This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 17, 2022 - October 23, 2022

WHEN the country went to the polls in the 14th general election in May 2018, the choices were clear. The coalitions were distinct, parties were not in “marriages” with others in different coalitions, and the blocs in parliament could be easily distinguished.

Fast forward to October 2022, the lines in parliament had become blurred, with members of parliament (MPs) crossing from one coalition to another, while the government of the day was at the mercy of members who gave it parliamentary majority.

The situation prompted the ninth prime minister — Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, the third person to hold the post in four years — to seek consent from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah for the dissolution of parliament on Oct 9.

Following the announcement of the dissolution of the 14th parliament by Ismail Sabri on Oct 10, the Agong stated in a press release that he was disappointed with the current political climate in the country, and therefore had agreed to the dissolution in the hope that a stable government could be formed.

The question is, will the 15th general election (GE15) result in a stable government, which Malaysia was noted for prior to GE14? Political analysts whom The Edge spoke to dismiss the notion of political stability in the country.

“Malaysia’s supposed pre-2018 political stability is a myth,” says Professor Wong Chin Huat, deputy head (strategy) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s Asia headquarters at Sunway University.

“The system cannot handle dominance, which inevitably led to chronic corruption and cyclical infighting [even within the government coalition].”

Each governing coalition has had a history of infighting that caused instability in the country’s political scene, he says. For example, the 1995 landslide victory by Barisan Nasional (BN), which won 87% of the seats in parliament, led to the expulsion of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim from Umno and the government.

This was repeated in the 2004 landslide, where BN won 91% of the seats in parliament, leading to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s attack on then prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, resulting in his resignation from the position.

The then Umno Youth chief Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein’s infamous act of raising the keris at Umno’s General Assembly in 2005 was seen as the precursor to the eventual political tsunami in 2008, when BN lost its long-held two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time in history.

“The Sheraton Move was also caused by [Pakatan Harapan’s] attempt to establish BN-style dominance by enticing defections from Umno and BN, which only emboldened Mahathir and [Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia] to take on Anwar and PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat),” says Wong in reference to the en bloc defection of MPs that led to the collapse of the 22-month PH government.

His view is also shared by Professor Dr Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, professor of poli­tical science at Universiti Sains Malaysia’s School of Distance Education, who says Malaysia’s political stability prior to GE14 was just a euphemism used by BN to get its two-thirds majority in parliament.

Fauzi notes that even under the so-called regime of stability, the May 13 racial riots happened, as did the Ops Lalang arrest of “dissidents” in 1987. He tells The Edge, “That [purported period of political stability] was an era in which BN, and especially Umno, controlled everything, from the mass media to the levers of government, through the civil servants and laws such as the Internal Security Act.

“A lot of things were controlled by fear. Whenever there were any apparent threats or rumours of a threat to the so-called stability, the blame was put on opposition parties or the communists. Even under the so-called stability, it wasn’t stable anyway.”

Prior to the dissolution of parliament, the Ismail Sabri administration comprised BN, Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), along with support from smaller standalone parties and independent MPs.

BN had 43 seats in parliament, while PN had 46. GPS — the BN splinter coalition comprising Sarawak-based parties — held 19 seats, giving the core members of the governing coalition just 108 seats, four seats short of a simple majority.

As such, Ismail Sabri’s government was actually propped up by standalone parties such as Parti Bangsa Malaysia. PBM, which is led by Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin, the former women’s division chief of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, had six seats and three independent MPs aligned with it as at Oct 10.

The government was also able to remain standing because of its confidence-and-supply agreement with the PH coalition, in which the latter agreed to support the government, so that a semblance of political stability could be achieved and the government could govern effectively.

Prior to the dissolution, PH had the largest bloc in parliament with 90 seats.

It may be too early to suggest that GE15 will restore political stability in the country because no one can say accurately that the people will give a strong mandate to any one coalition to form the next government.

“It depends on whether a strong government is formed with the full trust and confidence of the people,” says Dr Sivamurugan Pandian, professor of political sociology at Universiti Sains Malaysia’s School of Social Sciences.

“Even if we see a new realignment [in the event that] no coalition wins a solid majority, the new coalition must not be based on an average number of 112 to 115 seats. We must have a more stable number to address stability and certainty.”

For this to happen, Sivamurugan says, voters must come out and vote based on rational and practical factors, rather than emotion. If voter fatigue sets in and many do not come out to vote, the country could have the same kind of government, with no clear majority, he points out.

“For now, before the campaigning has started … we are unable to read the voters, who have been silent lately. We don’t know whether they will come out to vote for stability or otherwise. In 2018, we saw a momentum that had built up since 2015 and there was a high voter turnout percentage. Today, it is totally different from the 2018 motivation,” he adds.

Sunway University’s Wong believes GE15 will not return a simple majority to any coalition unless one of the national coalitions — BN, PH or PN — can win close to 100 seats in the peninsula. And this is almost impossible unless the country has a very low turnout, he says.

“This is because GPS, GRS (Gabungan Rakyat Sabah) and Parti Warisan Sabah are expected to win at least 45 out of the 57 seats in East Malaysia. Although GPS is close to BN and GRS is led by Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia in Sabah, Warisan would negotiate for the best deal from the rival national coalitions if there is no clear winner,” says Wong.

Prior to the dissolution of parliament, Warisan held seven seats in the Dewan Rakyat and was aligned with PH, giving the coalition a total of 97 seats.

There was political stability prior to GE14 because a coalition had a clear majority in parliament. Even after the 2008 “political tsunami” that saw BN lose its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time in history, the coalition still returned to power with 140 seats, which was a comfortable 29-seat majority.

Then, in 2013, in the first general election called after Datuk Seri Najib Razak became prime minister, BN still held on to 133 seats in parliament.

In 2018, when the federal government changed for the first time in history, PH initially won 113 seats — a two-seat majority. Together with Warisan, the coalition had 121 seats in parliament before the defections from Umno to Bersatu.

Nevertheless, it is not the number of seats that the governing coalition has that determines stability, the political analysts tell The Edge. USM’s Fauzi says the Malaysian democracy is maturing, and that will contribute to political stability.

“Although in piecemeal fashion, we are moving towards a better state of democracy. For instance, we now have the anti-party hopping law, achieved through the MoU between Ismail Sabri and the opposition. It wasn’t achieved under BN rule when it had two-thirds majority,” he points out, adding that the passing of the anti-party hopping law shows that political cooperation between coalitions can be achieved despite the lack of a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Sunway University’s Wong says one of the real causes of instability now is the unchecked power of the attorney-general (AG), who can single-handedly decide whether to press or drop charges. Quoting Andrew Yong, a legal researcher, he says whichever government is in power, some “court clusters” that have an incentive to pressure or topple the government will appoint a friendly AG to drop their cases.

“This was openly admitted by Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi at the MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress) assembly,” says Wong. “PH made the mistake of not prioritising the separation of the role of the public prosecutor from that of the AG, perhaps hoping to use the means of selective prosecution to coerce defections from Umno. If the next government can vie for the past dominance, it will not remove this fundamental cause of instability.”

The political analyst adds that, contrary to public perception, a hung parliament need not be an obstacle to political stability, economic resilience or social inclusion. He notes that Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, has had 20 hung parliaments and 21 coalition governments since 1949.

Another example is New Zealand, which has had eight hung parliaments and even some minority governments between 1996 and 2020, and yet was recognised as one of the best countries in the world at fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Even in Malaysia, with the same hung parliament and almost identical pool of ministers, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s government was caught in partisan fights throughout its 17 months, while the Ismail Sabri administration could govern stably by signing an MoU with the opposition, until it succumbed to Umno’s pressure for dissolution,” says Wong.

He adds that the real solution to political instability lies in establishing a healthy and productive multiparty system like that in Germany and New Zealand. And this can only happen with a hung parliament, which forces parties to cooperate with each other and reduce their antagonism.

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