SINGAPORE – Campaigning is heating up ahead of Malaysia’s November 19 general election in what is set to be a tight race, with incumbent Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s Barisan Nasional (BN) facing off against coalitions led by veteran opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and ex-premier Muhyiddin Yassin as a wide array of smaller parties join the fray.
Fatigued by rising inflation and political instability, voters will decide the winners and losers from among a record 945 candidates vying for 222 parliamentary seats. Apart from BN, Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional (PN) – the country’s three main national alliances – a coalition led by two-time former premier Mahathir Mohamad is also making its debut.
Over 210 multi-cornered contests are expected, a factor that could split votes more than in previous elections. Analysts say the polls could yield a hung parliament where no single party or coalition wins a simple majority, an outcome that could result in a scramble for power where opposing alliances come together in a coalition of convenience to form the next government.
“If there is no coalition with a clear workable majority, what would happen is that some of the most opportunistic and Machiavellian elements in Malaysian politics may emerge,” said political analyst Chandra Muzaffar. “You may have people who want to be in power because they’ve got personal agendas, including staying out of prison or making sure that the law does not apply to them.”
Many regard corruption-accused Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, president of the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO), as a dark horse to become Malaysia’s next prime minister. Despite not being advanced by the party to be premier after the polls, Zahid could mount a power play if the BN coalition he chairs wins convincingly.
Zahid and Ismail, the latter officially BN’s candidate for prime minister and incumbent caretaker, have gone on the stump together and downplayed any rift between them. While the two top politicians have managed to work together since Ismail’s rise to the premiership last August, tensions between their respective party factions have been openly apparent.
Eight ministers and deputy ministers allied to Ismail, some of whom had been openly critical of Zahid’s leadership, were dropped from BN’s candidate list on November 2, which analysts saw as indicative of an emerging power struggle within UMNO’s leadership and a signal that Zahid aims to use the general election to consolidate his power over the party.
UMNO is Malaysia’s largest and oldest political organization; its leaders governed Malaysia without interruption for 61 years until 2018 when the BN lost power for the first time. Due to corruption charges, Zahid is the first UMNO president who has not served as prime minister, with the top job going instead to Ismail, who is third in the party hierarchy.
Ismail has become known as Malaysia’s “accidental” premier for having been at the right place at the right time when Muhyiddin’s PN-led government collapsed last year after being sabotaged by Zahid’s faction. But Ismail has not always followed Zahid’s leadership cues and many experts believe the UMNO president would prefer a more malleable proxy at the helm – if not himself.
Through his position as UMNO leader and BN chairman, Zahid has discretion over the selection of election candidates and ultimately who the coalition appoints as premier if it wins the election. The UMNO president notably strongarmed Ismail into calling an early election, many believe to secure a BN win before the courts rule on 47 graft-related charges Zahid faces early next year.
Zahid is determined to avoid the fate of his key ally, former premier Najib Razak, who began a 12-year prison sentence in late August for corruption linked to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal. Under his leadership, UMNO has pushed claims that Najib – along with other senior party leaders – have been selectively prosecuted and unfairly tried.
Peter Mumford, a Southeast Asia analyst with the Eurasia Group consultancy, believes Ismail’s future as prime minister is far from certain and anticipates a potential showdown between Zahid and Ismail after the election. “If BN secures an outright majority, Zahid will likely seize the premiership,” he said in a research note reviewed by Asia Times.
“However, if BN needs other parties to form a government, then potential partners might demand that Ismail remain as PM in exchange for their support, believing Zahid to be too tarnished by corruption allegations. Regardless of who is premier, Zahid will likely be calling the shots. He will also likely pressure the judiciary to drop cases/charges against him,” Mumford wrote.
UMNO’s president was seen as emboldened when he was acquitted last month on 40 counts of corruption for allegedly receiving bribes from a foreign visa operator. But he could be hit with a lengthy prison term and heavy fines if found guilty of the 47 separate charges he faces for allegedly misappropriating millions from a foundation he established.
Zahid has flagged so-called “irregularities” in the justice system and agitated for Najib to be pardoned by Malaysia’s king and released from prison. Ismail, by contrast, has intoned respect for the judiciary. “UMNO has no power to simply release anyone,” he said recently, addressing speculation that the jailed ex-premier would be freed if BN clinches a major win.
While UMNO’s president has been bullish on BN’s chances for a resounding victory, Ismail has appeared more circumspect, making clear that the door remains open to form a government with other coalitions and warning against overconfidence. He remarked recently that the days when UMNO could field a “songkok” – a cap worn as part of traditional Malay attire – and win big are over.
Opinion polling suggests Ismail’s caution is warranted. A recent survey by independent pollster Merdeka Center showed approval for the BN-led federal government fell to 31% in October, down from 38% in September and lower than the 39% approval rate for the coalition in April 2018 weeks before its first-ever election defeat the following month.
The survey, conducted from October 19 to 28 among 1,209 adult Malaysian voters, showed that 24% of respondents preferred BN, while 26% favored Anwar’s PH opposition bloc. Nearly a third – or 31% – were undecided or had no preference. About 13% supported Muhyiddin’s PN opposition bloc while just 2% backed Mahathir’s newly-formed Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA) alliance.
Among the main candidates for the premiership, Muhyiddin – Malaysia’s shortest-serving premier in office from March 2020 to August 2021 – emerged as the most popular at 51% ahead of Ismail at 46%. Survey results showed that Anwar lagged behind his two rivals in personal popularity with 34% approval, while Zahid clinched a popularity rate of just 13%.
Some 60% of respondents said they were angry or dissatisfied with the BN-led government, with the highest disapproval coming from ethnic minorities at 83%. Dissatisfaction with the coalition was 48% among ethnic Malays, who compromise nearly 70% of the population and are the most crucial demographic in determining election results.
“With the lower-than-expected level of Malay voter support for BN, it is possible to imagine that no single coalition will attain a large enough plurality to form a government with just one other party or coalition,” the Merdeka Center said. “Instead, there is a rising possibility that at least three or more parties or coalitions are needed to cooperate to form a government with a simple majority.”
Analysts still regard the UMNO-led BN as the best-placed coalition to form a government, owing to its formidable election machinery, strong rural grassroots networks and momentum from recent state election victories. BN is also seen as the key beneficiary of sectarianism within opposition ranks, with PH and PN staunchly opposed to electoral cooperation and GTA going it alone.
Some 21.1 million Malaysians are eligible to vote in next week’s poll, with millions of new voters added to the electoral roll after the country implemented an automatic voter registration system and lowered its voting age from 21 to 18. Turnout will be a key variable, with lower participation typically favoring the incumbent and a higher turnout tending to benefit the opposition.
Having caved to pressure from Zahid and UMNO’s old guard, Ismail’s government has been widely criticized for its decision to call early snap polls amid monsoon season rains when elections were not due until September 2023. Flash flooding reported in parts of Selangor earlier this week underscored the potential for weather-related disruptions to campaigning and voting that may impact turnout.
Any coalition intending to form the next government will need backing from the country’s Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia’s two largest by area which together account for 56 seats in parliament, or 25% of the total. BN and PH have said the states may be represented by one, or possibly even two, new deputy prime ministers should they win federal power.
Contests for the 165 seats in Peninsular Malaysia will primarily involve three-way races between BN, PH, and PN. Muhyiddin’s PN coalition had comprised the largest bloc of lawmakers behind Ismail’s government before the parliament’s dissolution in October and analysts don’t rule out that electoral realities will necessitate the reassembling of a BN-PN administration.
In such a scenario, PN could support an Ismail premiership – a far more amenable scenario for the Malay-centric coalition than a Zahid-led administration – in exchange for senior portfolios including the deputy premiership. Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), an Islamist party aligned with PN, could also conceivably break ranks to join a new BN-led administration if it falls short of a majority.
While Anwar’s PH can rely on support from urban-based voters and ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, communities that combined form a third of the electorate, the veteran politician lacks widespread appeal among majority ethnic Malays, many of whom took a chance by voting against BN in 2018 but were displeased with PH’s 22-month tenure.
“Many rural voters felt that PH was not able to achieve much during the short time that they were in power, and that conditions on the ground did not improve. In fact, they felt like it got worse,” said Serina Rahman, a lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Department of Southeast Asian Studies and noted expert on rural Malaysian politics.
“After the 2018 general election, it was also very clear that people who would usually vote for BN, but decided to vote against them that year, regretted voting the other way because the whole government fell. Those two things will make the Malay rural ground want to vote for BN so they don’t make another mistake,” the academic told Asia Times.
PH is widely remembered as being distracted by internal politics linked to Mahathir’s unfulfilled promise to hand the premiership to Anwar and failures to deliver on campaign promises such as abolishing toll road collections and reforming political financing. The PH administration was also unpopular for rolling back rural aid that was synonymous with BN rule.
“Getting rid of subsidies for poor fishermen, farmers, rubber smallholders and other elements of the rural economy was a huge mistake,” said analyst Muzaffar. “For the Malay poor in the rural areas, these were not subsidies. These were part of their subsistence, their very survival. This terrible blunder will be one of the burdens PH will carry into the general election.”
One of the most persistent rumors on the campaign trail has been that Zahid could cut a deal with Anwar to form a post-election government, a narrative being pushed on the hustings by Mahathir and echoed by PN. Both PH and BN have denied the allegation as a non-starter, though analysts have noted a curious lack of rhetorical broadsides between the PH and BN chiefs.
Zahid and Anwar share a storied history with the former being a vocal supporter of the latter when he was sacked by then-premier Mahathir as deputy prime minister and finance minister in 1998 and jailed on politicized sodomy charges. Zahid was then notably imprisoned for 11 days under the now-repealed Internal Security Act (ISA) amid a clampdown on Anwar’s “reformasi” movement.
The BN and PH leaders were more recently seen as conspiring to topple Muhyiddin’s government, with graft-accused UMNO members purportedly offering to back the opposition leader as premier if he agreed to intervene in their court cases. Anwar claims the deal would have put him in power but he chose to hold true to his self-claimed principles of clean governance.
An audio recording of a cordial phone conversation between two people who sounded like Anwar and Zahid – with the latter praising the former as his “teacher” and suggesting their public antipathy was “tactical” – was leaked on the internet last April, causing a major stir on both sides of the political aisle. Both men denied the authenticity of the viral clip, calling it fake and slanderous.
“There will always be potential for them (Zahid and Anwar) to work together,” said academic Serina. “I wouldn’t put it past Anwar because there have been many occasions when he said that he was willing to open the door to UMNO to work together. There are never permanent friends or enemies in politics. The name of the game is to garner power.”
Follow Nile Bowie on Twitter at @NileBowie