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Will Mahathir’s new party work?

Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has finally decided to form a new political party to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak, whom he accused of corruption linked to state investment arm 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Photo: Bloomberg

Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Photo: Bloomberg

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Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has finally decided to form a new political party to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak, whom he accused of corruption linked to state investment arm 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

The unnamed party will team up with existing opposition parties in a new coalition and may just fill up the opposition’s weakest link.

The move marks a clear shift from Dr Mahathir’s earlier strategy, which was to rally public anger to pressure factions within the ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno) to oust Mr Najib as party president. Dr Mahathir’s hope was for his son Mukhriz, former Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Sabah politician Shafie Apdal to then capture the party when Mr Najib is ousted.

But Dr Mahathir’s plan has not worked so far.

When electoral reform lobby Bersih 2.0 held a 34-hour rally last August to demand both institutional reforms and Mr Najib’s resignation, Dr Mahathir, who used to oppose street rallies, made a surprise appearance.

Mr Najib easily neutralised Bersih’s pressure with a Malay ultra-nationalist rally two weeks later.

This March, Dr Mahathir launched a “Save Malaysia” campaign with opposition and civil society leaders. He hoped a million signatures for a petition demanding Najib’s resignation would achieve what 500,000 Bersih rally participants had failed to.

Umno has just won two by-elections in June with a larger margin because of the split between opposition parties Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) and its splinter Parti Amanah Malaysia (Amanah), as well as significantly lower turnout rates.

Subsequently, Mr Mukhriz, Mr Muhyiddin and Mr Shafie have all quit and were expelled from Umno.

Dr Mahathir will not be the first Umno rebel to lead a splinter party and an opposition coalition to challenge the Grand Old Party. In fact, that is the only formula that has worked so far.

In the 1990 and 1999 elections, the opposition parties were respectively led by former Finance Minister Razaleigh Hamzah and jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

These two Umno rebels successfully brought together two main opposition parties that had not been able to see eye to eye: The anti-secularist PAS and the Chinese-dominated secularist Democratic Action Party (DAP).

While history seems to cynically repeat itself, there is one big difference. Back then, Dr Mahathir was the sitting prime minister whom both Mr Razaleigh and Anwar were fighting. Now, Dr Mahathir is trying to unseat an incumbent he helped install in 2009.

Mr Razaleigh failed and returned to Umno in 1996. Anwar soldiered on and eventually led his Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), PAS and DAP to unprecedented success in the 2008 and 2013 general election.

But Anwar’s coalition Pakatan Rakyat failed to win power in 2013 despite winning a 51 per cent majority. The following year, Anwar was jailed for the second time for sodomy.

Subsequently, PAS hardliners chose to collaborate with Umno to implement the controversial Hudud punishments such as amputation and stoning in Kelantan. This split PAS to produce Amanah, which teamed up with PKR and DAP to form a new opposition coalition called Pakatan Harapan (PH).

Can Dr Mahathir now do better than his erstwhile rivals?

Some have argued that the opposition’s poor performance in the recent by-elections signals an impending failure in the next election, which some speculate may be called next year.

By this logic, the Umno rebels should have just joined one of the existing opposition parties, rather than form a new party and potentially split opposition votes further.

But this argument overlooks two key issues.

First, because of previous antagonism, no synergy can be achieved if the Umno rebels join any of the existing opposition parties. On the contrary, they can better appeal to their respective constituencies by keeping different party labels.

Second, Dr Mahathir’s track record as a Malay nationalist may just be the addition that PH needs.

The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition survived the opposition’s onslaught in both 2008 and 2013 because Malay nationalist voters believed only Umno could assure their political dominance and economic privileges. They feared moderate Muslims in PKR and PAS would be dominated by the assertive DAP and its Chinese constituency.

In 2013, 63 out of 222 parliamentary constituencies had an electorate with 70 per cent or more Malay voters. Umno won 47 (75 per cent) of these predominantly Malay constituencies while PAS won only 14 seats and PKR two.

While PAS now asserts itself as the default alternative to Umno in the Malay heartland, its appeal is limited by its dogmatic and conservative outlook. Hence, even if PH and PAS form an electoral pact to take on BN in straight fights, PAS may fail to deliver enough Malay-majority seats to end Umno’s rule.

In contrast, Dr Mahathir’s new party might just be the needed alternative. After all, who would believe Dr Mahathir can be manipulated by the DAP or the Chinese? Leaders of ultra-nationalist group Perkasa might even join the new party and boost its credentials.

Of course, Dr Mahathir’s new party and new coalition are not without challenges.

First, PAS may also choose to take on the new party regarding its threat to create three-cornered fights with PH. However, fighting both BN and the entire new opposition coalition will only confirm PAS’ role as a spoiler and further alienate it from voters.

Second, Umno will step up its effort to evoke the Malays’ existentialist anxiety that a regime change may end the bumiputra policy.

If the new opposition coalition cannot offer a better alternative to the bumiputra policy, the fear will loom large and limit its appeal to the Umno base.

On the other hand, if Dr Mahathir sticks to Perkasa’s position that the bumiputra policy must stay indefinitely, non-Malay voters will be alienated.

The previous opposition coalitions had tried to avoid the elephant in the room by playing “strategic ambiguity” on both the bumiputra policy and Islamisation in Malaysia.

As ambiguity had eventually failed for all the previous coalitions, the new coalition cannot count on its luck. In fact, if anything, the new party and the new coalition must not be sold as the single-issue “Anti-Najib party/coalition” as did Dr Mahathir’s vague Save Malaysia campaign.

They have to offer some clear road map of reform for post-Najib and post-Umno Malaysia. Otherwise, frustrated voters may reject political expediency by staying at home during the election.

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Wong Chin Huat is head of political and social analysis at Penang Institute.

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