Malaysia political crisis

[Joseph Cao]

What is Mahathir's game? What is his likely strategy here, guiding his decisions?

At this stage? Mahathir has been extremely vocal about not working with UMNO or PAS under any circumstances and will very likely remain "in PH", to the extent that that still means anything. On the federal level the next major event will be the May 18 Parliament session. Barring a change of mind by the King or Muhiyiddin or a rogue MP in the ruling coalition, nothing significant is likely to happen before then. I am doubtful that Mahathir or anyone else in Pakatan can manage to get a majority of MPs on that date, whatever they claim. So we can only wait for an election, which presumably is won if and only if PH has gotten their act together and they manage to collect enough Malay support and, as jaichind mentions, UMNO/PAS/PPBM are limping into election day and/or the whiff of scandal around UMNO drags them down again.

I suspect part of the reason Mahathir hasn’t yet left PPBM is that it was his baby, figuratively, and local chapters of PPBM are splintering from the federal Muhiyiddin leadership in states like Kedah and Melaka, and there are schisms within these schisms relating to which of the two PPBM figureheads each individual assemblyman is more loyal to. Concern for his party, although it doesn’t strike me as the sort of overriding factor he is truly driven by, is likely a factor in his decisions.

[Joseph Cao]

I may add that this new government is all but certain to further polarise Malaysia along racial and urban/rural lines. The Pakatan camp and its rank-and-file, now reduced to its most liberal and multiracial constituents, already sees this (with justification) as a coup. The loose UMNO–PAS–PPBM alliance and its rank-and-file are essentially the purest possible distillation of rural Malays and will unquestionably pursue policies that reflect this. The next general election probably starts out as a tug of war between the natural electoral advantage the rural-Malay coalition will have and the turnout differential that is likely to resolve in favour of PH. The racial and political makeup of the new young voters produced by the voting-age bill will also be a major determining factor.

[Joseph Cao]

PH;s mistake is to underestimate the Malay concern about domination by the Chinese who already dominate Malaysia economically and is viewed as capturing political power with the PH government.  PH should have sidelined most Chinese and Indian politicians part of the PH interment and projected a more Malay-dominated government,   

Yes, PH was too naïve about this and the racially polarising appointments of Lim Guan Eng and others were no doubt mostly a product of the heady post-victory atmosphere, but I am very very very skeptical of the idea that the United Malays "DAP is our sworn enemy" National Organisation and the "Chinese ethnostate" fearmongerers in PAS would be any less suspicious of a coalition that already contained DAP if it excluded Chinese and Indians from major government positions.
The UMNO-led Malay-dominated government after 2013 had no issues with painting a picture of the Chinese controlling everything behind the scenes. It certainly isn’t predicated on how much political power the minorities are perceived to hold.

[Joseph Cao]

The Speaker of the Malaysian Parliament who has a AMANAH background, accepted the Mahathir motion of no-confidence for the May 18th 1 day sitting.  So now the battle is on for  Muhyiddin  to survive.    Ahead of the vote it seems that  Mahathir have renewed his alliance with Anwar after some period a few weeks ago when it seems they were about to have another falling out.  On paper  Muhyiddin  should have had enough time to buy his way to a majority.  But there seems to be anger within UNMO-PAS that they are not getting their share of power and if they do not get what they want they could turn on Muhyiddin in the trust vote since in a snap election UNMO-PAS is likely to win and Muhyiddin's faction of PPBM is sure to be wiped out.   Muhyiddin  could counter by running back to re-join PH. So lots of games to be played in the upcoming week.

Some of this seems unlikely to happen. Ahead of the sitting on the 18th, BN (i.e. UMNO plus token MCA, MIC, and PBRS minority reps) has pledged its undivided support for Muhiyiddin in the event of a no-confidence motion, and PAS as a formal coalition partner is likely to go along with them. Together with the effective shunning of the Mahathir faction within Muhiyiddin's PPBM (Mahathir's son Mukhriz lost power in the northern state of Kedah yesterday after a no-confidence vote backed by the state opposition PAS together with PPBM and PKR reps who defected to PN) and the pro-Muhiyiddin cohesion that that implies, the Prime Minister will at least have the numbers to survive a no-confidence vote.

Moreover, Muhiyiddin won't threaten to rejoin Pakatan – he would essentially be eliminated from consideration for a leadership position within PH due to Anwar continuing to pull his weight, and frankly would be lucky to be relegated to his original position now that he's seen as effectively backstabbing both the Mahathir and Anwar factions and Pakatan as a whole. More to the point, Pakatan would not accept him. Much of the Pakatan base is still suspicious of figures like Tian Chua, a PKR leader considered to be part of Azmin Ali's camp who attempted to mend divisions within his party but was not among the Azmin-led PKR rebels who defected to the other side; despite his disavowal of Azmin, he has come under fire for his previous support and there is some talk of running formerly Azmin-aligned people like him out of PKR leadership. Pakatan is at present highly distrustful of anyone with current or former allegiances to non-Pakatan parties or coalitions, and that is reflected in their weak position in the numbers game for control of Parliament.

[Joseph Cao]

Literally nothing of note happened in the parliamentary session since it was limited to two hours, MPs were not permitted to raise questions or debate, and the only thing on the agenda was the King's speech followed by an immediate adjournment of parliament.

While this is technically a parliamentary sitting as required by law, it has not settled anything. The seating arrangement for today's sitting does appear to indicate that there are 114 out of 222 MPs aligned with the government, which is only two more than needed for an outright majority. It goes without saying that this is the thinnest parliamentary margin – if we can call it that, since there has not actually been a vote to determine who holds the majority – in Malaysian history.

(Coincidentally, there are two major government-aligned MPs currently under indictment for corruption charges: former PM Najib Razak and current UMNO party leader Zahid Hamidi. If their charges are not dropped and they are indicted and forced to resign their seats, the majority could very well dissolve. In other news, a corruption charge against Najib's son Riza Aziz resulted in a highly questionable plea deal and settlement for the defendant yesterday by the current Muhiyiddin–appointed Attorney General.)

[Joseph Cao]

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. 

Yeah, this is all a mess – but any kind of agreement between Mahathir and Muhyiddin was never going to happen. Mahathir’s motivations are still a black box but he has been very vocal about not working with the “kleptocrats” of UMNO. His deliberate move to the opposition bench on the 18th (along with the others expelled from the party) is a pretty clear sign that while they were at that time still nominally part of PPBM, they were acting as a separate party of their own. Still, Mahathir and the four others who are clearly loyal to him will need to find a space for themselves between now and the next general election, since PPBM has officially suspended them and Pakatan Harapan is wary of accepting them (they are clearly trying to rally behind Anwar now). Probably they will attempt to enter into some form of loose agreement with PH. We’ll wait for all the dust to settle, but as an observer on the ground this strikes me as mostly political white noise that won’t meaningfully affect the composition of Parliament.

[Joseph Cao]

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.

I don't deny that's a possible course of action for UMNO–PAS, which after all has a united leadership and voting base in comparison to Pakatan (divided leadership) and PPBM (almost no real base). But looking at the actual seats, this strategy isn't good for UMNO–PAS. The most marginal seats that PH won in the last general election were disproportionately seats that were already held by UMNO or PAS incumbents that left their parties for PPBM and AMANAH respectively. If UMNO–PAS decided to completely cut ties with PPBM they would still need to fight for the PPBM-held seats; Muhyiddin is still PM and in a position, as are most of his PPBM ministers, to funnel cash into these constituencies to shore up PPBM's support base as much as possible. The remaining PH seats are largely safe for their incumbents, excepting a number of special cases where the Pakatan candidate won narrowly in a three-cornered fight. UMNO and PAS know they don't have enough seats of their own to win an outright majority, and while there is some enthusiasm on their side I think that in a three-way battle between PH, UMNO–PAS, and PPBM the side with the highest base of enthusiasm will be PH, which means UMNO–PAS likely doesn't have much room to improve on their current numbers.

Moreover, the optics of such an action would be very bad and harm the UMNO–PAS image even further. Bear in mind that UMNO is still very much perceived as the party of Najib and Zahid Hamidi, and that this perception contributed heavily to their defeat two years ago. The usual attacks against DAP and the "Chinese menace" are not going to be as salient as they would have been in a scenario where PH was still the incumbent government; nor will they play well outside of rural seats that are mostly already held by UMNO–PAS or PPBM incumbents who defected from (then later returned to) UMNO–PAS. If they were to suddenly about-face their previous declarations of support for Muhyiddin and force a general election, at a time when Malaysia is still reeling from the coronavirus crisis, it would tarnish their image even further as the only ones who consistently focused on playing politics throughout a four-month public health crisis. The Malay vote at this time will be most concerned with their livelihoods and economic position, and far from being consolidated behind UMNO–PAS, is likely to be split among the two halves of the Malay coalition as neither post-2018 UMNO–PAS nor PPBM has shown a coherent economic policy aside from "throw money at voters", which the current government hasn't even managed to do properly.

[Joseph Cao]

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.

[Joseph Cao]

…Okay. Haven't commented on this for the past few weeks because of how massive this fecal festival has been, but here goes.

If you don't look too closely, you could maybe view Shafie as a compromise candidate between Mahathir and Anwar since picking either of these would alienate the other side and perhaps irrevocably split PH. But the rationale Mahathir has given makes this a very obvious poisoned chalice. Shafie is a capable Chief Minister and leader of Sabah, but there is absolutely no chance that this convinces GPS to support PH+; its leaders (most notably James Masing, the deputy CM of Sarawak) have made abundantly clear in public statements that they will not cross over to support Pakatan. GPS, as mentioned previously, has a long history of corruption that has continued even after splitting off from Barisan Nasional two years ago. They chose not to support the PH government for a reason. Shafie adds basically nothing of strategic value to the ticket, certainly nothing along the lines of what Mahathir and his backers are claiming.

More significantly, Mahathir's proposal to put forward two Deputy PMs sets up an extremely forseeable clash between Anwar and Mukhriz Mahathir (Mahathir's son and recently deposed Chief Minister of Kedah) for the PM post in the very unlikely event that this hypothetical ticket actually manages to win. Demoting Anwar and raising Mukhriz's profile in this manner is Mahathir's first concrete indication that he has national ambitions for his son, perhaps to fulfil the role of "carrying Mahathir's legacy" that apparently nobody else in Malaysian politics could take up and which has wrecked the careers of many, many politicians (including two Prime Ministers and four deputy Prime Ministers) who did not perform to Mahathir's satisfaction. As it is, it further confirms the general consensus that Mahathir is now a rogue agent politically.

In any case, this move does absolutely nothing to alleviate PKR's concerns about his support[?] of Anwar. It may even deepen the split, as PKR continues to be insulted by the Shafie proposal and DPM picks as well as DAP and AMANAH leadership's apparent willingness to follow Mahathir off the cliff no matter what he does. Anwar has been extremely snippy in recent statements, remarking on the "conspiring" going on without his input. For better or worse, PKR is already viewed as the "Anwar or nothing" party, though the party infighting generated by Azmin's departure is apparently continuing and may hurt PKR's effort to make its case.

And the midterm elections apply only to Sarawak state elections, where GPS is expected to coast no matter what happens next – it's unlikely that this will win Sarawak PKR or DAP any votes and may in fact cause them to lose ground due to infighting (the Sarawak branches, like their national counterparts, stand behind Anwar and Whoever Mahathir Recommends respectively).

[Joseph Cao]

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.

I would have written about the Najib verdict regardless, but I am not convinced this is the right place to discuss it because the electoral ramifications are minuscule at best. The politics of it is really the defining feature as far as the political crisis is concerned.

To be clear, while Najib has been sentenced to 12 years for one of the corruption trials he is involved in (this trial, the SRC International trial, is technically distinct from the more internationally notorious 1MDB case which is still pending a conclusion), he is still a member of Parliament and will remain so until he exhausts the appeal process for his verdict. As this could take up to a year according to the prosecution, he will not need to vacate his seat until that period of time is over at the earliest. He may be barred from contesting a federal election forthwith, but again that will not come into effect immediately. So the upshot is that he is constitutionally allowed to stay on as an MP for a while more, there will be no by-election in the offing, and Muhyiddin’s majority is safe for as long as Najib is able to waste the prosecution’s time in appealing.

The political angle is a bit murkier. Because of his position away from leadership and from Muhyiddin’s cabinet, it’s not clear how much of a threat Najib ever directly posed to Muhyiddin, though the danger was certainly present considering Najib’s uniquely intense grassroots support. In the event that a snap election is called while Najib continues to drag out the appeal process, the possibility still remains that UMNO would put him up as a challenger to the throne if it ever wanted to go rogue (though I don’t believe they will for reasons I’ve outlined previously). Even if Najib is safely locked away – at least from the electoral process, if not physically – I’m not convinced any of the parties’ positions have changed substantially following the verdict. There are people saying that this makes Muhyiddin look better with the electorate since he will be seen as respecting the rule of law, and they may be right up to a point. The higher-information portion of the electorate will not forget the previous commutations of certain other UMNO corruption cases. Inasmuch as this tends to overlap with the part of the electorate that was already anti-Perikatan and willing to buy into the “backdoor government narrative”, I don’t think the theatrics of this decision will move the needle too much.

Anyway, it seems to be the consensus on the ground that Najib will manage to lighten his sentence a little – in fact, he’s already done so by getting a stay of execution on his fine, which usually isn’t allowed. His appeal might even be successful. But d*mn it, we’ll enjoy the fact that as of now he’s facing multiple jail terms while we still can.

[Joseph Cao]

About UMNO. The key thing about Malaysian politics is that developments are always very fluid and never set in stone until things are confirmed by the relevant parties or actors. Much of the political scene runs on hearsay. With that said, no, PN has not been dissolved as yet, at least not according to a nice tidy scenario in which the entire UMNO party apparatus gathers to formally announce that it is backing out of the coalition. But Muhyiddin’s majority is so slim that just a couple of MPs unhappy with the Najib verdict – a sentiment that is evidently dominant among portions of the Malay grassroots – announcing that they no longer support Muhyiddin, would be more than enough to topple his government. So at this point, UMNO proper has to decide whether to use their upcoming “political decision” to affirm support or go rogue, but it may not be up to party leaders in the end.

(The troubling thing for UMNO long-term is that their grassroots’ reaction to the verdict gives every indication that the UMNO base is ready to follow Najib off a cliff, court decisions be damned, and contrasts unfavorably with Muhyiddin’s apparent strategy of trying to support the rule of law. It’s not a good sign for them if they make no attempt to course correct from becoming a Najib cult party. But that won’t affect too much in the here and now.)

If UMNO does decide to break away and topple the government, things get much more fluid. There is talk that Muhyiddin himself, in that scenario, may decide to return to his former partners in Pakatan Harapan to try and save his career. My personal opinion is that this is highly unlikely to happen because a) Harapan at the present juncture is more or less united around not acting as a vehicle for people who could defect to UMNO’s side again, as they have already been burned in this fashion by Muhyiddin himself, and b) Muhyiddin’s PPBM now includes former PKR member Azmin Ali, who controls about a dozen fellow PKR defectors and who will certainly object to the move, partly because he seems to actually want to work with UMNO and partly because returning to Pakatan would mean having to work with his nemesis Anwar Ibrahim again. So the players in this potential post-dissolution landscape could plausibly include:

- PKR+DAP+Amanah (the remains of Pakatan, who could yet split further over the ongoing debate over their prime ministerial candidate, which has been raging for weeks),
- Mahathir’s small faction of five or six Independent MPs,
- Muhyiddin’s supporters (the majority of PPBM),
- Azmin’s faction,
- the newly independent UMNO,
- PAS (which will have to make a decision as to whether or not to throw its support behind Muhyiddin),
- the Sarawak parties under the GPS coalition,
- an assortment of leftover MPs including the two MCA members who were formerly allied with UMNO, and
- the Sabah-based WARISAN.

In such a hypothetical scenario, all these players will scramble to form winning coalitions. But of course this is only hypothetical, and in the short term Muhyiddin will have an opportunity to test the fault lines when Parliament is required to vote on the national budget soon.

And about WARISAN: yes, their state government in Sabah has apparently-but-also-not-quite fallen. To be precise, the Sabah governor has accepted WARISAN leader and Chief Minister Shafie Apdal’s request to dissolve the assembly in preparation for snap polls, even as his opponent Musa Aman is attempting to make the case that he has enough assemblymen on his side to be sworn in as Chief Minister directly. Certainly there have apparently been enough assemblymen defecting to Musa’s camp to support his claim, but he has yet to provide enough concrete evidence in support of it. This is not related to the national drama around UMNO, as Musa has been attempting to topple Shafie’s government on and off over the past several months by bribing Shafie-aligned assemblymen and has only now apparently succeeded on his fourth or fifth try. There will now be snap state polls in the near future.

[Joseph Cao]

Oh dear.

Anwar has just held a press conference where he claims to have secured enough MPs “from multiple parties” to form a parliamentary majority, and that their changes of heart were based on“deep dissatisfaction with current leadership.” He secured an audience with the King to discuss these matters, at which the King could theoretically immediately depose Muhyiddin and place confidence in Anwar as Prime Minister, but it was postponed because our dear monarch is currently at the National Heart Institute for treatment. If the meeting is actually held, the government could very well fall again, this time in the other direction.

The speech and the subsequent back-and-forth with reporters have indicated a few things:
- This supposed “strong, convincing, formidable” majority is estimated by Anwar to be close to two-thirds of Parliament
- Along with the majority of Anwar’s alleged support coming from Malay-Muslim members, this clearly indicates that a substantial number of UMNO, PAS, and/or PPBM MPs have decided to defect to their onetime enemy
- Interestingly, Anwar’s two-thirds figure (he hasn’t given us an actual number because that’s a matter for the King to certify) does not include Mahathir’s five Pejuang MPs
- Regarding the MPs who previously defected from Pakatan to form the current government, Anwar claims he “didn’t see their names in the list”
- This hypothetical group would form a new coalition distinct from Pakatan, but apparently would do their best to live up to its principles – which (forgive the editorializing) will never happen if there really are UMNO and PAS MPs in it


Following the press conference, UMNO President Zahid Hamidi confirmed that an unknown number of his MPs have switched their support to Anwar, and also pointed out that UMNO/BN is technically not an official part of Muhyiddin’s governing coalition. Both PAS and the Sarawak-based GPS have denied that their MPs are part of this movement; GPS says it is “firmly” behind the current government, and PAS also reiterated its full support. On the Pakatan side, AMANAH has given Anwar its full support and DAP has also offered its support contingent on him actually being able to get a majority. PKR is oddly silent; there are unconfirmed rumors that its rank-and-file are unhappy with the move. The Palace just confirmed that Anwar has arranged to hold a meeting with the King once he recovers, so the ball is in their court.

[Joseph Cao]

Over 36 hours since the announcement, everything remains in a holding pattern for the moment (with one exception, which I'll get to soon) so I'll take this opportunity to say that a snap election would be a very very bad idea. Malaysia is at present facing a fresh rise in COVID cases, largely coming out of Sabah, where the state polls are contributing to at least four active clusters containing the vast majority of cases in the country. Two politicians have already tested positive during the campaigning period, no doubt in addition to an unknown number of ordinary citizens. (Sabah is such a large, rural, and poorly connected state that physical campaigning is unavoidable.) Multiply that by the nationwide free-for-all a snap election would bring on and the country would most certainly be brought back to its knees by the resulting public health and economic crisis.

The seat-sharing talks which were going on some weeks ago are in preparation for the next federal election, which even at the time was expected to be called early; Malaysia doesn't have midterm elections. jaichind brings up some good points otherwise, as UMNO/PAS clearly wants to cut its losses in some way. Which brings us to the update from PAS: a senior leadership figure (the deputy chief minister of the PAS-run state of Kelantan – otherwise known as Malaysia's Alabama) had this to say:

"We remain with Muhyiddin – all of our 18 MPs. So far, the stand of PAS is that we support PN and we are with Muafakat Nasional … [If PN falls] that's another story."

Hilariously, this puts PAS in essentially the same position as their archnemesis DAP – will support Anwar/drop Muhyiddin, but only if Anwar gains the majority/Muhyiddin loses the majority.

There are more rumors flying around that the number of UMNO MPs who have switched allegiances is something like 10 to 15 MPs, certainly some way short of a mass exodus. GPS seems unlikely to switch and I heavily doubt they are the main actors here; the catalyst for all this action lies within UMNO. But GPS has no need to leave UMNO further – they technically already have, shortly after the last general election, to found their own Sarawak-based party away from the BN umbrella. In any case, the parliamentary arithmetic does not look at all promising for Anwar:

On Anwar's side: PKR, AMANAH, 10-15 UMNO defectors, MUDA (Syed Saddiq's youth party), possibly WARISAN
Will probably join Anwar contingent on him gaining the majority: DAP, PAS
Will not join Anwar: PPBM (both the Muhyiddin and Azmin factions), the rest of UMNO/BN
Who knows?: Pejuang (best-case scenario for Anwar is that they don't join his coalition but instead act as confidence-and-supply for his majority), GPS

Anwar's side is nowhere near the 112 MPs he needs. And this is already a very generous reckoning – GPS seems firmly on Muhyiddin's side for now, for example.

As much as Mahathir is being mocked now, he does have a point that a hypothetical Anwar-led coalition containing UMNO MPs who bolted with Zahid Hamidi's cooperation is very likely to be a poisoned one and could come in exchange for Zahid escaping some of the 80-odd criminal charges he's currently being slapped with. None of this looks good and the calls for a snap election are only getting louder.

[Joseph Cao]

I wish I could say the next political steps would be "fun" for anyone apart from analysts – specifically, for the people of Malaysia – but the economy's on life support, our electorate is historically discontented and disappointed with the direction the country's taking, and an election would almost certainly unleash a huge wave of COVID cases.

I do agree with most of the last post though as far as political ramifications go.

[Joseph Cao]

Anwar is set to meet the King next 10/16 Tuesday.  Hopefully after that we can get the to bottom of the claim that a bunch of UMNO MP are backing Anwar.

Source (also, just to be clear, his meeting is set for Tuesday the 13th).

There are unconfirmed rumors from within PKR that his support among UMNO MPs has increased, which is… suspect, to put it mildly.

[Joseph Cao]

It's been a rollercoaster of a fortnight.

Malaysia is facing the largest wave of COVID cases it has ever seen, much of it concentrated in Sabah, where multiple UMNO politicians (and, remarkably, the newly minted PPBM state leader Hajiji Noor) have tested positive following the state election. In light of this, UMNO has temporarily withdrawn most of its demands for greater resource allocation and powers and called for a general ceasefire on the issue. Muhyiddin is safe on that front, at least for the moment.

However, it is abundantly clear that the man has no desire to face Parliament and account for many of his unilateral executive decisions over the past six months. Several days ago he openly floated the idea of declaring a national emergency, which – for the uninitiated – would empower the King to enact anything the cabinet wants for an unspecified period, essentially letting the Prime Minister (who controls the cabinet) rule unchecked and sidelining Parliament, the state governments, and the judicial review process indefinitely. Any provision in the Constitution, including basic human rights, could be overridden. (Hilariously, one of the only categories not covered by emergency rule is Islamic law.) It has been done before, most famously during the Communist insurgency and in the wake of the May 1969 racial riots, both of which were deeply scarring for the nation then and now.

But this would have had to be approved by the King, and luckily for the nation he rejected the proposal. So whatever happens going forward, it will hopefully be with the consent of Parliament, which is scheduled to convene in early November.

[Joseph Cao]

The breach has been a long time in coming. Back in March the UMNO party convention adopted internal rules that placed the party’s overall direction in the hands of their supreme council, who are responsible for the withdrawal statement. UMNO president Zahid Hamidi’s fingerprints are naturally all over this; his disdain for the Muhyiddin government is extensively established at this point. It has also been speculated for a long time that UMNO’s maneuvering sets itself up to run and win against Muhyddin’s Bersatu in the next general election given their superior grassroots organization.

Zahid’s move has a number of problems, however:

- This gambit faces internal issues – there are already competing statements within UMNO to the effect that individual UMNO MPs will have leeway on the decision to withdraw. No less prominent a figure than former PM Najib has raised questions about the authenticity of one such statement. It also appears that the supreme council itself allowed this leeway, which Zahid did not mention in his statement, although various members of the supreme council have contradicted this. Assuming this development is true, it’s pretty clear that most MPs would elect to stay in the government. Whether the state parties and their local political machines adhere to the ruling is another matter. The success of the aforementioned grassroots organization runs on who these local administrations support.

- Even if all UMNO MPs stuck together, the coalition is not friendly territory. That statement I mentioned purportedly comes from “all BN MPs,“ but MCA and MIC – the remaining parties in that coalition – are firmly behind Muhyiddin. (It appears that Zahid neglected to consult them before making this move of his.) The Sarawak parties which previously formed part of BN bolted after the last election and are also in the government’s camp.
- Jaichind is correct that it will come down to what PAS does, and PAS has fallen out with UMNO in a big way. In brief, PAS and UMNO struck an agreement (Muafakat Nasional) back when they were both in the opposition; the current government is built on a separate coalition (Perikatan Nasional) of which Bersatu is the driving party; PAS has been disappointed with UMNO’s perceived neglect of their previous agreement for its own ends and has registered its disapproval up to and including joining Perikatan.

- Even if Zahid somehow managed to whip some grand agreement up, parliamentary reality means it will never succeed. Logical alluded to the reconvening of Parliament in a few weeks, which was scheduled to keep the current government from being automatically dissolved on August 2. There’s no reason not to expect another farce of a sitting like the one last May where VONCs or other attempts to bring down the government are prohibited from coming to the floor.
- On constitutional grounds first established back during the Perak state coup in 2009, any VONC raised in Parliament needs to be a positive one if it is to succeed in ousting Muhyiddin – there needs to be an established majority behind any replacement leader that is put forward. Muhyiddin’s arm-twisting path to a majority last year landed him in a position to get the King’s assent to form a government. Zahid does not have that position and his consistent bridge-burning has not gotten him any closer to it.

Long story short, this is not going anywhere: there cannot be an election held right now, a candidate for interim PM does not exist, nobody but the government can demonstrate majority support at the moment, and Muhyiddin will survive even with a minority government because his opponents are too divided. Pakatan are not going anywhere either, but they seem content to do their usual popcorn act since neither Anwar nor Mahathir stand a chance of attracting a majority in this environment.

[Joseph Cao]

https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2021/07/08/malaysia-mahathirs-pejuang-officially-registered-as-political-party/

"Malaysia: Mahathir’s Pejuang officially registered as political party"

Mahathir’s party, PEJUANG or PPTA, has been finally registered as a party a year after its formed.  Just in time to split the PH vote in the next election ?

On a side note, this ends an incredibly petty series of actions from the Home Minister, who apparently waited till the very last day of the judge's mandated fourteen-day injunction to grant Pejuang's appeal over their previous action.

And I do doubt that Pejuang will split much of the vote – the seats it occupies in Parliament are much more vulnerable to UMNO/PAS/PPBM frontal assaults, and Pakatan's presence in these races would be negligible. Pakatan probably will stay out of Pejuang's backyard unless Pejuang massively steps up its organization and recruitment across the electoral map, something Mahathir's previous vehicle notably failed to do, and even then that support is likelier to be drawn from disaffected government supporters if anything.

Why would PAS back PPBM? Would the decision be out of sheer likelihood to get into the next government or due to some sort of fallout with UMNO?

Mostly because of political geography.   States where PAS is strong, Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu, are also places where UMNO are strong and PPBM in their current form are non-existent.  So seat sharing talks will be very hard for UMNO and PAS but easy for PPBM and PAS.  In case of a PPBM-PAS alliance, PAS will run in Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu while in the rest of Peninsular Malaysia PPBM and PAS will most likely share seats by something like 3 to 1 ratio in favor of PPBM.  A UMNO-PAS alliance talk will almost breakdown right away over how to divide up Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu.

And we see this playing out

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/pas-mic-express-support-muhyiddin

"PAS, MIC express support for Muhyiddin"

Interesting that old BN Indian party MIC  is also coming out for Muhyiddin.  It does seems UMNO, seeing that its Chinese ally MCA and Indian ally MIC did not really transfer that many votes to them in 2018, are most likely to drop them as allies or give them very few seats to run in the next election. Reading this fact MIC, it seems, will go with PPBM.  Last I check MCA might run separately which is very had news for PH as the anti-UMNO Chinese vote could now safely vote MCA to show their frustration of DAP.

Aren't both MIC and MCA irreverent parties at this point?

Yes and no. MIC in particular is a parliamentary has-been. But MCA does still have the remnants of grassroots organizations that were more than a match for DAP and other opposition parties in their day. DAP's prospects aren't looking all that rosy either. Anecdotally I could see a disaffected ethnic-Chinese vote go to MCA for not appearing to totally and repeatedly fall flat on its face as DAP has done over the past year.

[Joseph Cao]

Oh yeah, things are up [inks] creek right now. There are more details than that but those will have to wait for a later post.

[Joseph Cao]

Melaka state elections have passed – thumping win for UMNO against PN and PH.

Sarawak state elections have passed – even bigger blowout for the government-aligned GPS.

Now Johor state elections have been called; no date has been set yet. The given rationale is the difficulty that the UMNO-led state government has in navigating their very narrow majority. This might be a clown car, even more so than Melaka and Sarawak, because unlike those two Johor is home to a number of political heavyweights including our old friend Muhyiddin. Contesting parties, aside from UMNO, PAS, PN, and the Pakatan components, are likely to include the motley crew of Pejuang (the Mahathir party), MUDA (the YOUTH party), and WARISAN, all of whom are apparently in talks to contest alongside Pakatan under a common banner. The fratricide between UMNO-PAS-PN continues apace even though UMNO has been winning lopsidedly thus far.

[Joseph Cao]

And he has applied for a royal pardon within the 14-day stipulated period, meaning he remains as an MP conditional on the pardon being granted.

The king is undoubtedly aware that there are still four cases pending against Najib related to the one he just got locked up for, so even if he is pardoned now there is a very strong chance of it becoming a political turkey. A couple of these are related to the decision that also recently put his wife behind bars for twenty years but everyone including Najib himself recognizes her as a political albatross so no pardon forthcoming for her most likely.

[Joseph Cao]

As an aside there are some turf wars going on in Negeri Sembilan over the parliamentary seats for the upcoming GE15. Apparently UMNO deputy and former chief minister Mohamad Hasan wants to contest Rembau, the seat that covers his current state assembly seat (which he is still contesting), and the UMNO wunderkid – pardon the oxymoron – Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin who currently holds that seat is willing to accommodate him.

So Khairy will have to find another seat; he could retire but there are factions in UMNO that want him to stay as strongly as the other factions would like him to step aside. Rumors are pointing to his contesting Seremban, which despite the name could easily be a real race for DAP sec-gen and former PH transport minister Anthony Loke, although one that he would probably still win. The UMNO Youth branch in Seremban has expressed support for this. Loke has said he will contest his seat no matter what happens. For his part Khairy is smart enough to realize even his golden boy status has limits in urban seats full of partisan PH voters and has therefore been asking around to see if another UMNO MP in the state might be willing to step aside for him, and he might also go ahead with the full swap and contest for Negeri Sembilan chief minister, which would definitely be a threat to the current PH government, the last one standing of their GE14 gains.

Meanwhile Anwar currently holds Port Dickson after a PKR man stepped aside for him in a by-election in 2018 but is looking at contesting elsewhere, potentially the Tambun seat in Perak which is currently held by PPBM deputy and former Perak chief minister Faizal Azumu (lol). The other seats are quieter but there are a couple of marginals that PH could easily lose on their current numbers.

[Joseph Cao]

Any UMNO split that occurs, and I really strongly disagree that that is a realistic possibility, will be cosmetic at best with continued electoral cooperation. The PPBM men are happy to continue supporting their former schismate in the parliamentary arithmetic. Whether the party chairman of UMNO likes it or not his party is still his best vehicle back to power and keeping clear of prison.

[Joseph Cao]

This week's Economist has been banned in Malaysia:

https://twitter.com/NewsBFM/status/1572572938226003970

I haven't read it but skimming the contents on the web version $50 says it was the piece about SEA's monarchs.