Malaysia holds a general election on Saturday amid a maze of three major coalitions, dozens of parties and more than a hundred independent candidates where the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) seeks to consolidate at the ballot box four years of political chaos that began after its historic defeat in the 2018 vote and its slippery return to power, two years later and without an election in between, following the collapse of the coalition that ousted it from power.
The collapse of the so-called Alliance for Hope (Pakatan Harapan) in February 2020 gave way to a dance of prime ministers and a succession of crises between new episodes of corruption scandals and the huge impact of the coronavirus pandemic; a downward spiral finally seized by UMNO, Malaysia’s historic party par excellence and great nationalist stronghold of the country, part of the National Front (Barisan Nasional) alliance.
In less than a year and a half, Mahathir Mohamad left power in the hands of Muhyidin Yasin, who eventually resigned in August 2021 after proclaiming a controversial state of emergency due to the pandemic that paralyzed the Government and Parliament for weeks.
The position has ended up in the hands of UMNO vice-president Ismail Sabri Yakub, ultimately the party and coalition candidate to revalidate his position despite the clashes he has had with his own party, which has been pressuring him to declare these early elections, taking advantage of the winning streak achieved by UMNO in last year’s local elections.
Ismail, according to the ‘South China Morning Post’, refused at first, considering the declaration of the elections as a very delicate process that needed prior consultation with King Abdullah of Pahang, but ended up succumbing to the party and ended up dissolving the Parliament in October, knowing that Malaysia has ended up holding these elections, to the consternation of opponents and population, in the midst of floods due to the monsoon season.
TORRENTIAL RAINS «If it rains, let them take an umbrella,» UMNO secretary general Ahmad Maslan declared in September. «For me, the most important thing is that they vote,» he added in remarks condemned by opposition MP Charles Santiago, who has spent weeks criticizing the National Elections Commission for failing to come up with an alternative plan in case polling stations end up flooded.
«Either they are deaf, or they are idiots or they are both,» he lamented in statements picked up by the SCMP, while from the National Electoral Commission its officials reiterate that, so far, there is no record of problems, according to statements to the official news agency Bernama.
Two coalitions are competing, above all, against UMNO and the National Front: the National Alliance (Perikatan Nasional) of Muyidin Yasin, and the Assembly for Hope itself, which has nominated the great Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim as its candidate for prime minister, in an election where more than 940 candidates are running for 222 seats at stake (112 to win), with constituencies such as Batu, in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, where up to a dozen contenders will run for a single seat.
This, in a transformed demographic scenario in which six million young people (it should be remembered that the country decided to lower the voting age from 21 to 18) will cast their vote for the first time, with little or no information about their preferences.
Right now, opposition Anwar Ibrahim and his Alliance for Hope lead, according to the Mardakan Center in a survey collected by Voice of America, the race with 26 percent of the vote, only two percentage points ahead of Ismail’s National Front, which has fallen to 24 percent in voting intention. In third place is Muyidin’s National Alliance, with 13 percent, up four points from the previous month.
The ethnic lines that once marked the favoritism of the coalitions have been diluted in a country with a Malay and indigenous majority (the Bumiputera, 70 percent of the population) whose votes are contested by Ismail and Muyidin, who are running on very similar programs.
If to this is added the existence of a fourth coalition, the Patria Movement (Gerakan Tanah Air), already in a minority, led by Mahathir Mohamad — in his last chance to return to power at 97 years of age — and which also includes the defense of the rights of the Malays against the Chinese minority, the opposition Anwar could end up favored thanks to a more pragmatic program, centered on the economy. All this, taking into account that there are 31 percent of undecided voters.
Meanwhile, NGOs such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) are calling for these elections to represent as far as possible the wishes of this new and growing youth electorate.
«Voters deserve a robust debate during this campaign on the human rights issues that affect them and their families on a daily basis,» said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. «All parties must commit to reforms that will promote a rights-respecting Malaysia in the coming years,» she added.
In particular, parties and candidates should publicly commit to amend or repeal laws that make defamation and criticism of the authorities a criminal offense, repeal all legal provisions authorizing detention without trial, and abolish the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said.
