Where the virus muzzles the people

February-March: Malaysia Cabinet Reshuffle
Government:
National Alliance: 93 seats
Sarawak Parties Coalition: 18 seats
Sabah Parties Coalition: 3 seats
Independent: 2 seats
Confidence and supply: 5 seats
Opposition:
Democratic Action Party: 42 seats
People's Justice Party: 39 seats
National Trust Party: 11 seats
WARISAN: 9 seats
“Mahathir bloc”: 3 seats
The United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation: 1 seat
Parti Sarawak Bersatu: 1 seat

On Sunday, February 23rd, I was dining al fresco at a seafood restaurant with plastic chairs in rural Kelantan, Malaysia’s most conservative state, near the Thai border. 

“Oh shit,” my friend said, looking at his phone. “Mahathir is on his way out.” That would be Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia’s 94-year-old prime minister and the oldest head of state in the world. The information trickled out slowly: ad hoc hotel conclaves, a coalition dissolved, parliamentary alliances redrawn. The palace intrigue that was rapidly reshaping national leadership had reached us near-instantaneously in deepest peninsular Malaysia. 

Over the next week, an astounding series of events at the highest levels of Malaysia’s constitutional monarchy would see the veteran prime minister resign only to become interim prime minster and then find himself replaced by a dark horse member of parliament, Muhyiddin Yassin, who was hand-selected by the king. Although there has been no military involvement, it has felt like a “royal coup” to some Malaysian voters, who have seen their entire government change without a single vote cast. 

For the past two years, Malaysia has been an unexpected democratic bright spot in Southeast Asia. In the 2018 elections, a diverse coalition of former rivals ousted the corrupt center-right coalition that had ruled the country for six decades. But today, the fragile consensus of 2018 has totally dissolved, after rapid back-door dealings brought down the Prime Minister and his running mate in favor of a brand-new coalition driven by Malay Muslim identity politics. 

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic nation, split between mainland and island Southeast Asia, that came together through the British colonization of several medieval sultanates and won its independence in 1957. A slim majority of its 33 million citizens are ethnically Malay (51 percent) and religiously Muslim (61 percent); their special status is enshrined at the expense of sizable Chinese and Indian minorities, most of whom migrated during British rule, as well as indigenous tribal population called Orang Asli, the “original people.” Malaysia’s bumiputera, or “sons of the earth,” is a category invented after independence to denote Malay Muslims and indigenous peoples, who receive benefits ranging from affirmative action in schools to unique access to certain government-run mutual funds. The Muslims among them must also adhere to regional sharia courts and observe religious prohibitions, for example buying alcohol. Every prime minister has been a Malay Muslim, but the specifics of how Malay and how Muslim the country should be remains an ongoing national debate.

These are old themes for Mahathir—Malay surnames are usually patronyms—who was also prime minister from 1981 to 2003, and thus an old hand at keeping a handle on the country’s power politics. But last month, he was outplayed for perhaps the first time in his long (long!) political life. We still don’t know exactly what transpired, but a general outline goes like this: Mahathir sought to reshuffle his own alliance in order to avoid giving power to his election running mate, Anwar Ibrahim. Mahathir resigned in an effort to form a new coalition. Then, according to Reuters, the king—an elected constitutional monarch who is picked from a pool of nine hereditary sultans and serves five-year terms—interviewed every single member of parliament over the course of two days in order to determine which side could hold a majority. In an unprecedented power-broker role for a Malaysian monarch, the king gave his blessing to a new, conservative coalition called the National Alliance (Perikatan Nasional) and elevated its leader, Muhyiddin, a rural Malay politician, to prime minister. His new coalition is Malay Muslim in character and includes both the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the ultraconservative Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). 

Malaysian voters were shocked but found themselves suddenly isolated and powerless: right as the political drama was unfolding, coronavirus was settling like a blanket over the nation, slowly rendering public assembly unfeasible. 

Thus, a change of government with no elections: how does that make a democracy’s citizens feel? 

“A very large group of people, let’s say about half the electorate, are disillusioned, angry, and frustrated to see the government that we voted for being overthrown and the very people we rejected as a nation coming back to office,” according to Dennis Ignatius, a prominent political commentator and former diplomat. The 2018 election won by Mahathir was, among other things, a vote of no confidence in the National Front, the coalition of right and center-right parties that had dominated Malaysian politics since independence, and in its ultra-corrupt leader, Najib Razak, who is accused of pocketing some $700 million from a state-run fund. Now, Najib’s UMNO party, is back in the ruling coalition after just a two-year hiatus—without having won a single new vote. 

“No matter their claims to legitimacy, the fact is that they don’t have a mandate from voters,” says Thomas Fann, the leader of Bersih 2.0, a nonprofit coalition that works for free and fair elections. “The right thing to do would be to call a snap election.” 

Many Malaysians who voted for the unconventional—and cautiously inspiring—new coalition in 2018 lament the “backdoor politics” that have dismantled it. They now have even less of a say. When we spoke right after Mahathir’s shocking resignation in February, Fann told me that any new administration sworn in without voter support would be met with the massive street protests that made Bersih famous. Between 2007 and 2016, when they held rallies of up to 50,000 people in the capital to demand election reforms.

But the new administration got a huge, albeit mixed, blessing in the form of a pandemic, whose perceived seriousness has spread across Southeast Asia in precisely the same few weeks that the new Malaysian administration came together. Protests, crowds, and even gatherings have evaporated. People power is much diminished.  

Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, a lawyer and human rights activist, only attracted a crowd of a couple hundred people at two protests she organized in late February in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, first against the obscure transition of power and second to contest Muhyiddin’s royal appointment. By the latter, February 29, city police were already warning that such gatherings were illegal. Beyond these new limits on public protest, Malaysia’s sedition laws and restrictions on free speech leave few avenues for criticism through the media or even social media.

The new National Alliance secured a comfortable majority during the realignment. Since his appointment, Muhyiddin has cemented this bloc by inaugurating a cabinet of 70 people, which is large by Malaysian standards, and swapping out the position of deputy Prime Minister for four “senior ministers.” 

“I think it’s quite clever,” says James Chin, a Malaysia-focused political scientist at the University of Tasmania. To Chin, Muhyiddin’s moves would placate a diverse coalition that includes both the breakaway politicians from the previous administration and the major Malay parties. “He will also be quickly installing all the [remaining] MP’s in high-paying posts, essentially locking them into his government.” They are a mix of old and new power, since Muhyiddin himself was also part of the previous administration. Coalition unity is hugely important: the last Alliance fell apart when its internal discord superseded its anti-corruption energy and post-election elation. 

In Malaysia today, the general attempt to maintain social order in light of a pandemic has blurred into a certain resigned desire to preserve racial harmonies. “The whole background of this coup was ethnic tensions and polarization, and now with the king’s move to integrate the factions and resolve it for now, I don’t think we want to upset that,” says Fann. “And anyway it would be seen as non-Malays reacting to Malay politics, and that’s the last thing we need.”  

Although the coup happened quickly, most of the people I talked to seemed to think Muhiyddin would be here to stay. For now, political drama has been monopolized by the pandemic and its economic fallout. “I think Muhyiddin is working on an assumed three-year governing window,” says Chin. Meanwhile, Ignatius agrees, “I think young Malays are gearing up for the long fight against this older generation and we will see them emerge in ten years or so.” 

So the bloodless coup stands. Its architects won’t face the people’s wrath just yet, but nor will they get a honeymoon period. They have plunged headfirst into a pressing public health crisis unfolding amid a plummeting currency and general economic slowdown. On March 18, in order to combat the virus’s spread, the prime minister implemented a Movement Control Order closing most businesses and houses of worship, and prohibiting all mass gatherings. It caused a massive, two-way traffic jam late Tuesday night on the causeway to Singapore, as thousands of Malaysians decided whether to stay in or leave.