Malaysia’s opposition coalition is dead | New Mandala

Malaysia’s opposition coalition is dead | New Mandala

TOM PEPINSKY, 

18 JUNE 2015

Members of Malaysia’s Pakatan Rakyat in happier times.

What’s next for Malaysia’s opposition movement?

Seven years after it was formed, Malaysia’s most successful three-party opposition coalition, the Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Pact), is officially dead.

This is a blow for the many Malaysians who support an alternative to the Barisan Nasional regime that has ruled Malaysia in one form or another since 1957.

The final blow came from Democratic Action Party Secretary General Lim Guan Eng, who announced two days ago that the PR “ceased to exist.” The proximate cause of that, in turn, was a recent decision by the general assembly (muktamar) of the Pan-Malaysian IslamicPa rty (PAS) to stop collaborating with DAP. This followed what Bridget Welsh has called a “purge of the progressives” during the muktamar, in which conservatives from the “ulama wing” grabbed all of the party’s important leadership posts.

Those final details are important, but the roots of the PAS-DAP split are structural in nature. PAS is an Islamic party, overwhelmingly supported by ethnic Malays. DAP is a social democratic party, overwhelmingly supported by ethnic Chinese. As I wrote in 2007,

In many ways, each opposition party has more in common with the BN than it does with other opposition parties.

And in 2013, after the results of the 2013 General Election came in and remarking upon Anwar Ibrahim promise to step down, I observed that

Without the pluralist PKR and Anwar’s dynamic leadership, it is unclear how a largely Chinese social democratic party and an Islamist party can remain in the same coalition.

Back in 2007, writing in the wake of the split of the Barisan Alternatif, I was sceptical about the possibility of cross-ethnic cooperation in the near future. That was wrong: cooperation did work from 2008 until 2015, and generated a majority of votes going to PR instead of the BN in 2013.

We now face the possibility that PAS will cooperate more formally with UMNO and BN. Such cooperation would align Islamic and Malay-nationalist agendas (which have quite a bit in common anyway) while further sidelining non-Malay and non-Muslim voices in this diverse multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. This makes sense from UMNO’s perspective given that UMNO now dominates BN to an unprecedented extent, and no longer has a parliamentary supermajority.

So what’s next? There are four important places now to watch.

First, Persatuan Ummah Sejahtera Malaysia (PasMa), which translates to something like the “Union of the Faithful for a Prosperous Malaysia.” PasMa describes itself as a “watchdog” group to ensure that PAS does not cooperate with BN, and represents (after a fashion) those progressives who have been purged from PAS. And its chief Datuk Phahrolrazi Zawawi is now calling for a new Islamic party to participate in a new opposition coalition. Can PasMa be that party? Only time will tell.

Second, PKR, the People’s Justice Party. Its stance is firming up as I write this: PKR has already echoed Lim Guan Eng in declaring PR dead. Quo vadis PKR? It is not yet clear.

Third, the BN’s component parties. If PAS moves to cooperate more formally with UMNO, then UMNO and the non-Malay parties face an interesting choice. The non-Malay parties will almost certainly resist bringing PAS into the coalition, for that dilutes their voice even further and threatens their core interests as well. Yet I would not rule out a formal alliance between UMNO and PAS in the near future, even if the non-Malay parties quit in protest. If so—and believe me this is a hypothetical—this would signify the most significant party system change in Malaysian history.

And fourth, state-level PR governments. Yes, PR is dead, but PR-based coalitions still rule in important states such as Selangor, Penang, and Kelantan. Selangor is the critical case: here, unlike in Penang or Kelantan, PAS must remain in alliance with PKR and DAP for the government to stay together. Will it? Selangor is a relatively prosperous, multi-ethnic, “suburban” state near Kuala Lumpur, not a rural northern Malay heartland state.

It is also the site of the infamous Selangor crisis. PAS members there almost certainly differ from party members in the Malay heartland.

This may be where to look to see where Malaysian party politics is heading. Selangor Backbenchers Club chairman Ng Suee Lim recently said that the government would remain in power so long as the three parties “could still agree on certain common issues and be respectful to each other”.

We will have to see if that will be possible.

Tom Pepinsky is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University. You can read more of his writing at his blog.

More bad news for Malaysia’s democracy | New Mandala

More bad news for Malaysia’s democracy | New Mandala

TOM PEPINSKY, 

18 JUNE 2015

Without Anwar Ibrahim Malaysia’s opposition quickly unravelled. Photo by Pix Firdaus Latif/ Wikimedia commons.

Collapse of opposition another blow for Malaysia’s democratic prospects.

Back in February, just after Anwar Ibrahim lost his appeal against sodomy charges and was given a harsh five-year jail sentence, New Mandala spoke to Malaysia politics expert John Funston.

He said that without Anwar around to unite the conflicting policies and personalities, maintaining the opposition alliance would be “extremely difficult”.

He was spot on.

A mere four months after Anwar’s jailing and the seven-year-old People’s Alliance, or Pakatan Rakyat, has called it a day, declaring Wednesday that it no longer “functions formally”.

It brings an end to Malaysia’s most successful opposition movement; one which won the majority of votes in 2013’s general election to almost unseat the six-decade ruling coalition Barisan Nasional. Only gerrymandering of seats saw Barisan Nasional maintain power.

The collapse of the coalition comes about after attempts by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) to enforce the controversial Islamic law, hudud. The Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP) objected to the move and now the two parties have severed ties.

Which raises the question; what does this mean for the already slim hopes of democracy in Malaysia?

The first thing to keep in mind is that while Pakatan Rakyat showed great promise as a possible alternative to the ruling Barisan Nasional, it was never a cohesive alliance.

“The collapse came about for the same reason the parties split after the 1999 election – because a group within PAS has sought to press for an extreme version of its Islamic ideology,” says Funston.

“This time the pro-Ulama group are even stronger – after a bitter campaign they won a clean sweep of all top positions in the party’s general assembly earlier this month.”

Another key difference is that the pro-Ulama group is now looking to work with Prime Minister Najib Razak’s UMNO party to achieve its goals – in particular the implementation of the extreme hudud law in PAS-run Kelantan.

But as Funston points out, as too Tom Pepinsky here, it might not be the end of collaboration between the former alliance parties.

“In the absence of a formal coalition some cooperation still seems likely, in particular for the Selangor state administration where the three parties have similar representation,” says Funston. “But this will not make for a unified administration, and further efforts by PAS to implement hudud might imperil even this.”

With elections due in 2018, the demise of the alliance will significantly reduce the opposition’s prospects of successfully challenging the government. And if PAS does end up building an alliance with UMNO, this also does not bode well for Malaysia’s non-Malay parties.

“Some opposition members have mooted a grand alliance against the ruling coalition, drawing on support from moderate Malay NGOs, and perhaps headed by UMNO veteran Tengku Razaleigh,” says Funston.

“Such a realignment would be difficult to accomplish, though some movement in this direction is possible if the PAS professionals align more closely with DAP and PKM, and other Malay moderates continue to join these two parties.”

Meanwhile Barisan Nasional are going through their own potential divorce, with an ongoing clash between former prime minister Dr Mahathir and Najib sending the ruling party to the brink (read this New York Times piece for a good overview of the back story involving the PM’s wife’s spending sprees and the murder of a Mongolian model).

The upshot is that Mahathir has called time on Razak, saying his many failures, including that of sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, means he must go.

“The 90-year-old Mahathir is relentless, and has an outstanding record of bringing opponents down,” says Funston. “He may well continue until he succeeds in this case.

“Najib has responded vigorously, and benefits from the fact that there is no obvious successor. But he has not mounted a plausible defence against Mahathir’s charges, and momentum could move against him quickly if party leaders come to accept Mahathir’s claim that UMNO will not win the next election while Najib remains in charge.”

With three years until elections, the drama is only set to build.

James Giggacher is editor of New Mandala.