Who will form the Next Government in Malaysia?

The Coalition of Hope or Pakatan Harapan will be the Next Malaysian Government.

Malaysian General Election falls on 9th of May 2018 and it is Wednesday. Never in the history of Malaysian election, Wednesday is chosen as the voting day. Usually Saturday or Sunday (holiday) was chosen for the voting day out of convenient. The ruling party, the Barisan had been governing Malaysia for the last 60 years.

Why the caretaker government choose Wednesday as the polling day?

The choice of Wednesday as the polling day indicates that the ruling coalition, Barisan National is afraid of a big turn out especially in urban areas and Malaysians working in neighbouring countries. A small turn out will favour the Barisan ruling coalition with the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) as the dominant partner. That is the intention of the care-taking government out of fear of a Malay Tsunami in especially rural areas. A Chinese and Malay Tsunami in urban areas is already on the card. That happened in 2008 and 2013 and it will repeat in 2018.

Many media and foreign agencies have predicted a Barisan victory. I think their judgements may be wrong. In 2013, the coalition of the opposition obtained 52% of the popular votes but lost in the number of seats in parliament due to gerrymandering in constituency allocations in favour of rural seats.

The current care-taking prime minister is Nazib Razak and he is the most corrupted prime minister in the world. An amount of RM$2.6 billion dollars was deposited in his personal account and the money disappeared in a few weeks and moved elsewhere. He claimed that the money was a donation from an Arab prince. But many analysts believed the money came from One Malaysia Sovereign Fund laundered overseas. I believe some of the money will be used to buy votes during the 14th GE on 9th of May 2018.

On the verge of a Coalition of Hope or Harapan government as predicted by Tommy Thomas, the renown analyst.

But just as they failed to observe the trend in 2008 and 2013, a renown analyst Tommy Thomas would suggest they are wrong again.

What is principal reason why this renown analyst is confident that Pakatan Harapan will form the next government in Malaysia after the 9th of May 2018? He believes that the Coalition of Hope or Harapan will receive about 60 percent of the popular vote. Hence, it is the voters who matter, and trying to understand what our voters desire in GE14 is the challenge.

Recall the basic facts. Approximately 15 million voters have registered for GE14 in Malaysia. The Coalition of Hope or Harapan should aim for about 13 million voters to cast their ballot, that is, a 86 percent turnout. Although polling is midweek (Wednesday), with sufficient initiative and drive, that figure is not unattainable.

To achieve a 60 percent vote, Harapan must secure 7.8 million votes out of the 13 million votes cast: a tall order indeed, but not impossible.

Thus, to get 112 seats, that is, just crossing the magic figure of 50 percent in the Dewan Rakyat, the Coalition of Hope or Harapan needs 60 percent of the votes. But to govern effectively, Harapan needs a comfortable majority, say, about 125 seats.

Profligate PM may be the main reason.

The renown analyst does not propose to enumerate the long list of reasons why voters desire the ouster of care-taking prime minister Najib Razak. As one would expect from a government that has ruled a country for over 60 years, they have become absolutely arrogant and completely out of touch with the ordinary voter. Corruption, nepotism and leakages are the order of the day. The over-centralisation of power in the office of the prime minister has resulted in the thousand most important positions of the state and its agencies to be in the gift of Najib Razak, particularly his power to hire and fire, which he has exercised with cold efficiency.

A consideration of how the economy has been mismanaged by the caretaker finance minister and the specific examples of plunder in 1MDB and Felda would be sufficient to establish a case against BN’s re-election.

The debts of the government and its agencies have ballooned to about RM1 trillion in Najib’s nine years in office. This computation is wholly understated because it does not take into account contingent debts, like the countless guarantees given by the government which have to be honoured, and the off-balance sheet debts.

Najib may just be among the most profligate and wasteful finance ministers in the world.

How he has survived in office for nearly three years after the world discovered that more than US$600 million USD was deposited into his personal banking account is perhaps the best proof of the extent of his power.

Institutions that are expected to provide checks and balances have failed miserably. The debts of 1MDB, which exceed RM40 billion, have to be repaid, along with the awesome debts of Felda.

In order to increase the national coffers to fill the holes created by his extravagance, GST was introduced, resulting in the suffering of millions of poor Malaysians eking out a living. Their real wages have not increased in years, but their living expenses have multiplied. Massive immigrant labour, both legal and illegal, suppress the wages of our workforce.

Hence, without having to consider their terrible policies in health, education, law and order and foreign relations – to name but a few – their economic mismanagement, considered on its own, is sufficient by any objective standard to vote them out. They are just unfit to rule. And our voters are aware of this.

The renown analyst, Tommy Thomas believes that Malaysians in their millions are going to vote against the Najib administration.

The Coalition of Hope is led by the former prime minister for 22 years and he is at the age of 93. He is on the mission to correct all the mistakes he had made in his earlier administration and he wanted to decentralised the power of the prime minister. He is leading a Coalition of four parties to do just that as an intern prime minister, paving the way for the charismatic leader Anwar Ibrahim (in jail now for a charge of sodomy) to be the next prime minister.

Here is the picture of Tun Dr Mahathir, the well respected statesman in Malaysia.

Here is the Charismatic leader Anwar Ibrahim.

The Reasons for the New Government in Malaysia comes 9th of May 2018 as viewed by TOMMY THOMAS, a senior lawyer, who occasionally writes on political and economic matters.

The following are his views and reasons for such a dramatic change of politics in Malaysia.

Historical parallels

A historical example comes to mind. The Congress Party governed India for 30 years from 1947. For the last two years of its governance, then-prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency Rule, which resulted in the detention of thousands and the curtailment of civil liberties on a grand scale.

When a general election was called in early 1977, the ‘genie’ was let out of the bottle. Indian voters thrived in their newly-recovered freedom, and punished Gandhi at the polls. The Congress Party was heavily defeated, and Morarji Desai (a former deputy prime minister in a Congress administration) became prime minister in the Janata coalition.

These are sufficient parallels to the Malaysia of 2018. Malaysians too wish to be liberated from the clutches of Umno rule. Harapan is now a grand coalition of Bersatu, PKR, DAP and Amanah standing on a common logo.

DAP deserves credit for preferring the wider national interest over narrower sectarian advantages when they agreed to give up their famous rocket symbol.

Harapan is led by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, whose return to power would constitute the most spectacular political comeback in modern history.

After a gap of 15 years, and heading a different party and coalition, he would return to office as the nation’s 7th prime minister, at the ripe old age of 92, to be followed by Anwar Ibrahim as our 8th prime minister, once the legal issues concerning his eligibility to run for Parliament are resolved.

Mahathir has spent his entire political career from his entry into Parliament in 1964 fighting for Malay rights, having championed their cause for half a century. Hence, the majority race in our plural society cannot find a better protector of their rights. They felt and would feel safe under his prime ministership.

After helming the nation for 22 years, he personifies the establishment. The armed forces, the police and the deep state have full trust in him. The business community would recall him as a true friend to them.

As Najib is discovering to his dismay, Mahathir remains a formidable politician, having led his party to five successive general election victories.

There is no doubt that the momentum has swung to Mahathir. The snowball effect in politics is going to propel Harapan to victory.

Former UK prime minister Harold Wilson once made a most profound observation: “One week is a long time in politics.” The two weeks to GE14 is even longer, and anything can happen.

Political trickery and lies will flood our public space in the last few days before polling. The voters must stand vigilant and turn up in the millions to vote for Harapan so that a historic victory is achieved.

A new set of leaders will emerge in Malaysia. On the left is Lim Kit Siang, the centre is Tun Dr Mahathir and on the right is Anwar Ibrahim.