A parting of political paths in Malaysia

Ruling coalition coming undone as UMNO party announces it will compete against PM Muhyiddin's smaller Bersatu at elections expected this year

When Malaysia’s largest political party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), held its annual general meeting last weekend, its delegates endorsed a plan to contest against Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s shaky ruling coalition at the next general election – the same coalition it is currently propping up.

The Malay nationalist party is currently the largest bloc in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) governing alliance. UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s announcement that the party will contest elections as part of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition it separately leads and not cooperate with any other parties was, however, a foregone conclusion.

A feud between UMNO, which continuously governed Malaysia for more than 60 years until 2018, and Muhyiddin’s smaller Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) party, an UMNO splinter group, has stoked infighting and ultimatums, effectively destabilizing the premier’s 13-month rule as his government maneuvers to get a handle on a resurgent Covid-19 outbreak.

Despite the rupture, power-sharing between UMNO and Bersatu is set to continue until at least August, when a declared state of emergency that has suspended Parliament and the holding of elections will expire. UMNO’s president has said its ministers, deputy ministers and lawmakers would withdraw support from PN once a clear exit date is decided.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

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.

Why Muhyiddin won’t reopen Malaysia’s parliament

Malaysian leader is presiding over a Covid-19 emergency that critics say has cynically suspended legislative democracy

When embattled Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin delivered a speech marking his first year in office earlier this month, the leader reiterated his vow to dissolve Parliament and hold a general election after the Covid-19 pandemic is brought under control, reassuring voters that they will ultimately decide the fate of his unelected ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.

With vaccinations now being rolled out and coronavirus restrictions easing as the still high national caseload trends lower, bipartisan pressure to reopen Parliament is coming to a head. The bicameral legislature was controversially suspended with the proclamation of emergency rule on January 12 amid an alarming rise in daily infections, a move that effectively suspended democracy.

But there is no indication yet when Parliament will reconvene as the premier ramps up efforts to court opposition defectors to shore up his coalition’s razor-thin legislative majority. It’s also unclear if the political stability Muhyiddin has sought to provide through the emergency will hold after the declaration expires in four months.

Malaysia’s politics have been in tumultuous flux since the collapse of the elected Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration last February, a political convulsion that brought Muhyiddin to power. The 73-year-old premier has since faced daunting health, political and economic crises, all while his government has struggled to maintain its slim ruling majority.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

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.

North Korea-Malaysia frayed friendship finally breaks

Pyongyang severs diplomatic ties after Malaysia agrees to extradite North Korean citizen to US on money laundering charge

A Malaysian federal court decision earlier this month to approve the extradition of a North Korean citizen accused of money laundering to the United States has been hailed by some as a major coup in Washington’s efforts to uproot Pyongyang’s sanctions-evading activities.

A high court judge rejected the appeal of businessman Mun Chol Myong on March 9, making him the first-ever North Korean citizen extradited to the US to face a criminal trial. At the same time, the ruling has caused a diplomatic rupture, with North Korea ten days later announcing the total severance of its decades-old bilateral ties with Malaysia.

Relations had been uneasy ever since the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, on Malaysian soil. Pyongyang’s decision to end its diplomatic ties with Putrajaya will deepen its isolation in Southeast Asia, a region that has traditionally kept its doors open to North Korea.

Some analysts see the timing of North Korea’s move as aimed at the Joe Biden administration and a sign that Pyongyang intends to shun offers to rekindle talks in favor of more a provocative strategy of resuming missile and nuclear weapons tests.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

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.

Unlawful assembly of one in Singapore

Singaporean politician Louis Ng is latest to face police investigation for his single-person 'smiley face' activism

Police in Singapore are investigating whether a ruling party lawmaker broke a strict law barring virtually all forms of protest when he held up a placard encouraging support for local food businesses, a case that has sparked debate over the proportionality of the city-state’s broadly-defined public order legislation.

Louis Ng, a member of the People’s Action Party (PAP), posted four pictures on Facebook last June of himself with hawkers at a food center in his constituency. He held up a piece of paper that read “support them” alongside a smiley face. That act alone could be deemed an offense if found by courts to constitute an illegal public assembly.

Though freedom of speech and assembly are enshrined in Singapore’s constitution, civil liberties are significantly circumscribed in practice by the country’s Public Order Act, under which a single person demonstrating support for or opposition to a cause without a police permit can be deemed an unlawful assembly and fined up to S$5,000 (US$3,760).

The investigation into Ng drew immediate comparisons with charges leveled last November against Jolovan Wham, a civil rights campaigner who posed in public with a smiley face drawn on a cardboard sign in a show of solidarity with young climate change activists who were questioned by police last year over similar single-person protests.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

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.

Myanmar crisis now or never moment for ASEAN

Bloc is well-placed to coax Myanmar's generals to compromise but it will need to do more than just express grave concern

More than a month on from a democracy-suspending military coup in Myanmar, many see the junta’s increasingly violent crackdown on dissent as approaching a point of no return. As the United States and others press for tougher sanctions on the junta’s leaders, Southeast Asian nations are under pressure to intervene to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

With its credibility on the line after past failures to tackle human rights crises in the region, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is still widely seen as the best hope for a diplomatic solution amid uncharacteristic outspokenness from some of its member states who are pushing to build a regional consensus on the need for Myanmar to return to democracy.

But the grouping isn’t speaking with one voice, with some of its members describing the putsch as an internal matter, consistent with the bloc’s long-held tradition of non-interference in members’ domestic affairs. Moreover, the organization’s diplomatic efforts have been met with skepticism by those protesting across Myanmar who are staunchly opposed to any engagement that would confer legitimacy onto Naypyidaw’s generals.

Questions persist as to whether ASEAN will pragmatically endorse new elections in the country as part of a negotiated compromise, which critics fear would ultimately lead to a military-engineered outcome – potentially with the nation’s powerful army chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, 64, taking the reigns as elected president under a so-called “guided democracy” framework.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

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.