Will Pakatan Harapan S Hold On Selangor Continue

When the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government fell in February 2020, PH also lost control over the states of Johor, Malacca, Perak and Kedah. In Sabah, PH-aligned Warisan was replaced by the PN-aligned United Alliance of Sabah. PH maintained its hold on three states—Selangor, Penang and Negeri Sembilan. Selangor’s position is of unique interest, given the largest share of PH assemblypersons comprising members from the People’s Justice Party (Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or PKR), the party which has faced significant elite splits in 2020. The present stability of PH’s survival in Selangor can be accounted for by the sheer majority it possesses within the legislative assembly, comprising forty-one out of fifty-six state seats. Unless a significant share of assemblypersons were to defect, the change in state government would be highly unlikely. PH built a strong base in Selangor during its time in power over more than a decade, securing performative legitimacy and rooting itself strongly within the community. PH has benefited from the highly urbanized and educated demographic profile of Selangor. However, the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has likely changed the landscape, which may in turn affect how constituents will now respond to goodies offered by the federal government. Although PH in Selangor has survived the national storm, its future performance remains uncertain. This year’s political realignment, public opinion towards PN and the 2018 redelineation exercise where the number of Malay-majority seats has grown may hamper PH’s ability to maintain its strong margin. The political fragmentation that continues to unfold will see further party and coalitional realignment, which will invariably impact PH’s strength in Selangor.

Based on workshops co-organized by Japan's St. Andrew University and Taiwan's National Chengchi University, this book provides readers with the toolbox for navigating the regional dynamics of political economy in Southeast Asia, with special focus on exploring the key factors determining the shifting dynamics. Organized in three parts, namely, geopolitical and security factors, alternative fields for regional cooperation, and the regional considerations of Southeast Asia, the chapters in the book feature key factors determining the political economy of the region. Written by authors hailing from varied backgrounds, this book is also a joint research effort on policy discussion and timely assessment of COVID-19 recovery plans in Southeast Asia.

The Pakatan Harapan (PH) government promised education reforms before getting elected in 2018, and presently grapples with the complexities of making good on those pledges while seeking to negotiate continuity and change with regard to the previous administration’s Malaysian Education Blueprint launched in 2013. This article situates the education reforms in the context of Malaysia’s highly centralized administration, embedded practices and policy initiatives of recent years. Discussion focuses on three areas—quality, equity, autonomy—where PH has more distinctly differentiated itself from its predecessor. On the quality of national schools, efforts to alleviate teachers’ bureaucratic workload and enhance the schooling experience mark a positive start. However, transforming mindsets and practices will require more systemic changes, critical self-reflection, and sustained efforts on difficult matters, particularly in basic schooling and technical and vocational programmes. On equity, the government’s consistent attention to Bottom 40 (B40) households progressively allocates opportunity, and continual need to address ethnic concerns poses steep challenges. However, policy responses tend to unfold in an ad hoc manner, and the balancing of ethnic interests lacks clarity and coherence. On autonomy, at the institutional level, legislative overhaul in higher education is in the works, while at the personal level, academic freedom clearly thrives more under PH administration. Meaningful and effective reform will hinge on devolution of power away from central government, institutionalization of autonomy, and depoliticization of the system.

he Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition won Malaysia’s 14th general election on 9 May 2018, the first time a regime change took place in the country. However, it lost its majority in late February 2020, when Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (BERSATU) left the coalition. The four parties in PH had very different ideologies, especially when it comes to issues of race and religion. But despite taking various steps to create a coalition agreement, the more fundamental differences were never reconciled during the coalition’s time in power. PH won GE-14 with a relatively low level of support from the ethnic Malays, who perceived it to be a coalition dominated by the mainly Chinese DAP. Fearmongering about how PH and the DAP were a threat to Malay privileges further weakened PH while in government. Furthermore, BERSATU disliked the possibility that Parti Keadilan Rakyat (KEADILAN) president Anwar Ibrahim might succeed Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister. They did not trust Anwar to champion the Malay agenda if he became prime minister. BERSATU decided as early as in 2019 to explore leaving PH to form a new Malay-led government, and saw the departure as a necessary step for a better chance at winning GE15. This was a controversial decision and it created a major rift within BERSATU itself, with party chairman and then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad refusing to accept the party’s decision to leave PH. Following Mahathir’s sudden resignation on 24 February 2020, BERSATU immediately announced their departure from PH. This led to a series of events that culminated in the collapse of PH and the formation a Perikatan Nasional government led by the three biggest Malay parties, UMNO, BERSATU and PAS. The whole episode shows that any coalition or political parties that wish to govern Malaysia must not ignore sentiments among the Malays, especially those in rural areas.

Enough time has passed, and enough key events have taken place for the contours of the administration of Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to be apparent. While it has flirted openly with reforms, and has used phrases otherwise used by the opposition, its sincerity - and its capability - is still in doubt. More than that, it is not as yet clear how convinced the government actually is about of the need for institutional reforms, especially when the institutions in need of reform include the police, the anti-corruption agency, the judiciary and the dominant party, UMNO. With a new coalition opposing him in parliament, Najib comes to power wedged between his own coalition's aged traditions and the restive spirit of the times. Whether he can squeeze his way into a comfortable spot and stay in power is the question the coming years will answer.

On 9 May 2018, Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional (BN) government lost the country’s 14th general election (GE14). Replacing it was the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, made up of four parties, three of which had had experience cooperating with each other for a decade, namely Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah). The fourth was the new Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) led by Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The election also saw equally significant changes at the state government level. PH now controlled seven states in total, up from two, while BN went from controlling ten states to retaining but two. PAS regained Terengganu and with its control over Kelantan now held the two East Coast states. The Sabah state government, held by Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) aligned itself with PH, while the Sarawak state government chose to stick with BN. As many as ten of the sixty promises listed in the PH 2018 election manifesto related to federalism and Sabah and Sarawak, an indication of the growing importance of these two states (and of state issues more generally). The PH administration’s two significant set-ups were the Special Select Committee on States and Federal Relations and the Special Cabinet Committee on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63). Serious attempts were made to address concerns by both committees, with achievements being more visible in the Special Cabinet Committee on MA63, possibly due to the greater attention given on Sabah and Sarawak. Issues brought up within the Parliamentary Special Select Committee were not substantively addressed. PH’s time in power saw how states aligned to it maintained a smooth working relationship with the federal government. What was more interesting to note was that even non-PH aligned states such as Kelantan, Terengganu and Perlis also received favourable attention from the federal government. Federal-state relations were much more aggressively tackled under the PH government than under any other preceding administration.

The results of Malaysia's 14th General Elections of May 2018 were unexpected and transformative. Against conventional wisdom, the newly reconfigured opposition grouping Pakatan Harapan (PH) decisively defeated the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN), ending six decades of uninterrupted dominant one-party rule. Despite a long-running financial scandal dogging the ruling coalition, pollsters and commentators predicted a solid BN victory or, at least, a narrow parliamentary majority. Yet, on the day, deeply rooted political dynamics and influential actors came together, sweeping aside many prevailing assumptions and reconfiguring the country's political reality in the process. In order to understand the elections and their implications, this edited volume brings together contributions from ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute researchers and a group of selected collaborators to examine the elections from three angles: campaign dynamics; important trends among major interest groups; and local-level dynamics and developments in key states. This analytical work is complemented by personal narratives from a selection of GE-14 participants.

This is a study of Malaysia’s new political economy, with a focus on ownership and control of the corporate sector. It offers a pioneering assessment of government-linked investment companies (GLICs), a type of state-owned institution that has long prevailed in the corporate sector but has not been analysed. Malaysia’s history of government-business ties is unique, while the nature of the nexuses between the state and the corporate sector has undergone major transitions. Corporate power has shifted from the hands of foreign firms to the state to the ruling party, and well-connected businessmen, and back to the state. Corporate wealth is now heavily situated in the leading publicly-listed government-linked companies (GLCs), controlled through block shareholdings by a mere seven GLICs under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Finance. To indicate why these GLICs are important actors in Corporate Malaysia, this study provides a deep assessment of their ownership and control of Bursa Malaysia’s top 100 publicly-listed enterprises.