Rival political factions yesterday competed to win favor with Mahathir Mohamad after he plunged Malaysia into political turmoil by resigning as prime minister, reinforcing the likelihood that his shock move would strengthen his power.
Mahathir, who at 94 is the world’s oldest government leader, on Monday stepped down, but was immediately named as interim prime minister by Malaysia’s king — a role that carries all the authority of a permanent leader.
The move effectively broke apart an increasingly fragile and unpopular coalition that Mahathir had formed with old rival Anwar Ibrahim, 72, to win control of the government on an anti-corruption platform in 2018.
Photo: AP
It also potentially freed Mahathir from a pre-election promise to hand over the reins to Anwar before his term ends in 2023.
“He has total freedom to decide as he pleases,” pollster Merdeka director Ibrahim Suffian said.
In one of his first acts as interim leader, Mahathir late on Monday disbanded his entire Cabinet, opening up political negotiations to form another government.
An official from Mahathir’s Bersatu party, which is trying to put together one alliance, said a group of senior members met with Mahathir yesterday.
The Democratic Action Party, part of a rival pact, also said it wanted Mahathir to stay in office.
“He is the person most likely to be the next prime minister,” Democratic Action Party lawmaker Ong Kian Ming said.
Whatever the outcome of coalition talks, it would mark yet another realignment of politics just two years after Mahathir made a stunning political comeback to topple former leader Najib Razak and bring down the party that had ruled for six decades — and which he had once led.
Mahathir, a former doctor, is credited with transforming Malaysia into an industrial nation from a rural farming backwater when he previously served as prime minister from 1981 to his retirement in 2003.
“Just another day in the office,” Mahathir said in a Twitter post that was accompanied by a series of photographs of him reading through paperwork in his government office.
Under Malaysia’s constitution, any lawmaker who can command a majority in parliament can stake a claim to form a government, which must then be approved by the king.
Yesterday and today, the king was to hold individual interviews with all 222 elected members of Malaysian’s lower house of parliament to assess who is likely to succeed, the palace said.
“For Malaysians, the trauma of uncertainty is hard to overstate,” an opinion piece in the New Straits Times said.
The political crisis comes at a particularly bad time for the Malaysian economy, after growth fell to a decade low in the final quarter of last year.
Tomorrow, Mahathir is scheduled to announce a stimulus package to deal with COVID-19.
Yesterday, the country’s stock market, the Bursa Malaysia, recovered slightly after falling to an eight-year low on Monday, while the ringgit also rose after hitting a near six-month low.
Mahathir and Anwar formed the Pakatan Harapan coalition to defeat the United Malays National Organisation and its Barisan Nasional alliance in 2018.
Anwar was Mahathir’s deputy prime minister when he was arrested and jailed in the late 1990s for sodomy and corruption, charges that Anwar and his supporters maintain were aimed at ending his political career.
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