Malaysia: Opposition Gains Momentum ~ Malaysiakini
Summary
Malaysia’s opposition movement scored a victory on Jan. 17 when Mohammad Abdul Wahid Endut won a by-election in Kuala Terengganu. The opposition continues to gain momentum in its bid to defeat the coalition that has dominated Malaysian politics for five decades.
Analysis
Malaysia’s opposition movement made gains Jan. 17 when Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) candidate Mohammad Abdul Wahid Endut won a by-election in Kuala Terengganu, the capital city of Terengganu state in the peninsular northeast. The region is part of the Malay heartland, and the election was seen as a litmus test for the opposition’s progress since making massive gains in general elections in March 2008.
The opposition is challenging the status quo that has been in place since Malaysia earned its independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. The country’s politics have been ruled for the past 50 years by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the largest political party, and the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition it founded to dominate parliament. The PAS, the Islamist party, has contended with the secular Malaysian leadership before, but lost support after being branded as having connections to terrorism. Recently, however, the PAS has joined up with the movement led by Anwar Ibrahim, once a high-ranking figure in the UMNO. Anwar has formed a shaky alliance, called Pakatan Rakyat, with Islamist voters and with ethnic Chinese. He has pledged to eliminate policies that enforce the deeply embedded privilege of the Malay majority.
When the opposition made great strides in elections in March 2008, it rattled the ruling coalition. Anwar, in exile at the time, made a dramatic return to the political scene and claimed that, by September 2008, he would form his own government and topple the ruling parties. Yet his self-imposed deadline came and went without seeing a swell of support for him among middle-of-the-road parliamentarians. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi then volunteered to step down to placate some of the rising criticism of the government, stealing Anwar’s thunder. Anwar was seen as having overextended himself.
But fractures in Malaysian politics continue to weaken the ruling party, and Anwar and his allies are exploiting the growing dissatisfaction among the public, which has been exacerbated by the global economic slowdown. The Kuala Terengganu by-election was seen as crucial because the region is part of the Malay heartland on the peninsula, and was once a BN stronghold. The BN held onto power there in the previous election, but by a mere 628 votes out of 65,809 votes. On Jan. 17 — just 10 months after that election — voters gave the PAS a 2,631-vote lead out of 63,967 votes. The poll results show that support for the ruling coalition is lukewarm, as voter turnout was two percentage points lower than that in March 2008. Also, the results show that Anwar’s alliance of Islamist, Chinese and secular Malays is holding together (despite many differences), and that Anwar has switched from hare to tortoise, adopting a slow and steady strategy of attempting to overtake the ruling coalition.
Now the BN will attempt to counter the opposition’s win. The coalition is scheduled to hold a major gathering in March to name Najib Razak as its new leader and as the country’s new prime minister after Abdullah steps down. The event will give the BN occasion to present itself as rejuvenated. There is plenty of time for the politicking to play out until the next general elections in 2013, though a snap election could be called this year if the government thinks it can benefit from doing so. But the Kuala Terengganu by-election, though small, is an unmistakable sign that the opposition is gaining momentum — and this will mean increasing political instability as the government attempts to fend off its opponents.
