Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will face a political moment of truth when Malaysian lawmakers vote on proposals for the nation’s largest-ever annual budget in Parliament later this month. A defeat of the spending plan would be equivalent to a no-confidence vote and could plunge the country into a leadership crisis.
Muhyiddin’s eight-month-old government intends to spend a record 322.5 billion ringgit (US$78 billion) in 2021 as it seeks to offset the economic ill-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and bring Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy back from the brink after gross domestic product (GDP) plunged 17.1% year on year in the second quarter.
The expansionary budget, a 2.5% increase in spending from 2020, aims to hasten an already evident recovery from the worst effects of business activity restrictions enacted under an earlier nationwide lockdown. Third quarter data announced by Malaysia’s central bank on Friday (November 13) showed a smaller 2.7% contraction.
A resurgence of coronavirus infections since September has seen infections triple to nearly 44,000 cases. Authorities have in response imposed targeted movement curbs in parts of the country, threatening an economic turnaround that the budget, the first to be presented since Muhyiddin was appointed premier by the nation’s king in March, is designed to spur.
Muhyiddin’s eight-month-old government intends to spend a record 322.5 billion ringgit (US$78 billion) in 2021 as it seeks to offset the economic ill-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and bring Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy back from the brink after gross domestic product (GDP) plunged 17.1% year on year in the second quarter.
The expansionary budget, a 2.5% increase in spending from 2020, aims to hasten an already evident recovery from the worst effects of business activity restrictions enacted under an earlier nationwide lockdown. Third quarter data announced by Malaysia’s central bank on Friday (November 13) showed a smaller 2.7% contraction.
A resurgence of coronavirus infections since September has seen infections triple to nearly 44,000 cases. Authorities have in response imposed targeted movement curbs in parts of the country, threatening an economic turnaround that the budget, the first to be presented since Muhyiddin was appointed premier by the nation’s king in March, is designed to spur.
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Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.
