Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin finally got the state of emergency he first sought months ago. The sweeping powers ostensibly give him a shot at quashing a surge in coronavirus infections while, critically for the future of his leadership, putting the lid on a political rebellion that threatened his precarious 10-month tenure.
The emergency decree was declared by the king Tuesday as a “proactive measure” to contain Covid-19 cases and may endure until August. The last one was deployed in the 1960s to combat communal rioting. Such a decree isn’t something that the Southeast Asian country’s hereditary rulers issue lightly; Muhyiddin was rebuffed when he sought one in October. But cases have exploded recently and reached a record last week. The measures allow a suspension of parliament, the tightening of borders, and more functions for the military.
The parliamentary suspension comes not a moment too soon for Muhyiddin. He came to power in March after lawmakers defected from a coalition led by Mahathir Mohamad, a force in the country’s politics for nearly half a century who was enjoying his second stint as prime minister at the then-tender age of 94. Ever since, Muhyiddin has governed vote by vote in parliament with a wafer-thin majority. He appeared on the verge of losing it last week when tensions rose within the governing bloc which called its future into question.
It’s that fragile political backdrop that gives the emergency declaration the whiff of a heavy-handed power play. For all the talk likening last week’s storming of the U.S. Congress to gradations of a coup, as examined by my colleague David Fickling, what’s transpiring in Malaysia is closer to the real thing. The royals, who in recent decades have exercised a mainly ceremonial role, last year helped install Muhyiddin, who had no strong power base previously. (I’ve written about their role here.) The fact is that if an election was held soon, there’s a decent chance Muhyiddin wouldn’t come out on top. The king, Abdullah Ahmad Shah, is prolonging his life support.
There’s little to stop the monarch extending the state of emergency, on Muhyiddin’s request. It’s got to be tempting. The prime minister seems to be kept in the job by a stalemate that shows no sign of resolution. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who forever seems to be on the cusp of power, claimed in September that he had the numbers in the lower house to oust Muhyiddin. The king granted him an audience but the push fizzled out. The biggest political party, the United Malays National Organization, a nominal ally of Muhyiddin, was to decide this month whether to exit the coalition in favor of an early election. Parliament’s term runs until 2023.
A national election anytime soon would be fraught from a health perspective. A state ballot in Sabah on the island of Borneo in September led to a jump in infections just as the government appeared to have gotten control of cases. Nationwide polling would likely precipitate a fresh climb. The government has forecast daily cases will reach 8,000 by late March or late May, based on a predictive modeling analysis. The tally Monday stood at a little over 2,000.
The suspension of political activities is a rarity in this country of some 30 million people. Unlike regimes in neighboring Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines that have been undone by the armed forces over the years, Malaysia, for much of its history, has been a bastion of stability. That durability was based on parliamentary democracy with regular elections, leading to governments centered on UMNO from independence until 2018. The formerly ruling party has weakened in the past decade over a growing urban-rural divide and especially the 1MDB corruption scandal, which brought down then-Prime Minister Najib Razak. But a strong alternative remains elusive in the fractiousness of a political culture still largely based on race and religion.
Troops didn’t storm parliament or shove the king aside; the military has played little role in Malaysian politics. That doesn’t make Tuesday’s developments any less jarring or consequential. Muhyiddin now, effectively, holds power by force. He might be right in gambling that people don’t care about who governs them when it’s a question of life or death in a pandemic. But it also buys time for a ruling class that still hasn’t figured out how to replace the stability of the old UMNO-led order.
Governments keep telling us we have to live with Covid-19 and that it will be with us for some time. Is this what living with political uncertainty will look like? Convention and normal governance didn’t need to be upended in such dramatic fashion. Muhyiddin said an election can be held as soon as an independent committee declares the pandemic has subsided and it’s safe to hold a vote. That has a distinctly subjective — and squishy — sound to it. When the people do next get to cast ballots, it’s entirely possible Muhyiddin will be hurled into the darkness. But a terrible precedent has been set. If whoever succeeds him gets into trouble, it will be nothing a call to the palace can’t fix.-Bloomberg
Also read: State of emergency in Malaysia as pandemic worsens, embattled govt could delay polls now