END OF UMNO ERA: FINALLY, A CHANCE FOR CHANGE IN MALAYSIA – WILL MAHATHIR TAKE IT, WILL ANWAR SPOIL IT?

Even in the days just before Malaysia’s 14th General Election (GE-14), few foreign observers believed that Malaysia’s unpopular but organisationally formidable Barisan Nasional (BN) government was headed for defeat. Because of large scale gerrymandering, the incumbent party theoretically could have won with just 16.5 per cent of the vote. While change was in the air, and former Prime Minister Najib’s fate somehow seemed sealed regardless of whether BN won or lost, we did not foresee the decisive electoral outcome.

Then, in the early hours of 10 May, it became clear that the will of the Malaysian people had overwhelmed a manipulated electoral system, with the opposition Pakatan Harapan coalition gaining enough parliamentary seats to form the first non-BN government in the country’s history.

There is plenty of uncertainty about how the Pakatan Harapan government will perform, but the opportunity to breathe new life into Malaysia’s democracy and public policy created by a change of management is itself worth celebrating.

Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad–Re-setting the Agenda for Malaysia

And habits that shape how Malaysia is run. Nothing sums up some of the contradictions inherent in the new government better than its leader: the newly-installed Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Having Mahathir lead the charge against Najib made sense, as he was able to draw on nostalgia for the Mahathir era, to make Pakatan Harapan competitive in the Malay heartland. But unless new leaders such as Anwar Ibrahim, who is newly released from prison and touted to take over from Mahathir as Prime Minister, are determined to bring about fundamental institutional reforms, Malaysia’s decrepit political system could remain unchanged.

In a lead article, Dan Slater zeroes in on Mahathir’s ambiguous role in the opposition’s victory and as Prime Minister in the new government. He also examines what the Malaysian election result might portend for the correlation between national wealth and democracy.

Mahathir threw his weight behind the opposition after falling out with Najib, his former ally and protege. Doing so meant an unlikely reconciliation with Anwar Ibrahim, the former UMNO Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister who Mahathir threw in jail on trumped-up sodomy charges after a falling out between them over Malaysia’s response to the Asian Financial Crisis. Last week, Anwar walked to freedom after Mahathir secured a royal pardon for a second sodomy conviction engineered by Najib. If all goes to plan, he will take over as Prime Minister next year or the year after.

The relationship between these two equally charismatic — and equally self-confident — figures and their parties (which are now coalition partners) will be crucial in shaping the character of the new government and Malaysia’s democratic future. Whereas Anwar is respected worldwide as a democrat and liberal Muslim intellectual, Mahathir made his political name as a Malay nationalist and unapologetic authoritarian. Anwar’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) party is a home for many pro-democracy activists and civil society figures, whereas Mahathir’s BERSATU party is not much more than a splinter party of the main opposition UMNO designed to capture an anti-Najib protest vote in the Malay heartland.

Can Mahathir’s second term as Prime Minister be the redemption tale that so many want to see? Certainly, he needs to demonstrate that his return to politics was truly in service of a more democratic and better-governed Malaysia — not just the outcome of personal animus towards Najib. While Mahathir certainly helped the opposition make inroads into the all-important rural Malay electorate, the opposition’s victory was also due to the overwhelming support of urban voters fed up with BN corruption and bad policy; as Slater writes, ‘Mahathir is but foam atop this long-swelling opposition wave’.

These voters won’t have much patience with Mahathir if he attempts to establish a BN-lite government. One test against which Mahathir’s performance might be scored is how well he implements the institutional reform agenda that Pakatan Harapan promised the Malaysian people in its election manifesto.

Early signs are encouraging. After some confusion, Mahathir has reaffirmed that the government will repeal a widely criticised ‘anti-Fake News’ law. Pakatan Harapan’s economic agenda was more obviously geared towards winning votes than satisfying policy purists, but the presence of experienced technocrats on a policy ‘council of elders’ convened after the election gives hope that sound ideas will get a fair hearing, except perhaps the populist promise to remove the GST. Successful economic rejuvenation and cracking through the ‘middle-income trap’ will be a further test of Slater’s ‘unbreakable global correlation’ between democracy and wealth.

Most gratifyingly of all for ordinary Malaysians is that a full accounting for the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund scandal seems to be getting underway. It is important for the rule of law that those who misappropriated taxpayers’ money are brought to justice; naturally, at the same time, it is also essential that Najib, his family, and his associates are dealt with fairly and afforded due process, lest investigations are seen merely an act of political revenge.

But while the Shakespearean elements to the elite-level struggle in GE-14 have captured the world’s attention, its result shouldn’t be reduced to a clash of personalities. As Slater writes, it is the product of determined campaigning ‘over the long haul by men and women — those with the courage to translate socioeconomic transformation into a freer politics for their countrymen and countrywomen. This victory is theirs.’ The hope is that the new Prime Minister and the Prime Minister-in-waiting will make the most of it.

The EAF Editorial Board is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.

Dan Slater’s article:

Malaysia’s Modernisation Tsunami (Hibiscus Revolution?)

GE-14 : Malaysia’s–Hibiscus Revolution?

Credit for GE-14 should go to the tireless activists and opposition politicians who began braving the iron claws and filed teeth of the Mahathir regime in the late 1990s, and in some cases even the late 1980s. Unlike actual tsunamis, modernisation tsunamis are made over the long haul by men and women — those with the courage to translate socioeconomic transformation into a freer politics for their countrymen and countrywomen. This victory is theirs.–Dan Slater, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Democratisation scholars hate modernisation theory as much as anybody. From a modernisation perspective, so-called ‘developing countries’ are on some sort of uniform track toward a liberal and democratic future, as if some imagined unity called ‘the West’ had already laid it down for them.

This notion has long been discredited and is even considered offensive in most academic circles. As countries like China, Malaysia and Singapore have gotten rich while remaining authoritarian, the contrary perspective only seems to become more obviously correct: that there are multiple pathways to the modern world, many of them illiberal and undemocratic.

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad solidified Pakatan Harapan coalition against defeat a formidable, well funded and organized Najib Razak-led Barisan Nasional

The most sophisticated quantitative research consistently confirms the unbreakable global correlation between national wealth and levels of democracy. Still, scholars of particular countries and regions tend to dismiss the idea that democracy becomes much likelier as a country becomes much richer.

But then something happens like Malaysia’s 14th General Election (GE-14). Malaysia has been getting richer for decades, yet the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition that it commands have continued to fend off its opponents in undemocratic election after undemocratic election. GE14 was no more democratic than its recent predecessors, with the playing field tragicomically skewed in the BN’s favor.

Nonetheless, an eclectic assemblage of opposition parties led by the People’s Justice Party (PKR), which has been leading the charge for democratic reforms since the reformasi movement began in 1998, swept to a decisive victory, seizing 122 national parliamentary seats to BN’s 79.

Virtually all dedicated Malaysia-watchers professed themselves shocked by the result. But if leading modernization theorists like Seymour Martin Lipset or Samuel Huntington were still alive — even in their fusty 1950s and 1960s guises — they wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest.

Naturally, economic growth leads to a larger and more educated urban middle class, modernization theorists have long argued. This middle class will resent the kind of grand corruption that outgoing Prime Minister and scoundrel-in-chief Najib Razak engaged in alongside his pantomime villain of a spouse, Rosmah Mansor — so egregiously in the 1MDB scandal as to reach mustache-twirling levels of cartoonish absurdity. They will be less vulnerable to ethnic and religious appeals or to the kinds of petty blandishments that can win over poorer voters in the countryside. They will want equality, freedom, the rule of law and public goods. Their vote cannot simply be coerced.

Nobody thinks it is impossible to maintain authoritarian domination as a country undergoes decades of rapid socioeconomic change. But as Najib and Rosmah can now tearfully attest, it gets harder and more expensive. It takes a whole lot of money to buy electoral love in a society with a mushrooming middle class.

GE-14 was thus not the ‘Malay tsunami’ that incoming (and returning) Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad so irresponsibly called for. Nor was it a ‘Chinese tsunami’, as Najib dubbed BN’s 2013 loss of the popular vote in such an incendiary fashion. It was more like a modernization tsunami. And, like a real tsunami, modernization has its most powerful sources at deep levels, where nobody, in particular, can command it.

Not even as commanding a figure as Mahathir. His adoring fans are bestowing credit upon him for the electoral win in tones smacking of feudalism and hero worship more appropriate to an absolutist sultan than a democratic leader. This echoes the credit they have long given him for Malaysia’s economic development.

Yet in both instances, Mahathir relied more on luck than on skill. On the development front, he was lucky to inherit a strong and developmentally capable state apparatus that he sadly chose to use autocratically and brutally with devastating long-term consequences.

As for the election, Mahathir was lucky to hitch a ride on Malaysia’s modernization tsunami just as it was cresting. Visible as he may be, Mahathir is but foam atop this long-swelling opposition wave. The opposition didn’t need Mahathir to deny the BN its two-thirds majority in 2008 or to win the popular vote in 2013. The only time UMNO has seen its election performance improve this millennium was in 2004 when voters were freshly rejoicing at Mahathir’s overdue resignation in late 2003. And of course, he wouldn’t have been victoriously surfing the wave of GE14 at all unless rightful opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was still in prison, where Mahathir so cravenly shunted him in the first place.

Mahathir is not merely an oppositional Johnny-come-lately; he is the biggest obstacle to democratic opposition’s development that Malaysia has ever seen. Credit for GE-14 should go to the tireless activists and opposition politicians who began braving the iron claws and filed teeth of the Mahathir regime in the late 1990s and in some cases even the late 1980s. Unlike actual tsunamis, modernization tsunamis are made over the long haul by men and women — those with the courage to translate socioeconomic transformation into a freer politics for their countrymen and countrywomen. This victory is theirs.

Dan Slater (@SlaterPolitics) is Professor of Political Science and incoming Director of the Weiser Centre for Emerging Democracies (WCED) at the University of Michigan. He was previously a professor for twelve years at the University of Chicago.

– https://dinmerican.wordpress.com