The coalition of parties National Alliance (Barisan Nasional), of the current head of the country’s government, Ismail Sabri Yaqub, has decided Tuesday that it will remain in the opposition, instead of backing the Alliance of Hope (Pakatan Harapan) or the National Alliance (Perikatan Nasional), the most voted blocs in Saturday’s disputed general elections.
This decision by Barisan Nasional (BN) leaves the king free to decide whether to appoint a minority government headed by the current opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of Pakatan Harapan (PH), the most voted candidate, or former Prime Minister Muhyidin Yasin, head of Perikatan Nasional (PN), which came second.
«The BN supreme council has decided not to support either coalition to form a government. NB has agreed to remain in the opposition», announced the interim prime minister, as reported by the newspaper ‘The Strait Times’, despite the fact that hours before he had assured that he would participate in the formation of the Cabinet.
«We have made a decision (…) We are not taking sides with anyone», said the MP Jalaludin Alias to journalists after the meeting of the BN on Tuesday.
In this regard, the Malaysian king, Abdullah of Pahang, has indicated that he has to make a decision. «We have to be rational, we have to move forward,» he said, according to the newspaper.
All of them are far from the 111 seats needed to make a majority in elections that have confirmed the demographic shift of a country in which six million more young people have been able to cast their vote after the change of the electoral law and, fed up with the political chaos that has dominated Malaysia during the last four years, as well as with the economic crisis, have divided their loyalties among the three major alliances.
