Political tsunami

GLANCE at the front pages of Malaysia’s newspapers the day after the general election on Saturday March 8th and you would assume that the opposition had won. “Political tsunami” is how the Sunday Star summed things up. Even the prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, seemed to accept the analysis. “We’ve lost; we’ve lost” was all he could muster when confronted by baying pressmen at 4am.

In fact, the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition he heads had done nothing of the sort. It won 140 of the 222 seats in the federal parliament—in most places, that would be a thumping majority. In the concurrent elections for assemblies in 13 states, it had won majorities in eight. Yet so big was the upset that the stockmarket fell by 10% on Monday as investors worried about the danger of unrest and instability.

The fears seem overblown. But this was a remarkable rebuke for Mr Badawi. At the last elections, in 2004, he profited from his amiable manner and apparent promise of a less acerbic style than that of his long-serving predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad. The BN won 64% of the votes, 90% of the parliamentary seats and all but one of the other assembly elections.

In this election, it won just 51% of the votes; and 63% of parliamentary seats. This was its worst performance ever in Malaysia’s 50 years of independence, and crucially, for the first time since 1969, the BN lost the two-thirds majority in parliament it needs to amend the constitution.

Nor was this a truly free and fair election. The government enjoyed many entrenched advantages: huge resources; a docile, even sycophantic, press; permission more readily granted for big rallies; a ban on the candidacy of Anwar Ibrahim, a former deputy prime minister who is now the opposition’s best-known figure.

The government has denied Mr Anwar’s allegations of vote-rigging in close-fought constituencies. But sceptical opposition supporters were made even more suspicious last week when the Election Commission went back on its decision to use indelible ink to identify those who had voted. (It said it had uncovered a plot in which some of the ink had been smuggled into the country, apparently in an opposition attempt to dupe potential voters into disqualifying themselves through premature inking.)

One reason for Mr Badawi’s debacle is that, for once, the opposition did not cut its own throat. Its three main parties—Mr Anwar’s, now led by his wife; an Islamist party and the Democratic Action Party, which appeals mainly to the Chinese minority—on the whole did not compete with each other.

There are also worries about a slowing economy and rising prices; and a feeling that after 50 years of impressive economic growth, too many of the benefits have accrued to a small elite, and the Mr Badawi has not done enough to tackle corruption.

There is also anger among the minorities. Many Chinese, who make up about a quarter of the population, feel that policies of affirmative action in favour of the Malay majority are no longer necessary—if they ever were. And the Indian minority, only about 8% of the population, feel discriminated against and have turned against the BN’s main ethnic-Indian component, the Malaysian Indian Congress.

Whatever the reasons for it, the result places Mr Badawi’s future in doubt. Dr Mahathir has said he is “100% responsible” for the defeat and should resign. Unusually, Dr Mahathir admitted to a mistake of his own—having selected Mr Badawi as his successor.

Mr Badawi’s spokesman has said he has no intention of resigning. If he does not, he may come under pressure when his party, the United Malays National Organisation, holds its next congress. Since UMNO’s chief always becomes prime minister, that gathering has always been far more important than the general election in choosing Malaysia’s leaders. One of the many startling possibilities opened up by the latest election result is that this arrangement may not be immutable.


http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10833119