SINGAPORE – Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration survived a key electoral test over the weekend, losing support to a conservative opposition bloc but maintaining its incumbency of state governments in midterm polls that nonetheless served as a sobering early referendum on his nine-month-old “unity” government.
The August 12 state elections resulted in a “3-3” outcome, meaning the Pakatan Harapan-led (PH) government and right-wing opposition alliance Perikatan Nasional (PN) each clinched three states out of the six that were up for election, with the latter making significant inroads nationwide in key Malay Muslim majority constituencies.
The results had broader implications, especially for the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and its main party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which won only 19 of the 108 seats it contested. Analysts see the electoral drubbing as further proof of UMNO’s diminished role as a national political force after its previous six decades of uninterrupted rule.
Calls for reform within UMNO have resurfaced amid its lackluster performance, which saw the party’s share of seats across six states fall by more than half from 41 with no wins in Malay-majority Terengganu or Kedah. The dismal showing has stoked speculation that deputy premier Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, UMNO’s embattled president, could face a leadership challenge.
Internal strife within UMNO and demands for Zahid’s resignation, as some senior party figures have already expressed openly on social media, could potentially test the stability of the unity government in the months ahead given the pivotal role Zahid played In Anwar’s ascension to the premiership after November general elections resulted in a hung parliament.
Zahid is the subject of an ongoing corruption and money laundering trial, making his senior position in government all the more controversial. Already a liability for sacking his rivals to tighten his grip over UMNO since his appointment as deputy premier, Zahid’s failure to boost Malay Muslim support for the avowed reformist government has cast further doubt on his political utility.
“A widespread perception among the Malay electorate, in particular, that the UMNO leadership is corrupt has been building up since the [2013] general election,” said veteran political analyst Chandra Muzaffar. “It peaked in the recent state elections because UMNO continues to be led by a man facing 47 corruption-related charges who is hell-bent on remaining in power and has rid the party of those who are critical of his wrongdoings.”
With a rallying call of “dulu lawan, sekarang kawan” (once foes, now friends), proponents of the PH-BN alliance, a previously unthinkable pairing of political adversaries, had certain hopes of UMNO attracting Malay voters to Anwar’s PH coalition, which enjoys strong support from non-Malay minority communities, though less so among ethnic Malays who account for some 60% of the 33 million population.
A survey conducted by the Kuala Lumpur-based research firm Ilham Centre in July found that Anwar’s approval ratings among minority Chinese (88%) and Indians (81%) in the six states holding elections were overwhelmingly positive. The data also showed that only 24% of Malays, around one in four respondents, were satisfied with his performance as prime minister.
The PH-BN pact only proved viable in Negeri Sembilan, where it won a two-thirds majority with BN contributing 14 out of 31 state seats. BN failed to contribute more than two seats to the government in all other states. Selangor, Malaysia’s wealthiest state, was the only of the six contested to have a government without a two-thirds majority, with PH-BN winning 34 out of 56 seats.
Despite big talk on the hustings, right-wing opposition bloc PN failed to flip Penang, Negeri Sembilan or Selangor as it boasted it would, but it still has much to celebrate. Its candidates picked up 15% to 30% more votes in a majority of seats compared to November’s election. Of the 245 state assembly seats up for grabs, PN took 146 seats compared to PH’s 80 and BN’s 19 seats.
PN chairman Muhyiddin Yassin, a former premier and political veteran, said the results represented a “huge wave calling for change” and that Anwar and Zahid had a “moral responsibility” to resign from their posts. “PN’s roaring success in garnering Malay support shows that PN is now the main political platform for Malays. UMNO is no longer relevant,” boasted Muhyiddin at a press conference.
Wong Chin Huat, a professor and deputy head of the Asia headquarters of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network at Malaysia’s Sunway University, said voters’ shift away from UMNO stems from grassroots discontent with Zahid’s leadership and perceptions that the party has been relegated as a junior partner in government, having only contested a small number of seats.
“Zahid cannot be officially challenged as president, but pressure may mount for him to step down as president or deputy premier and be replaced by his deputy, Mohamad Hasan,” he told Asia Times. Without leadership renewal and reinvention, “UMNO may try to shift the blame to its alliance with PH and pressure the government to move to the right, which would destabilize the government.”
Muzaffar added that “though an open, outright challenge against Zahid Hamidi may not happen immediately, it is quite conceivable – given UMNO’s electoral debacle – that other UMNO leaders will come together and try to coax him to resign as UMNO president. Zahid’s departure in this manner will not have repercussions for the political system.”
In his post-election speech, Anwar gave assurances that his government would remain stable and called for a cooling of the political temperature following what observers saw as one of Malaysia’s most divisive ever election campaigns. “All parties, win or lose, should join hands to defend the peace and focus on the dignity of the nation and champion the public interest,” he said.
Malaysia’s political divide was on full display during campaigning, with both rival coalitions resorting to scare tactics on the stump. PN’s largest member, the hardline ultraconservative Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), leaned heavily into racial and religious sentiments and proved adept at harnessing social media platforms like TikTok to sway younger voters.
PAS turned in a stellar performance, winning all but two of 45 seats in a landslide victory in Kelantan and fully capturing Terengganu, leaving the state without an opposition. The Islamist party, which stunned observers by outperforming in November’s general election, also helped PN win a two-thirds majority in Kedah state, clinching 33 of the 36 seats in the state assembly.
PN’s narrative familiarly accuses Anwar of being a proxy for non-Malays, warning that Muslim and Malay rights will be marginalized under his leadership while also more credibly taking shots at PH’s embrace of graft-tainted UMNO. Anwar, in turn, dismissively implied that PAS-led states were examples of backward governance, dog-whistling to non-Malay fears of fundamentalist religious rule.
In a separate viral exchange between Anwar and a non-Malay student who asked him whether race-based education quotas could be replaced by a meritocracy system, the premier came off to many as impatient and combative, telling her that doing so would be disastrous and cause PH to “lose all the elections in this country, and you will suffer more in this country run by PAS [and PN].”
“PN continues to exploit the concerns of the Malay-Muslim majority and leverage identity politics. Anwar tried to woo Malay-Muslim voters with divisive rhetoric/stances of his own but this failed to bolster PH-BN’s support and may have just alienated progressive voters,” said Peter Mumford, a Southeast Asia analyst with the Eurasia Group consultancy.
Anwar’s government has been accused of pandering to social conservatives and his progressive supporters have appeared dismayed by the perceived slow pace of promised institutional reforms. PH had campaigned on a broad reform and clean governance agenda. So far, it has reduced subsidies for the wealthy, eased listing rules for companies and abolished the mandatory death penalty.
“There is also dissatisfaction that Anwar has failed to deliver on some of the promised political and economic reforms, though his ‘reformist’ image has always seemed questionable, so this is not surprising,” Mumford added. “A stronger result for PH-BN might have given Anwar more confidence to proceed with significant reforms, though this now looks unlikely.”
The factors behind PN’s rising support in what has been dubbed the “green wave” after the color of PAS’ party flag continue to be debated by analysts. While PAS has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of disillusionment with the once-popular UMNO, some see economic distress over higher living costs and slowing economic growth under Anwar as key reasons for its rise.
Apart from economic challenges, some analysts say attacks on prominent opposition figures by government leaders during the election campaign alienated many Malay voters. PN leader Muhyiddin also notably faces abuse of power and money laundering charges that were brought against him in March, which he claims amount to political prosecution.
Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), believes socio-economic reasons do not fully account for PAS’ success. “There is a desire for a more religiously and racially-oriented socio-political narrative, regardless of socio-economic status,” he told Asia Times, pointing to the party’s dominance of rural areas and rising appeal in wealthier urban states.
“Religiously and racially-motivated rhetoric is not something new in Malaysia and has been occurring for many years. It’s just that now PN is using it more prominently and exclusively, and as long as Malaysia still has a racially-divided society at large, I think it’s very difficult to get rid of this social and religious messaging” he opined.
“A certain degree of ethnic polarization will remain for some time to come,” Muzaffar concurred. “However, political polarization can be overcome if leaders on both sides of the political divide adopt a conciliatory tone. As leader of the ruling coalition, Anwar Ibrahim set the right tenor in his election night speech. The opposition should now respond, and both should translate words into deeds.”
Follow Nile Bowie on Twitter at @NileBowie