🇲🇾 Wait, what's happening?

Hello friends!

First up, not sure why I made so many big promises last week when I knew I was going to be staying in a gorgeous villa in Chiang Mai with lots of cheap beers and walking tours. 

This week we’ll be mixing it up a little since, uh, everything has gone bonkers. No regular DMKM today instead here’s the last 24 hours in Malaysia. I’m literally on the way to Bangkok on a long as hell train so I’m keen to hold over the Future Forward stuff until I’m there and have a better lay of it. 

These big deal ones are often for the whole list because of how important it is, but if you’d like to join the premium list do so here for $6 a month or $60 for the year:

Okay, let’s just jump into Malaysia. This is going to be a long, messy one so I’ve kept here a broad what you need to know for now and we’ll revisit in a couple of days when it all becomes a bit clearer. 

Erin Cook

I’m a big advocate for the brilliant Between the Lines, a newsletter each day looking at the going-ons of Malaysia. Sometimes it’s the really gritty stuff which I gloss over, but its long view ahead and deep analysis is invaluable. Over the next few months, it’s going to be an absolute must so get on it now please!

Same with Malaysiakini, which offers a very handy quarterly subscription if you’re not sure you want to go all-in but want to keep across this. 

Sooooo, what is actually happening?

Sheraton Putra Jaya was on overtime yesterday. The lush hotel hosted renegade members of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, including the Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, as well as a bunch of smirking members of the Barisan Nasional coalition. Mahathir’s Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) is expected now to team up with 130 MPs in a weird new formation that I’m not sure we have defined just yet. 

Leaders of opposition party UMNO as well as PH renegades, specifically Azmin Ali, met with the King late Sunday to say they anticipate a new formation of government. This will keep Mahathir in power for another three years (which brings him to 97 not out). 

Maria Chin, the Bersih activist turned PJ MP, reportedly sat in with PKR colleagues who were considering jumping ship to let them know just how bad she thinks the idea is. "It is imperative for elected representatives to remain committed to focusing on the economy, institutional reform and the everyday challenges facing the rakyat, such as the rising cost of living and the eradication of poverty and to respect the present democratically-elected government and allow it to function fully," she told media last night. 

I just want to remind, again, that this is still very fluid. 

And what will happen next?

First, Mahathir visit Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the monarch and constitutional head of state. Putra Jaya says Mahathir had already had a visit with the king on the cards as part of the regular updating of the palace. 

Anwar Ibrahim and Deputy Prime Minister/ co-president of PKR Wan Azizah Wan Ismail will have a royal visit this afternoon. While they’re doing that, PKR ally and Pakatan Harapan member DAP will meet to work out what happens next. Personally, the DAP is going to be very interesting and we’ll get into that more later in the week I’m sure. 

It’s going to be a long day in Malaysia!

What does this mean for the New Malaysia?

Literally no one except those in the room on Sunday is happy with this. 

Malaysians overseas gathered in departure halls across the world, waiting for strangers to drop off their ballots before flying them over. This is a country whose people worked hard and collectively to change the government for the first time ever. Fully, ever. And a lot of smart people did say, listen this is exciting and moving but please remember we have been here with Mahathir Mohamad before and a lot of these names and faces are familiar. 

Complaints about slow-moving reforms and even stagnation have turned ‘Malaysia Baru’, or New Malaysia, from a rallying cry pre-election to a joke. This backdoor back-stabbing is way too far for many though. Calls for a fresh election sprung up virtually immediately Sunday and continue today.

"Patriot will not support any government formed that includes Umno and PAS. If it is true that the Harapan government has collapsed, like any mature democracy, then the right thing is to dissolve Parliament so that coalition parties can seek a new mandate from the people," says Mohamed Arshad Raji, president of Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaan, an NGO of former police officers and military veterans. 

Interfaith group the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) agrees. The group has called on Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the monarch, to reject the expected plan to form a new government and instead demand dissolution and polls. “MCCBCHST urges all Malaysians of all faiths to offer prayers for our political leaders to have the interest of the whole nation in mind and not selfish political expediency,” a joint statement released early this morning said. 

And Anwar?

“Betrayal.” That’s what Anwar Ibrahim called it during a Facebook Live prayer session Sunday. The Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) president, who picked up the Port Dickson seat in a by-election in October 2018, had joined forces with old foe Mahathir Mohamad in ousting the Barisan Nasional government through the Pakatan Harapan coalition. 

Mahathir had promised voters and coalition cadres that he’d stay in the top job for the initial two years before handing the reins over to Anwar. This was framed as a ‘steady hand’ move which would put most of the responsibility for potentially disruptive reform on to Mahathir and clear the slate for Anwar ahead of the next general election. Virtually immediately after taking up the Port Dickson seat, Putra Jaya musical chairs became the best game to play. Most infamously, last year this erupted into another horrendously homophobic sex tape scandal which signalled the entry of Minister of Economic Affairs (and deputy PKR prez) Azmin Ali into the fray as a bona fide threat to Anwar. 

That slowly drops off as the country tires of the narrative, but the succession plans become more immediately concerning. As the two-year deadline laid out by Mahathir approaches this May, the Prime Minister’s new line is any switch will wait until after Malaysia plays host to APEC, taking us to about November this year. 

So, not only as Anwar lost his kinda-but-not-really guaranteed path to the leadership, his party has frayed dramatically. 

“It involves our former friends from Bersatu and a small group from PKR who has betrayed us,” he said Sunda night, as reported by Channel News Asia. 

What’s the final word?

This isn’t close to over. But here’s what Between the Lines has to say: