Rival blocs yesterday claimed they had secured the support they needed to form a government after Malaysia’s hotly contested polls saw no party emerge with a clear majority of parliamentary seats.
Veteran opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said his coalition had enough seats to form the country’s next government, which would allow him to become prime minister.
Former Malaysian prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin — who heads the rival Perikatan Nasional coalition — also said he was in talks to form the next administration after Saturday’s election.
Photo: Reuters
The stalemate comes in a country that has seen three governments in as many years.
In a bid to break the impasse, the palace yesterday asked the leaders of political parties to submit their preferred choice of coalition partners and for prime minister by 2pm today.
Home to 33 million people, Malaysia would need a ruling coalition with a strong mandate to tackle soaring food prices and an economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.
While both leading political blocs claimed victory, neither offered details on the alliances they would make to form a government.
“We have now the majority to form a government,” Anwar said at a dawn news conference after hours of frenzied horse-trading negotiations through the night.
When pressed about who would enter into an alliance with him, Anwar did not give names, but said commitments had been made in writing and would be submitted to the king for endorsement.
At the end of vote-counting, Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan coalition won 82 seats and Perikatan Nasional grabbed 73, official results showed.
The once mighty Barisan Nasional — dominated by jailed former prime minister Najib Razak’s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party — trailed far behind the rest with only 30 seats, its worst performance since Malaysia won independence in 1957.
The graft-tainted bloc said it accepted the results and that it was a “big signal from the citizens towards us.”
The election also saw the rise of an Islamist party allied with Muhyiddin’s group. The Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, backs a hardline interpretation of Islamic law.
Ethnic Malay parties have campaigned on a platform that claims that members of Malaysia’s majority ethnicity would lose their rights if non-Malays — such as Anwar’s multiethnic bloc — are elected.
Oh Ei Sun of the Pacific Research Centre of Malaysia said that if Muhyiddin gets to form the government, the country is “likely to see a conservative theocratic coalition that will focus on religious and racial supremacy at the expense of effective economic management.”
“Perikatan Nasional’s strong message of clean government was able to make inroads into UMNO’s vote bank and captured key UMNO seats,” said Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, deputy managing director at BowerGroupAsia.
One of the highest profile losses in the election was former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, 97, who was roundly defeated in his constituency.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS