since PPBM will be wiped out in any mid-term election.  SO UNMO-PAS played it safe to went for a share of power and loot now.  Of course this arrangement might help PH in a 2023 election and I find it hard to believe that all three UMNO PAS and PPBM can truly run as a united electoral bloc in 2023 while PH will be fairly united.

[jaichind]

Mahathir  had announced that there will be a session of parliament on Monday to select a PM.  It seems that the King did not agree to this so now there are some confusion on if such a session will take place.  Still if Muhyiddin Yassin really locked up UMNO-PAS support then he is still in pole position to become the next PM despite these technical issues.