Anwar Ibrahim Wins Malaysia’s Premiership

By John Gee

SIX DAYS AFTER MALAYSIA’S Nov. 19 general election, Pakatan Harapan (PH; Alliance of Hope) leader Anwar Ibrahim gained the premiership. The PH coalition had campaigned against corruption within the Barisan Nasional (BN), the coalition dominated by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which had been part of the previous administration. After the election, however, the PH chose BN as its partner to form a unity government.

The general election was called early. Many in the UMNO felt confident of winning following a string of successes, including edging back into government following the breakdown of the coalition that had defeated it in 2018 and victories in state elections in Johor and Melaka. Canny observers pointed to the divisions among the opposition that had enabled those successes and the low per- centage of votes won by BN candidates, but this did not prepare BN for the magnitude of its defeat: its representation in the 222seat parliament fell from 41 seats to 30. This defeat (the second since 2018) seemed to seal the UMNO’s loss of its 60-year dominance of Malaysian politics. PH won 82 seats, down from 90, but enough to make it the largest coalition in parliament. The Perikatan Nasional (PN; National Alliance) raised its tally of seats from 48 to 73. The PN consists mainly of two parties: a party of former UMNO members and the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). PAS more than doubled its representation (from 18 to 49 seats); it is now both the largest single party in Malaysia’s parliament and also the dominant party within PN.

PAS’ election campaign was designed to take account of different constituencies of potential support. In the conservative religious Malay heartlands of Kelantan and Terengganu in Malaysia’s northern peninsula, it campaigned under its own flag and stressed its Islamist credentials, but in regions where the populations are more mixed and less religious, it operated under the PN flag and put a reduced emphasis on its own distinctive policies. In a stronger position than it has ever been before, PAS may turn out to be the big winner in this election, but it will be challenged to come up with policies and tactics that could further increase its strength.

With no single party or coalition attaining a majority, there were bound to be efforts to put together a coalition government and a PN/BN alliance looked quite possible initially, but in the end, Anwar Ibrahim put together a unity government with the BN and support from the major party in Sarawak, Eastern Malaysia. He is certainly pleased to have done so, 24 years after breaking with UMNO and two years after the collapse of the coalition government elected in 2018, in which he had been due to take over from Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. However, having campaigned for clean government and against corruption since the 1990s, his readiness to bring back into government the very coalition that had been responsible for most of the abuses that he lambasted has disturbed many of his supporters, particularly the young people who PH courted during the election. Many of them were first-time voters, including 18- to 21-year-olds enfranchised by a 2019 constitutional amendment.

Among those who sent messages of congratulations to Anwar Ibrahim when he became premier were Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas member and former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. Ibrahim said of his video call from Haniyeh, “Apart from congratulating me on my appointment as the country’s 10th prime minister, he also praised the dedication and commitment of the Malaysian people to ensure a smooth, democratic and peaceful transition of the leadership.” Responding to these messages, he said, “Malaysia remains committed and reaffirmed its unwavering support and profound solidarity to the Palestine people and their long-standing struggle.”

Before Anwar Ibrahim’s years in UMNO (1982-1998), he was a leading member of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement, which was influenced by and had connections with the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas emerged from the brotherhood’s Palestinian branch in 1987.

REGRESSIVE LEGISLATION IN INDONESIA DEPENDS ON PRESIDENT’S YEA OR NAY

In December 2022, Indonesia’s parliament approved changes to the country’s criminal code that would criminalize sex outside marriage and cohabitation by couples; make promotion of contraception illegal; and reinstitute a ban on insulting the president, vice-president, state institutions and the national ideology of Pancasila (five principles, going back to the foundation of independent Indonesia). Previous attempts have been made to introduce these changes, including in 2019, when the proposals were met with large demonstrations and President Joko Widodo asked parliamentarians to drop the planned legislation pending further study of the issues involved.

This time, the legislation was passed with little public opposition and with backing from all parties in the Indonesian parliament. There was limited time for opponents to rally support and organize against it. As to the parliamentary parties, the more conservative sense they are onto a vote winner and the rest, while understanding full well that many Indonesians don’t support the legislation, sees no electoral advantage in espousing what would still be a minority cause.

At the time of writing, the president had not yet signed it into effect. If he does, it remains questionable whether these repressive measures would even be enforceable. The criminalization of sex outside marriage would make homosexual sexual relations into punishable offenses, whereas at present, they are not generally subject to legal action (despite some prosecutions under a broadly worded anti-pornography law). Probably millions of Indonesians of different sexual orientations cohabit without being married. The provision making it illegal to insult politicians will also be hard to enforce: Since the overthrow of the Suharto regime,

Indonesians have become accustomed to being able to voice their opinions of politicians, in or out of office, whoever they are, and however likely they might be construed as insulting them.

The new measures have been most strongly promoted by parties that claim to be promoting Muslim values, in a country where religious conservatism has been making advances, despite its secular constitution and a reputation for religious tolerance. It may be a sign of the times that nonreligious parties, which won 404 of the 575 seats in the 2019 elections for the People’s Representative Council, docilely gave their support to laws that would criminalize millions of Indonesians, draw international criticism and hit Indonesia’s tourism trade, which has barely revived from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown. ■