Author: William Case, University of Nottingham Malaysia
Malaysia’s political life, economic prospects, societal relations and public health system have each been upended over the past year.
In January 2020, the 22-month-old Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) government fell in ignominious style. Defectors from its coalition partners, Bersatu (United Indigenous Malay Party) and PKR (People’s Justice Party) — the respective vehicles of the former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and leadership hopeful Anwar Ibrahim — abandoned Pakatan Harapan to join UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) and PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party). Together, they forged a new ‘backdoor government’, labelled Perikatan Nasional (National Alliance). Bersatu’s president Muhyiddin Yassin ascended to the prime ministership.
Malaysia was struck at the same time by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Health Ministry temporarily contained the virus, though at the cost of steep lockdown and economic shrinkage. The country’s lifeline to China was also frayed by the slow motion collapse of various PRC-backed megaprojects.
Amid the pandemic, Muhyiddin’s prime ministership was challenged by both Mahathir and Anwar, who sought their own backdoor routes to office. Mahathir broke from Pakatan Harapan, but failed to register his new nativist party, Pejuang Tanah Air (Homeland Fighters). Anwar’s reformist sheen was dulled after he unsuccessfully tried to entice UMNO party president Zahid Hamidi and the former UMNO prime minister Najib Razak to join Pakatan while both men were battling corruption charges.
Muhyiddin responded by tightening controls over civil liberties and parliament, even moving to impose emergency rule. While he was initially rebuffed by the Council of Rulers — made up of Malaysia’s hereditary sultans and rajas, whose approval the Constitution required — Muhyiddin eventually gained their assent in January 2021.
Even so, UMNO factions have sought continuously to subvert Muhyiddin’s leadership. The party smoulders over its backseat role in the Perikatan Nasional government, in which it has been subordinated to Muhyiddin’s Bersatu party. Even as a deadly wave of COVID-19 infections gathered force, a series of factional tit-for-tats raged across the political terrain.
What are the main takeaways from this series of events?
First, we see towering barriers in Malaysia to democratic change and good governance agendas. The country is beset by elite-level rivalries, a single-minded pursuit of patronage, general economic stagnancy, and successive waves of a worsening pandemic. But society also seems generally indifferent to restraining the behaviours of its leaders. Mass-level communities, stubbornly defined by ethno-religious markers, remain engaged in intense segmental battling over their relative status and distributive benefits.
Thus, despite the historic general election in 2018, little progress through ‘democratisation-by-elections’ has been made by reformist politicians and civil society. The government has failed to advance the Malaysia Baharu (New Malaysia) vision through greater popular participation, ethno-religious equality, policy effectiveness and alignment with progressive international norms.
Rather, the country’s hybrid regime, a fusion of democratic procedures and authoritarian controls, has withstood electoral turnover, the ouster of an elected government, the inability of a long extant single-party dominant system to re-equilibrate, and the havoc wreaked by COVID-19. This experience evokes the intrinsic resilience that this regime type can attain, now reinforced through emergency rule.
Second, while personal and factional skirmishing were always hallmarks of UMNO’s rule, such dealings greatly accelerated as the party weakened. As Malaysia’s long single-party dominant system fragmented, a new mode of power transfer took root. Rather than parties selecting candidates, campaigning for elections and mobilising voters, leaders have competed stealthily for the loyalties of parliamentary defectors and a mastery over back channels to state patronage.
Third, one is struck by the reordering of time-honoured elite standings. We see the sharp diminution of Mahathir Mohamad, labouring in the ill-lit margins that his new party now inhabits. Anwar Ibrahim’s path to the prime ministership seems likely to have reached a dead end as he has sacrificed his reformist imagery and alienated Pakatan Harapan supporters without locking in support from UMNO operatives.
Meanwhile, we have seen the populist recrudescence of Najib Razak, despite his many court cases and convictions, as well as the revival of veteran UMNO leader Tengku Razaleigh. These adjustments in elite-level statuses are meaningful in Malaysia’s political life, for it grows more personalised, factionalised and fluid.
The fragmentation of Malaysia’s single-party dominant system also correlates with an astonishing royal revival. Malaysia’s monarch, known by the title Agong, in his new paramountcy as king maker, anointed Muhyiddin as a prime minister then turned down similar bids made by Mahathir and Anwar. The Council of Rulers, in refusing Muhyiddin’s subsequent plea for emergency powers, capped the prime minister’s political writ, thereby broadening its own. But as Muhyiddin suddenly lost his parliamentary majority amid UMNO defections, the Agong reconsidered and approved Muhyiddin’s second appeal for emergency rule.
Yet Malaysia appeared to remain steady, at least until mid-January 2021. Key pillars of state strength seemed to hold, most urgently the country’s public health facilities and logistics systems. But then a third wave of COVID-19 hit, suddenly overwhelming hospitals and quarantine facilities. The government reimposed a tight movement control order on 11 January.
It was after several UMNO parliamentarians withdrew support for Perikatan Nasional the next day that Muhyiddin returned to the Agong for approval over emergency rule. The Agong obliged him with a Proclamation of Emergency. Near lockdown was imposed in six states and the federal territories, then extended across the whole country until at least 4 February.
Meanwhile, the state of emergency will remain in effect until 1 August, suspending parliament and elections, equipping the military with policing powers and empowering the prime minister to seize ‘assets and resources’. Uncertainty looms over whether the time frames of either the lockdown or the Emergency will be adjudged by the Agong and prime minister to be enough.
William Case is Professor and Head of the School of Politics, History and International Relations at the University of Nottingham Malaysia.
This article is part of an EAF special feature series on 2020 in review and the year ahead.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
