Malaysia's Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin waves as he arives at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur on Aug 16, 2021, as he was expected to quit after just 17 months in office. (ARIF KARTONO / AFP)
Malaysian Prime Minister MuhyiddinYassin’s resignation may have capped his tumultuous 18-month administration, but analysts doubt this would end the political instability that has rocked the country for the past year.
After meeting his Cabinet for the last time on Aug 16, Muhyiddin submitted his resignation to Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah. The Malaysian king accepted Muhyiddin’s resignation and appointed him as the caretaker prime minister until a successor has been named, according to a statement released by the national palace.
Sultan Abdullad also believes that holding general elections is not the best option at the moment given that the country continues to battle with a pandemic.
In his televised speech, Muhyiddin said he and his cabinet had resigned as he no longer enjoyed the support of the majority of members of parliament (MPs).
Muhyiddin, who was sworn in on March 1 last year as prime minister, came into power after his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad resigned from his post
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On Aug 3, eleven members of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the biggest political party behind the ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition, withdrew their support for Muhyiddin. Without UMNO’s backing, Muhyiddin lost his razor thin majority in the parliament, forcing him to quit his post as the Malaysian constitution has no provision for a minority government.
Bilveer Singh, deputy head of the Political Science Department of the National University of Singapore (NUS), said Malaysia will continue to have “a precarious balance of power until a general elections is called again”.
Singh said this will be the status quo as long as the ruling party has a thin majority in the parliament.
Without the benefit of a voters mandate, Singh said that the incoming administration has to prioritize and effectively manage the pandemic “to justify and legitimize” its status to Malaysians.
Malaysia has one of the highest COVID-19 cases in the region, with total number of cases hitting over 1.3 million as of Aug 16, according to the World Health Organization. The entry of the highly-infectious Delta variant has spiked cases in the past few weeks, with Malaysia detecting more than 20,000 new cases on Aug 16 alone.
Wong Chin Huat, a political scientist at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia of Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur, said Malaysia’s political stability and governance will depend on “how fast and how broad-based the new government will be formed”.
“If the government has a bare majority, then it won’t be able to make difficult decisions necessary to fight the pandemic and save the economy,” Wong said.
He said without broad support, the new government can suffer from public backlash and another round of infighting that wracked PN. Wong is hoping that the next prime minister will be able to strike a deal with the opposition and get more support for his policies.
Muhyiddin, who was sworn in on March 1 last year as prime minister, came into power after his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad resigned from his post. Sultan Abdullah said he has appointed Muhyiddin as the latter has gained the trust of the majority of the House of Representatives.
Muhyiddin however has long had a tenuous hold on power as his ruling coalition only commands a tiny majority in the parliament. Political infighting coupled with widespread criticism of the government's handling of the pandemic has beleaguered Muhyiddin’s government in the past few months.
Political bickering climaxed on Aug 3when UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced that his party is withdrawing its support for Muhyiddin and the PN-led government.
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The Sultan is yet to name Muhyiddin’s successor but the top contenders include opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and three UMNO members: former International Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Razaleigh Tengku Mohd Hamzah, Senior Foreign Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
Awang Azman Awang Pawi, associate professor at the Academy of Malay Studies, University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, said Malaysians are hoping that the new government will better manage the pandemic and promote economic recovery.
The civil society-led Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH 2.0) is urging the incoming prime minister “to pursue political stability by offering multi-partisan governance and institutional reforms”.
“The endless political machination due to winner-takes-all politics in a de facto hung parliament for the past one and a half year must now end to enable a more effective governance of health and economy,” BERSIH 2.0 said in a statement.
Xinhua contributed to this report.
