Well, it is kind of a closure for Malaysia that the King had decided that Bersatu’s Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has the highest support and thus will be the next Prime Minister. The last minute show of support for Dr Mahathir for PM from the MPs including rebels like Baru Bian may just be too late. Image source: Al Jazeera
Muhyiddin Yassin may be sworn in tomorrow but he still needs to wait and see if there will be a motion of no confidence once the Dewan Rakyat meets on 9th March 2020. If this happens and may likely happen as Pakatan now claim that they have 114 votes, then Muhyiddin Yassin may advise the King to dissolve the Parliament and call for fresh elections. Either way, it does not look good for Pakatan Harapan.
The political drama yet to be concluded – it is obvious that Pakatan do not have enough numbers to nominate Anwar for PM. This probably explains why they now switched the support to Dr M which has brought some support back from the East Malaysia MPs. From the latest event, it seems like they have managed to convince some of the MPs to switch side indeed – enough to get the simple majority.
The question now is whether the King will entertain Pakatan Harapan and their 114 numbers now that time has passed and he has decided. Considering that there have been many u-turns, uncertainties and change of support since the turmoil started, it is unlikely that the King will entertain this last minute 114 support (and that is the case).
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GPS from Sarawak have made it clear that they will not support Pakatan as they do not wish to work with DAP – their competitor in Sarawak. That’s a tragic because this means GPS is not looking beyond the boundaries of their state. Sooner or later, if things are screwed up at the national level, things going to come back and bite them at the state level.
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By the way, let’s assume that the MP support for Muhyiddin Yassin remains unchanged and the King will not entertain any more changes, there are key questions that the people is wondering at the moment.
Will the new Government decides to drop the on-going criminal court cases against the politicians are now eagerly supporting the new PM for obvious reasons?
Will they dismantle the enforcement agencies like MACC so that the new coalition drop all the current investigations against the politicians are now eagerly supporting the new PM?
Will there be a switch back to teaching Science and Mathematics in Bahasa and the education system remains screwed?
Will they finally deport the wanted criminal from India to make the non-Muslims happy and score brownies points for the back to power MCA & MIC?
The main reason why BN lost power back in 2018 is because the people got fed up with the level of corruption, abuse of power & taxpayers money and decided enough is enough. A more competent Attorney General was appointed to take up the prosecution and court cases have started. MACC was revamped with the right people and they have been working hard to book the corrupt one in the system.
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Nonetheless Pakatan was not perfect and we don’t expect them to be so – after all, it was not expected that BN after 60 days in power to lose the hold of the government. The Pakatan government also screwed up big time by keeping the fugitive from India and then picking fight with India that saw palm oil export impacted. Some of the Ministers like the Education & Unity Ministers were not fit for their post and ended up making more mistakes & damages to the Government. Racial and religion tension seemed to be all high once Pakatan took over.
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The effect of this can be seen from the recent Pakatan losses in the by-elections in the last 2 years. People were not happy with the many u-turns and lack of focus on fulfilling the election manifesto – one of which the abolishment of toll. The economy was not doing that well which in recent times impacted by the coronavirus infection & lock down in China, the trade wars between US & China and the unhappiness of the Indians by what they see an intrusion into their domestic affairs.
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Now that BN & PAS backed Bersatu will be heading the Government, will the criminal cases dropped and will the fugitive from India remain in the country? If yes, that it is indeed a dark day for the country. Hopefully Muhyiddin Yassin is wise enough not to repeat the mistakes that Pakatan Harapan or Barisan Nasional did in the past.
To be continued…