‘Back-door govt’ unstable due to graft-tainted leaders, lack of unifying figure
THE absence of a unifying figNure and the presence of graft-tainted politicians are two main reasons why a new, unelected federal government will be unstable, said political analysts.
In fact, some are predicting that it was because of these reasons that the new “back-door government” will be plagued with even more infighting than the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government they want to replace.
PH component party Bersatu had quit PH on Monday, along with 11 MPs from PKR, led by its ex-deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali.
The day before, Bersatu’s top guns and Azmin’s supporters had come together with opposition leaders from Umno and PAS in a special meeting and dinner at a Petaling Jaya hotel.
This has led to speculation that Bersatu, the 11 ex-PKR MPs, Umno, PAS and Sarawakian parties will be uniting to form a new government.
The new administration has been branded a “back-door government” as it seeks to come to power without going through a general election.
“Muafakat nasional (Umno and PAS) has no personality that can unify the public, especially after such a distressing episode,” said Mohd Azlan Zainal of the think-tank Ilham Centre.
“This is why they were counting on Tun (Dr Mahathir Mohamad), but he does not look like he is joining them,” said Azlan, referring to Dr Mahathir’s honorific.
Dr Mahathir had resigned as Bersatu chairman just as the party left the PH administration, which he had led as prime minister.
Dr Mahathir allegedly quit Bersatu as he disagreed with the party’s intentions to join the “back-door government”, according to former finance minister Lim Guan Eng, who met the 94-year-old yesterday morning.
Dr Mahathir was reappointed as interim prime minister by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong until a new government is announced.
“Tun was supposed to be the glue holding the back-door government together,” said political scientist Prof James Chin.
The problem for the new government is that they cannot depend on the fact that Dr Mahathir can continue as prime minister till 2023, when the next general election is due, said Chin.
“He is 94, how will he keep things together till 2023? They say appoint Azmin (as PM) but this will be objected to by Umno and PAS.”
In the prospective new government, Umno will have the largest number of parliamentary seats at 39, making it an important decision-maker in who heads the government.
The fact that Umno will be the largest party in the bloc means that the future government will likely end all the criminal trials against the party’s leaders, said Chin.
“How can you charge the president of a component party? Other leaders are sure to get off.”
Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, ex-president Najib Razak and ex-secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor are among the party’s bigwigs who are undergoing criminal trials for fraud, abuse of power and money-laundering.
The presence of the above personalities in the new government will lead to a massive drop in investor confidence, said another political scientist, Mazlan Ali.
“PH built its image on being a clean government and ending decades of kleptocratic rule. It helped repair Malaysia’s image on the world stage,” said Mazlan of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).
“If we go back and have the people who were ousted and charged with corruption in the new government, it’s regressive. Malaysia’s image will be tarnished.”
Chin predicted that a government with Umno will lead to an exodus of investors who had since 2018 poured money into the country.
“Foreigners will not like the old ways of doing things. They quite like the reforms of the past two years. We will be going back to square one essentially.”
– THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT
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