Amid a deepening political quagmire, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is defying calls for his resignation while maintaining that his embattled government still commands a parliamentary majority following a bold bid to unseat him by leaders of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the ruling coalition’s largest party.
Flanked by 10 UMNO lawmakers, UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi claimed on Tuesday (August 3) he had a sufficient number of statutory declarations from legislators who were withdrawing their support for Muhyiddin, asserting at a press conference that the premier had lost his governing majority and should resign.
It wasn’t the first time that Zahid had made such an assertion. On July 8, he declared UMNO had withdrawn its support for Muhyiddin, but UMNO ministers serving in Cabinet stayed on, refusing to toe the party line. At least one minister has so far resigned following Zahid’s latest directive, and speculation is rife that further defections may follow.
Unprecedented tensions between the government and Malaysia’s constitutional monarch, cited by Zahid as one of the factors behind his latest push to topple Muhyiddin, has given the premier’s opponents fresh impetus to bring down his wobbly administration amid talk of the country being on the cusp of a major constitutional crisis.
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.
