Malaysia's Opposition Strategy to Return to Power

[superadmin]

Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who formed Malaysia’s new government without the benefit of election – as his predecessor did – may have a honeymoon period with an exhausted electorate hoping for political peace, but how long that will last is debatable. Sabri, himself under quarantine after having come in contact with a constituent infected with Covid-19, faces a pandemic that shows no sign of abating, with more than 300,000 cases in the past two weeks and with deaths rising by 16 percent over that period.

During the past few months of Covid-necessitated movement restrictions, Malaysians have felt abandoned by the government, particularly as the factions fought for power. The accompanying economic downturn, with forecasts again having been downgraded, will favor the out-of-power Pakatan Harapan government, especially if the current government doesn’t handle it better than the former one.

Chances are it won’t, as the Sabri ministry is essentially the same as the former Muhyiddin ministry. Sabri has retained 31 ministers and 38 deputy ones, including four senior posts created by Muhyiddin to keep factions in his Malay-majority government happy.

Nonetheless, Sabri’s reconstituted government should continue through to the next general election, designated GE15, due by July 2023, or perhaps even earlier. As with Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional government, Sabri was appointed by the king to rule in lieu of an election.

This means the only alternative for Pakatan Harapan, which took power in 2018 as a reform movement only to lose it again through missteps and the precipitous resignation of its leader, Mahathir Mohamad, is to settle into being the opposition, presenting itself as a credible alternative government and developing an effective shadow cabinet, both to prepare it to lead by developing policy and to winnow out its less-effective leaders.

Pakatan Harapan currently has 105 MPs, just seven short of a majority that would enable it to once again form a government. Before it lost power, the coalition had a comfortable working majority in parliament. The big question is how many constituencies it could pick up in the next general election or GE15.


- More -