By Asia Sentinel
Malaysia’s unwieldy Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition, born in 2008 and led by Anwar Ibrahim, looks to be in the biggest crisis of its existence and could come apart, costing it the leadership of Selangor, the country’s richest state, potentially costing Malaysia its only alternative to the scandal-ridden Barisan Nasional led by the United Malays National Organization, whose popularity with voters continues to flag.
The issue that may undo the coalition is an internecine squabble over who should be the chief minister of Selangor. It could force a snap state election that could result in victory for the Barisan Nasional, the ruling national coalition, according to the head of a Kuala Lumpur-based think tank.
Others are less pessimistic. A Malay businessman said he thought the parties eventually would sort out the issue, and that UMNO is more concerned about a Selangor snap election than the Pakatan coalition because they fear they would still lose.
Anwar, in an interview with the popular website Malaysian Insider, expressed optimism that the coalition could stay together, with the leadership of the three-party coalition looking at larger interests. "We have already endured so long with principles like tolerance," he said. "I do not see it as a breakup."
It is true that the coalition survived a long string of crises to prosper in the 2013 general election despite the disparate nature of the three parties that make it up. But, say several sources in Kuala Lumpur, Anwar is preoccupied over concern that he might be jailed as the result of a guilty verdict rushed through an appellate court in March, reversing a 2012 not-guilty verdict in a high court in a case that has since become known as Sodomy II, in which he was accused of having forced sex with a male aide. Anwar spent six years in a Malaysian prison from 1998 to 2004 on similar charges that were widely considered to be trumped up by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and UMNO officials to keep him from heading the opposition.
Critics say the appellate decision, in Malaysia’s malleable court system, was designed to keep him from running in a by-election to give him the right to become chief minister of Selangor, and giving him a platform to take on the prime minister. Friends say Anwar is depressed and believes that before the end of the year he may well be put back in prison. That, they say, has affected his ability to keep his fractious coalition together.
The coalition is composed of Anwar’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat, made up mostly of urban, moderate ethnic Malays; Parti Islam se-Malaysia, a fundamentalist Malay Muslim party with its roots in rural Malaysia; and the Democratic Action Party, made up primarily of ethnic Chinese. It came together in the immediate wake of the 2008 general election, in which the three parties gained control of five state assemblies and made significant gains at the federal level, denying the national ruling coalition a two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat, or parliament.
The coalition hit its high point in the 13th general election in May 2013, winning an absolute majority in the parliament with 50.87 percent of the votes cast to 46.38 percent for the Barisan. However, gerrymandering and the first-past-the-post electoral system gave the Barisan 133 seats compared to 89 for the opposition. That is increasingly looking like the crest, perhaps for good, especially if Anwar, who is now 66, goes to jail.
The strains between three such dissimilar parties have made for disruptive politics for the six years of its existence. But now the coalition could come apart altogether over what appears to be a parochial matter – the leadership of Selangor by the Parti Keadilan chief minister, Khalid Ibrahim, whom Anwar decided to replace in March, allegedly for lack of leadership. Anwar engineered the resignation of the seat-holder, Lee Chin Cheh, in a Kuala Lumpur suburb to create a vacancy that he hoped to fill via a by-election.
However, Anwar’s plans were blocked when the appellate court rushed through the guilty verdict. The verdict, now on appeal to the country’s Federal Court, disqualified him from running for the seat as a convicted felon. His wife, Wan Aziza Wan Ismail, ran instead and won. The plan was to install her as chief minister.
It didn’t work. Khalid Ibrahim found an unlikely ally in PAS president in PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang, who would ultimately like to make an ally, Parti Keadilan vice president Azmin Ali, the chief minister. While Azmin is a member of Anwar’s own party, the two are rivals. The DAP backs Anwar. In order to decide who gets the job, it might require a state snap election, which, according to sources in Kuala Lumpur, the national ruling coalition might be able to take the state back.
While the issue of the chief ministership is the focal point, virtually since the coalition came together there have been understandable strains. Neither the moderate urban Malays nor the Chinese in the DAP wants anything to do with PAS’s continuing efforts to push through hudud for the state of Kelantan, which it controls. Hudud is a medieval system of punishment under Islamic religious law that would include the amputation of limbs for minor crimes and stoning for adultery. The other two parties fear that passage in Kelantan could be contagious, with other Malay-majority states adopting the system. And, they fear, if those states adopt hudud, it wouldn’t be long before it is applied to non-Malays.
UMNO has played skilfully on the divisions between the parties, particularly over the hudud issue. Although it would be unheard of for an opposition party to be allowed to introduce a private member’s bill in the parliament, The issue was quickly steered to a committee for study. But the question comes down to whether the fear of a resurgence of the Barisan and UMNO is enough to keep the warring elements together to solve the problem.
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