Malaysia's new political landscape: back to the future…

Muhyiddin'sPerikatan Nasional coalition was very fragile on the day he was shown in as prime minister, hence the day in convening parliament. Over the weeks and months ahead, his parliamentary numbers should be bolstered a little with some defections. The 71-year-old leader's biggest early challenge is to assemble a cabinet and ministry that both satisfy the parties and factions who supported him and at the same time presents a competent lineup. To achieve this, Muhyiddin may have to enlarge the ministry once again to accommodate. How Muhyiddin constructs his cabinet will be very telling on his government's future directions.

Narratives under a Muhyiddin administration shouldn't change too much from what the country has been hearing over the years of Barisan Nasional government. The prime powerbase of the new coalition is the Malay heartlands, and this will be important. The abolition of the goods and services tax by PH had major fiscal implications, reducing the ability to enhance social welfare programs. Under PH many were cut. Muhyiddin may reintroduce the GST at a reduced rate to fund social welfare programs back into the Malay heartlands. This would be electorally popular.

Under PH, education policy was hijacked by former education minister Maszlee Malik who insisted on introducing pseudo-Islamic gestures to please his peers. PN may undertake some real reform in the education sector, and here it will be very interesting who is appointed as minister and whether the ministry will be broken up once again into two ministries.

Foreign policy may also change under Perikatan Nasional, with better relations expected with Singapore. Mahathir's antisemitic rhetoric should also disappear, making Malaysia look like a more moderate country in the world community. As a former international trade minister, Muhyiddin should repair trade rifts with India that Mahathir fomented.

In Malaysia, a federal ministry resembles a semi-independent feudal castle. Consequently, policy will greatly depend upon the appointed minister. For example, if PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang is appointed religious affairs minister, then expect a much more conservative Islamic outlook by the Islamic apparatus under state control.

There will be no drastic change in policy direction, as the PN government like many before it almost totally relied upon the civil service to formulate policy. Social problems like community health, drug abuse, youth unemployment, child marriage, incest, sexual abuse in religious schools, and national water quality are unlikely to be tackled, just as previous governments have neglected them.

A recent survey foundthat the majority of voters, in the wake of the Pakatan Harapan government's political and governmental chaos, actually preferred a Bumiputera coalition government. Nominally, PN received almost one million more votes than PH did in GE14. Under the current electoral system UMNO-PAS-Bersatu is the natural government, especially given the reinforcement of race-based politics. The shock, anger, and dismay towards the new Muhyiddin government comes primarily from urban areas, within malapportioned constituencies. Although there is a groundswell of anger towards Muhyiddin, the electoral powerbase, much more politically passive, is looking forward to financial assistance in a time of economic difficulty.

With the failure of PH to undertake electoral reform, Perikatan Nasional has a great advantage. Eliminating malapportionment would greatly benefit DAP and PKR, which no party is interested in doing. PH also failed to reintroduce elections for local government to bring the democratic system to three levels of government. This would have been to the advantage of DAP and PKR to show the public what they could practically do at a grassroots level to assist citizens. Democratic local government could have been a pivot point for the now opposition to one day return to government.

Where to from here? Muhyiddin made a sound strategic decision to delay the reconvening of parliament until 18^th May. This will give him plenty of time to construct a ministry, settle them in, solidify his support in parliament with more defections coming his way, and allow PH to lose momentum. For PH, this is going to be time in the wilderness where it will lose some supporters to the point where a no confidence motion in Muhyiddin as prime minister succeeding would be impossible. Mahathir's claim of 114 MPs supporting him will just evaporate.

This means PH will have to quickly settle back into opposition, contemplate how it is going to develop electoral leverage over the Malay heartlands, and regain support from Sabah and Sarawak. Lim Guan Eng's comments that the Sarawak government would be bankrupt in three years, will come back to haunt PH. Sabah politicians are about to feud, increasing the difficulty of building any long-term alliances for now. The opposition has to work on a plan for the next election.

What we have learned over the last two weeks is that Malaysian political parties are still immature and can completely break apart over personality rather than policy rifts. Political parties appear to be just vehicles for power. Few politicians have altruistic motives, but rather ulterior motives for personal power and gain. The PH government, just like the new PN government haven't come to power with any vision in mind. PH rather very quickly reverted back to the old crony-capitalism that has plagued the first Mahathir government administration.

Party hopping occurs because there are no deep ideological anchors. Anti-party-hopping legislation is not the solution, policy-based party politics is. There is a total lack of respect for the party-political process. If need be, leadership of a party can be hijacked as needed. Malaysia's new political landscape is just a reconfiguration.