Keywords

2.1 Contours of Malaysian Politics After the Fourteenth General Elections (GE14)

Malaysia’s fourteenth general elections (GE14), held on May 9, 2018, have had far-reaching consequences in laying out the possibility of diverse trajectories for the country’s political democracy beyond the Malay-Muslim hegemonic path set in motion by the New Economic Policy (NEP) enunciated in the aftermath of racial clashes in and around Kuala Lumpur on May 13, 1969. For the very first time in Malaysia’s history, the United Malays National Organization’s (UMNO) stranglehold over political power, exercised discreetly through its leadership of the multi-ethnic coalitions of Perikatan (Alliance) (1957–1969) and later Barisan Nasional (BN) (since 1974), was broken as the opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH) swept into power on the back of its 121 seats (113 seats plus an additional 8 seats won by PH’s Sabah-based ally Warisan) and 46% of popular votes, delivering it a simple majority in the 222-member federal parliament. These figures contrast with PH’s main rivals BN and Parti Islam SeMalaysia’s (PAS) seat counts of 79 (34% popular vote) and 18 (17% popular vote). At the state level, PH added to its tally the state governments of Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Perak and Kedah to its incumbent administrations in Selangor and Penang, leaving BN with control over only Pahang and Perlis, while PAS retained Kelantan and wrested Terengganu from BN. Meanwhile, Warisan snatched Sabah from BN after some confusion arising from chief minister Musa Aman initially claiming victory for BN. In Sarawak, which had already conducted state elections in 2016, BN was handed a blow when its component parties left the coalition to form the locally based Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS).

PH’s honeymoon was, however, short-lived. Despite seemingly maintaining an early momentum of by-election victories in the Selangor state constituencies of Sungai Kandis (August 2018), Balakong (September 2018) and Seri Setia (September 2018), and in the parliamentary constituencies of Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan (October 2018—catapulting the hitherto jailed Anwar Ibrahim back into Parliament), and Sandakan, Sabah (May 2019), its fortunes went downhill with embarrassing defeats in Cameron Highlands, Pahang (January 2019) and Tanjung Piai, Johor (November 2019). PH’s defeat in Tanjung Piai was especially hard, happening in a state which PH was helming and having its Malay-Muslim candidate Karmaine Sardini from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), of which Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was chairman, losing to BN-Malaysian Chinese Association’s (MCA) Wee Jeck Seng by a humiliating 15,086 majority. This not only constituted a 20% vote swing that completely reversed PH-PPBM’s marginal victory in GE14, but it also supposedly demonstrated the scale to which Malay-Muslims, who formed 57% of the electorate in Tanjung Piai, had become so infuriated with the PH government that they were prepared to vote in a non-Malay Member of Parliament (MP) as long as he represented the pro-Malay BN, which had since September 2019 inked an informal alliance with PAS called Muafakat Nasional (MN). PAS was even prepared to shrug off its Malay-Muslim-centric image during the Tanjung Piai by-election by openly urging its supporters to vote for Wee Jeck Seng (Zurairi, 2019). The Tanjung Piai by-election also elicited controversy for PH when it was accused of abusing government privileges and projects to buy votes—election misdeeds for which BN had been constantly attacked by PH when PH was in the opposition (Ng, 2019).

Even before the Tanjung Piai debacle, signs of the grassroots Malay-Muslim tide turning against PH were evident from PH’s conceding its incumbent Semenyih state seat in a March 2019 by-election. But Tanjung Piai was the point of no return for Malay nationalist elements within the ruling PH coalition who sensed how Malay-Muslim support for PH had plunged to abysmally low levels within one year of winning GE14. Field interviews and opinion polls indicated that racial and religious issues featured prominently among the Malay-Muslim grouses against the PH government. Many of them viewed PH as a Chinese-controlled administration that relegated to unimportance the protection of Malay interests and rights, with a further significant number expressing shock and regret that their denial of votes to BN-UMNO reached the extent of dislodging it from power (Wan Saiful, 2020).

By the end of 2019, signs were increasingly emerging that discontented factions in PH, led chiefly by PPBM politicians and disgruntled leaders of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), whose president Anwar Ibrahim’s wife Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was Deputy Prime Minister, were involved in backdoor efforts with MN to restore Malay-Muslim hegemony in government. Especially alarming was the successful organization on October 6, 2019, of a Malay Dignity Congress, bringing together PPBM chairman-cum-Prime Minister Mahathir on the same platform with PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang, UMNO Secretary-General Annuar Musa, PKR Deputy President Mohamed Azmin Ali, Universiti Malaya Vice-Chancellor Abdul Rahman Hashim and influential Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, with an iconic picture of them raising one another’s hands at the end of the event swiftly going viral over both mainstream and alternative media. PKR President Anwar Ibrahim, to whom Mahathir had agreed in principle to hand over the premiership after two years at the helm, was conveniently left out from the original list of invitees (Mohsin, 2019). Zainal Kling, a public university professor and executive secretary of the Congress, had thunderously declared in his opening speech that Malaysia belonged rightfully to the Malays, claiming further that ungrateful non-Malays had taken advantage of the good nature of the Malays to repudiate the social contract that allegedly governs the relationship between Malays and non-Malays in independent Malaysia. Despite police reports being lodged against the Congress for racial incitement, Mahathir vehemently denied that the event had racist connotations (KiniTV, 2019).

During the final week of February 2020, Malay-Muslim ethnocentric momentum climaxed with the Sheraton Move. A dinner event at Sheraton Hotel, Petaling Jaya, on February 23, 2020, had gathered PH rebels comprising PPBM cabinet members and PKR rebels who together announced their withdrawal from the PH governing coalition. A week of confusion ensued, witnessing Mahathir’s resignation as Prime Minister citing a loss of parliamentary majority albeit as yet untested on the floor of the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives); Mahathir’s refusal to go along with his party PPBM’s plan to install a Mahathir-led Malay unity government comprising MPs from PPBM, PAS and UMNO; Mahathir’s acceptance of the position of interim Prime Minister before a suitable replacement for him was found; and the eventual appointment of PPBM President Muhyiddin Yasin as Malaysia’s eighth Prime Minister following the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s (King) separate interviews with various party leaders, which convinced the monarch that Muhyiddin was the prime ministerial candidate most likely to command a working majority of elected parliamentarians (Wan Saiful, 2020). Known rather controversially for his past exclamation that he was Malay first and Malaysian second, Muhyiddin, the Home Minister under the PH administration, led a newly constituted Perikatan Nasional (PN) government backed by PPBM, PAS, GPS and individual BN (UMNO, MCA, MIC, i.e. Malaysian Indian Congress) MPs (Ahmad Fauzi, 2020a).

Having been betrayed by his own party President, Mahathir eventually left PPBM and founded the party Pejuang, which since its registration in July 2021 has failed to find a footing among Malays and Malaysians in general, as proven by its thrashing in the Johor state elections of March 2022. Yet another Malay-centric party, Pejuang is testament to the increasingly muddled terrain of post-GE14 Malay-Muslim politics when the community itself is facing increasing challenges in adjusting to modernization. Malay-Muslims are now torn between loyalties to political representatives from different blocs, each claiming their position as Malay nationalists but without sacrificing national interests and pragmatism in enticing non-Malay support for the purpose of governing the country effectively (Wong, 2022). More open now to the outside world in an age of globalization, younger generation Malays are no longer subservient to the whims of their political warlords. Among former staunch supporters of Mahathir in PPBM, not all followed him into Pejuang. PPBM’s erstwhile Youth chief-cum-former Minister of Youth and Sports Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman now heads the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) which won one seat in the Johor state elections, while the Islamist Dr. Maszlee Malik, PH’s former Minister of Education, has joined PKR under Anwar Ibrahim, to whom Mahathir is notorious for having a long-standing aversion. In fact, many quarters believe that it was Mahathir’s stubborn refusal to pass over the premiership to Anwar Ibrahim as originally agreed would take place by May 2020, quite apart from his racialist disposition, that precipitated the dramatic events of February 2020, from which Malaysia has struggled to recover since (Gunasegaram, 2019; Sum, 2019).

2.2 From Muhyiddin Yasin to Ismail Sabri Yaakob: Foregrounding Ethno-Religious Nationalism

On August 21, 2021, UMNO Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob took over the premiership from Muhyiddin, following UMNO’s official withdrawal of support for the PN government. The palace employed the same method of appointing Muhyiddin just one and a half years earlier. Upon accepting the latter’s resignation, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong sought to verify the number of MPs that any parliamentary coalition leader could muster by means of statutory declarations (SDs) which would be presented before the monarch. In Ismail Sabri’s case, individual MPs were further instructed to submit names of their preferred candidate by August 18. As noted by Azmil (2020, p. 104), such a process was essentially ‘undemocratic’. Yet, that was the same route that opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim resorted to when he announced in September 2020 that PH had mustered a ‘strong, formidable and convincing’ majority in Parliament which would enable it to restore the people’s mandate given to PH in May 2018 to govern the country (Arfa, 2020). No vote of confidence in Parliament was explicitly sought by either Muhyiddin, Anwar or Ismail Sabri, and although the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had initially required the incoming post-Muhyiddin government to prove its majority on the Dewan Rakyat floor, the royal suggestion was later shelved through a statement from the Attorney General (Anand, 2021; Ng, 2021a). The high and then rising COVID-19 pandemic cases nationally had become a convenient excuse for politicians from all sides of Malaysia’s political divide to defer democratic procedures.

Ever since Malay-Muslim politicians of the old order outfoxed PH in February 2020, defence of the Malay race and Islamic religion has been foremost among concerns addressed by unelected Malaysian governments. Even Anwar Ibrahim, when attempting in vain to unseat the PN government merely seven months into its existence to the extent of being granted an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, was careful to stress that the majority of lawmakers backing him in his intended political coup were Malay-Muslim MPs (Danial, 2020). The choice of Ismail Sabri as Muhyiddin’s deputy in July 2021 and Prime Minister one month later was similarly calibrated to appease the restless Malay-Muslim constituency. During previous ministerial stints, Ismail Sabri had courted controversy for adopting a combative attitude in privileging Malay businesses over their ethnic Chinese competitors (Ng, 2021b). This was despite Ismail Sabri having married into a Malay DAP family; his father-in-law having twice contested under the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP) ticket in Perak in 1978 and 1982. In the Malay-Muslim ethno-religious imagination, DAP, as the political offspring of Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), is equated with Chinese chauvinism if not outright communism, both of which supposedly explain the party’s inexorably anti-Malay and anti-Islamic postures (Faizal et al., 2019). This is despite DAP making vast inroads into the Malay community and relentlessly attempting to shake off its Chinese-centric image since taking over the reins of government in Penang in 2008 (Ahmad Fauzi & Zairil Khir, 2019).

Ismail Sabri’s most significant achievement to date has been his securing Malaysia’s effectively first-ever confidence and supply agreement between the federal government and the opposition, officially known as the ‘Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Transformation and Political Stability’ (IDEAS, 2021). Notwithstanding its several shortcomings, for example, the absence of a political funding law to combat political corruption, its other numerous constructive parts helped the government address the health and economic challenges posed by COVID-19 and set in motion institutional changes that laid out paths towards substantive political reform. Among other things, the MOU would officially recognize the position of Leader of the Opposition as being of ministerial status; allow more meaningful participation of opposition members in the drafting of Budget 2022; ensure balance of representation between opposition and government MPs in Parliamentary Select Committees (PSCs) to ensure effective checks and balances; speed up the implementation of Undi18, i.e. bringing down the age of enfranchisement to 18 years old from the previous threshold of 21 years old, and automatic voter registration (AVR); reintroduce the Parliamentary Services Act thus giving Parliament autonomy to manage its administration and finances; commit political parties to an Anti-Party Hopping Bill in order to arrest politicians’ destabilizing antics whenever the government majority is small; give a fair representation to opposition MPs in the COVID-19 National Recovery Council; seek to limit the prime ministerial tenure to ten years; and restore Sabah and Sarawak’s equal status with Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia) as two of three regions which together formed Malaysia, as spelt out in the Malaysia Agreement 1963.

Ismail Sabri insists that the MOU forms a strong bipartisan cooperation that will uphold the spirit of Keluarga Malaysia (Malaysian Family)—the tagline of his administration. Keluarga Malaysia draws inspiration from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s unity call for ‘all parties to practice democracy in seeking solutions to any problems to achieve a prosperous, inclusive and sustainable nation’ in his Royal Address to Parliament (Asila, 2021). This was in line with the monarch’s earlier advice to the incoming Prime Minister before Ismail Sabri was confirmed in his post: That he ‘must work in hand with those who lost and all parties should be prepared to work as a team…In other words, the winner does not win it all while the losers do not lose it all’ (Ng, 2021a).

Regardless of Ismail Sabri’s determination to showcase a more Malaysian rather than just Malay-oriented reputation in line with his elevation to the premiership, some of his key decisions elicited stinging criticism for their majoritarian bias. Budget 2022, for example, was widely reprimanded for its ethnic skewedness, allocating a mere RM345 million to the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities, in contrast to the whopping RM11.4 billion set aside for Bumiputeras, of whom Malay-Muslims form the large majority (Augustin, 2021). The per capita calculation came to around RM577 per Bumiputera citizen, RM15 per Chinese citizen and RM72 per Indian citizen (Hunter et al., 2021). Shortly after the passing of the Budget, which under the MOU PH was obliged not to oppose, Ismail Sabri, doubling up as chairman of the Majlis Kemakmuran Bumiputera (MKB: Bumiputera Prosperity Council) established by Muhyiddin’s administration, unashamedly proposed instituting quotas for Bumiputera-owned businesses in strategic locations such as shopping malls and other tourist hotspots (Ashman, 2021).

By filling key government positions with Malay-Muslim technocrats, both Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri conveyed the impression to ordinary Malay-Muslims that the government was out to restore Malay-Muslim corporate wealth which had seemingly come under threat during the 22-month-old PH administration. Towards this end, initiatives such as the MKB and Unit Peneraju Agenda Bumiputera (TERAJU: Bumiputera Agenda Steering Unit) were elevated to a national agenda, based on the strategy of creating ‘Bumiputera as an entrepreneur nation’ (Alfian, 2020). With such programmes being put into action and overseen by the Prime Minister himself, little wonder that many non-Malays felt betrayed by Muhyiddin’s assurance that he would be Prime Minister for all Malaysians (Razdan, 2020).

2.3 Rightward Shift After GE14: Politics of Race and Religion

While right-wing Malay nationalism has always been in existence since the country’s independence in 1957, its character since the end of GE14 has arguably acquired new attributes as compared with its equivalent during the nation state’s first twenty years (1957–1977). Firstly, since the onset of global Islamic resurgence in the 1980s, Islamism, i.e. the political ideology of Islam, in its various manifestations has enmeshed with Malay nationalism in such a way that it is no longer sufficient to speak of Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy) as the ideological driving force behind Malay-Muslim backlash against perceived threats to their race and religion in the aftermath of GE14, but rather of Ketuanan Melayu Islam (Malay-Islamic Supremacy) (Chin, 2020). Considering the significance of Islamism in GE14 and how its orthodox and bureaucratic variants eventually ganged up against its more humanist variant as upheld by second-generation Islamists in PH (Ahmad Fauzi, 2018), the label Ketuanan Melayu Islam rather misrepresents the phenomenon by conflating Islam with Islamism (cf. Tibi, 2012). What UMNO nationalists and PAS Islamists vie for is more accurately labelled instead as Ketuanan Melayu Islamis (Malay-Islamist Supremacy), epitomized in both parties’ convergence on the primary position they believe that sharia (Islamic law) should hold in a future Islamic state of Malaysia.

Negotiations towards realizing this Islamist vision had been going on since before GE14 (approximately 2013–2015), with then Deputy Prime Minister-cum-UMNO Deputy President Muhyiddin becoming directly involved in discussions to allow PAS to table Rang Undang-undang 355 (RUU 355: Bill 355), which paved the way towards permitting hudud (Islamic criminal law)-like arrangements in Kelantan (Ahmad Fauzi, 2015). These backdoor UMNO-PAS dealings proceeded despite reservations expressed by BN’s non-Malay partners and were stalled only after the eruption of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal, which resulted in Muhyiddin falling out with and getting sacked by Prime Minister Najib Razak. In a nutshell, the coming together of UMNO and PAS in MN was the result of a behind the scenes friendship that Malay nationalist-Islamist forces within both parties had been crafting since the end of GE13 in 2013, when UMNO was desperately trying to recover lost ground in Malay-Muslim constituencies. That Muhyiddin could betray Mahathir in February 2020 in a rightward shift towards the UMNO-PAS pole is least surprising when we consider his pivotal position in the pre-GE14 UMNO-PAS negotiations.

Ketuanan Melayu Islamis is more lethal to Malaysian multi-culturalism than merely Ketuanan Melayu Islam or just Ketuanan Melayu. Islamism’s major drawback as a political ideology is how it essentializes the ‘Other’, meaning non-Muslims and even Muslims not of its Islamist orientation, as a de facto enemy by virtue of their religious outlook. Islamists set capturing the post-colonial state, whether through institutional means or a coup d’état, and its top-down transformation into a sharia-based order as the foremost goal of their struggle. Ardent believers in the slogan al-Islam hu wa al-hal (Islam is the solution), Islamists have complete faith in the sharia as a kind of magic elixir that would foster peace, justice and prosperity in society. They claim that such a pursuit for an Islamic state is mandated by God; hence, those who oppose such efforts are akin to God’s enemies whose elimination, metaphorically or literally, should not be ruled out. Islamists are firmly convinced in their role as the true torchbearers of Islam, yet their utopian tendencies set them apart from centuries-old Islamic tradition which respects diversity, opens itself to cultural borrowing from the other and does not frown upon intra-Muslim ethnic and intellectual plurality. This is a far cry from the binary worldview of Islamists, or for that matter, many right-wing extremists bent on using state authority in furtherance of totalitarian objectives (Tibi, 2012).

One of the Malaysia’s most prominent Islamists, PAS President Abdul Hadi, who courted infamy in the 1980s for his Amanat (Message) that purportedly excommunicated fellow Muslims who accepted the colonial-designed Federal Constitution over the sharia as law of the land (Ahmad Fauzi, 2020b), has explicitly outlined the pillars of an Islamic state as follows: jamaah (congregation), tanah air (independent and sovereign homeland), perlembagaan (constitution) and citizens ruled by Islamic law’s absolute justice irrespective of religious affiliation (Abdul Hadi, 2005, pp. 54–55). His rigid views and checkered history of volatile relations with the BN state notwithstanding, Abdul Hadi was honoured by both the Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri governments as special envoy to the Middle East and was even granted the honorific title of ‘Tan Sri’. Under Ismail Sabri, the Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (JAKIM: Department of Islamic Advancement of Malaysia)—the hub of federal-level Islamic bureaucracy in Malaysia, has practically fallen into PAS’s hands, with PAS monopolizing the ministership and deputy ministership in charge of Islamic affairs under the Prime Minister’s Department via its Vice President Senator Idris Ahmad and Pengkalan Chepa MP Ahmad Marzuq Shaary. Although in more careful mode since ascending the corridors of power in Putrajaya, PAS’s grand plan of eventually installing the sharia for general application in Malaysia proceeds nevertheless (Ahmad Fauzi, 2021).

The second aspect which differentiates current Malay nationalism from past stirrings relates to its explicitly pro-royalist leanings. Loyalty to a raja (ruler) has been identified by Malay studies scholars as one of the three pillars of Malay identity, the other two being bahasa (language) and agama (religion) (Shamsul, 1996). However, past stirrings of Malay nationalism have seen bouts of disapproval of actions by the monarch or his family members, especially when they transgress boundaries of human decency. Hence, the appearance of the well-known Malay idiom, raja adil raja disembah, raja zalim raja disanggah (a just ruler is a worshipped ruler, a tyrannical ruler is a disputed ruler). The Kaum Muda (Young Faction)-spurred nationalism of the 1930s had an anti-royalist inclination to it, as the Malay royalty and aristocracy were deemed to have been working in cahoots with the Kaum Tua (Old Faction) traditionalist ulama (religious scholars) in obstructing progress for Malay society.

Similarly, during Mahathir’s tenure as the fifth Prime Minister (1981–2003), the monarchy’s wings were clipped under the understanding that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong was always obliged to ‘act on the advice of the Prime Minister’ (Federal Constitution, n.d. Article 43(2)(b), Article 43A(1)) or act on ‘advice of the Cabinet or of a Minister acting under the general authority of the Cabinet’ (Federal Constitution, n.d. Article 40(1)). Whatever his true intentions were, Mahathir was apparently trying to break the feudalistic mindset of the Malays. Mahathir had several run-ins with the monarchy, resulting in constitutional crises in 1983 and again in 1993. Under Mahathir’s stewardship, Parliament stripped the monarchs of their immunity by allowing them to be tried in a special court. Parliament can also question the monarchs without being deemed seditious, although MPs cannot demand the monarchy’s abolition. The modus operandi of royal acquiescence to parliamentary measures was amended such that if a Bill fails to obtain royal consent, it still automatically becomes law after 30 days from the day it is introduced in parliament (Abdul Aziz, 2008).

In the post-GE14 period, by contrast, the Malay monarchy, composed of the nine ruling families of states with royal houses in Peninsular Malaysia and whose monarchs take alternate five-year turns in becoming the Yang di-Pertuan Agong—Malaysia’s constitutional monarch, emerged as the primary institution of the country’s ‘deep state’ framework intent on preserving Malay-Muslim political hegemony. In difficult times, it is to the monarchy that the Malay masses, more so than other non-Malay Malaysians, would resort to in line with the regal institution’s ‘protector’ status in Malay culture and mentality (Ahmad Fauzi & Muhamad Takiyuddin, 2012). The historic attachment of the Malays to their royalty stretches back to the British colonial era, when Malays were conceived of as subjects of their raja or Sultan, in contrast to non-Malays who were considered to be British subjects. The British colonial method of ‘indirect rule’ practically meant exercising authority through the Malay ruling houses of each state except in matters touching ‘Malay religion and custom’, as per the terms agreed in the Anglo-Perak Pangkor Treaty of 1874 (Ahmad Fauzi, 2004).

However, in spite of the Federal Constitution via Article 153—the clause regularly cited to assert Malays’ and other Bumiputeras’ ‘special position’, expressly proclaiming the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as the guardian of ‘legitimate interests of other communities’ as well, Malay nationalists have regularly painted the ethnic Chinese and Indian citizens as posing an existential threat to their survival. In fact, among Malay supremacists, the practice of condescendingly ridiculing non-Malays as pendatang (immigrants) or orang asing (foreigners) in the same mould as illegal migrant workers (PATI: pendatang asing tanpa izin) is common parlance in daily conversations in Malay-centric semi-urban and rural areas and over social media (cf. ISMA, 2014). Some UMNO politicians, whipping up majoritarian support as elections or party contests draw nearer, even encourage such xenophobic sentiments against fellow Malaysians to the detriment of inter-ethnic harmony (cf. Agence France-Presse, 2008). When the newly elected PH government proceeded to appoint high-profile non-Malays to key federal posts, the lay Malay-Muslims’ fears had seemingly become reality. Among the major appointments highlighted were those of former Penang chief minister-cum-DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng as Minister of Finance, the Christian ethnic Indian private lawyer Tommy Thomas as Attorney General and Sabahan Richard Malanjum—a Christian Bumiputera, as Chief Justice. Such inclusion of influential Christian figures in PH’s Malaysia Baharu (New Malaysia) structures of power ignited conspiratorial allegations of determined DAP-linked evangelical efforts at spreading the Christian gospel among Malay-Muslims (Syed Jaymal, 2019). With an unprecedentedly high number of 11 of the 28 ministers in the PH federal cabinet being non-Muslims, blame was immediately laid onto PH’s Malay-Muslim leaders for reputedly collaborating with or kow-towing to their non-Malay partners’ wishes. As the strongest of PH’s non-Malay-led parties, DAP figures, many of whom were indeed Christian by faith, bore the brunt of the Malay nationalist verbal and social media vilification.

Malay-Muslim anxiety reached a crescendo following Prime Minister Mahathir’s speech at the 73rd United Nations (UN) General Assembly which declared the Malaysian government’s intention, in line with PH’s GE14 manifesto, to ratify international human rights treaties to which Malaysia had yet to accede to. Beginning with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), fears spread that Malaysia under PH would embrace as well the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the International Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CRMW), UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment (UNCAT) and the Rome Statute (Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court) (Abdul Aqmar & Mohammad Agus, 2020). Taken together, this gradual submission to international agreements was interpreted as a sign of weakness on the part of the PH government seen as ever willing to sacrifice dearly held indigenous rights just to be accepted in the comity of nation states that embed racial equality in their paradigm of nationhood. Large public rallies against the government were organized by UMNO, PAS and right-wing Malay non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Support was sought from the Conference of Rulers to pressure the government to at least defer Malaysia’s accession to ICERD; a group of four Malay academics was granted an audience with the monarchs to present their research findings that warned that the monarchs would be liable to criminal prosecution overseas should Malaysia ratify ICERD (Chin, 2020). The same opportunity was not afforded to legal minds who had more judicious views about ICERD, for instance the opinion that Article 153 of the Federal Constitution was actually compatible with ICERD’s Article 1(4) which provides that ‘Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination…’ (Paulsen, 2018). Under enormous pressure from all sides and not wanting to risk turmoil and possibility of violence, the PH government backtracked, sanctioned by none other than the premier-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim, who pleaded, ‘We also understand the concerns voiced by the Malays. Please give them the space to provide feedback on the matter’ (Syed Umar & Chan, 2018).

2.4 The Monarchy Gains Firm Ground

During PH’s 22-month-old administration, Malaysia was ruled by two different personalities as Yang di-Pertuan Agong. First, the relatively young Sultan Muhammad V (b. 1969) from Kelantan ascended the throne during Najib Razak’s prime ministerial tenure in December 2016. Hailing from Kelantan, which by then had almost thirty years of experience under PAS administrations, Sultan Muhammad V carried with him a reformist temperament, having stood his ground against UMNO on such issues as demanding oil royalties for his home state. A divorcee and without a nucleus family to attend to, Sultan Muhammad V was well known among the Kelantanese for his affability and ability to mingle with ordinary folk (Ahmad Fauzi & Muhamad Takiyuddin, 2017). He injected the royal institution with dignified humour when he reminded parliamentarians to ‘sit down and not run away’ when officiating the parliamentary session in July 2018, in response to some politicians staging a previous walkout (Loh, 2019). Nonetheless, his reign was to last only until January 2019, when he abdicated due to personal reasons, many speculating them to be issues revolving around his rocky marriage to a Russian beauty queen.

Replacing him was the more conservative Sultan Abdullah Haji Ahmad Shah (b. 1959) from Pahang—one of the only two states that retained an UMNO-led state government in GE14. Sultan Abdullah would later become pivotal in the drama surrounding the passing of the prime ministerial baton from Mahathir to Muhyiddin in February 2020 and from Muhyiddin to Ismail Sabri in August 2021. On both occasions, the choice of the premier lays in the hands of the monarch, who devised the ingenious method of interviewing prime ministerial candidates from among party leaders and individual MPs to ascertain which candidate would most likely command a working majority in the Dewan Rakyat. Dogged by political uncertainty and troubled by the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysians in general appreciated the stabilizing role that Sultan Abdullah played as a Yang di-Pertuan Agong who oversaw two changeovers involving two incoming governments whose majorities were subject to dispute (Kosmo, 2021). While the Yang di-Pertuan Agong may have been part of the ‘deep state’ structure that works to maintain Malay-Muslim hegemony in multi-cultural Malaysia (Hunter, 2021), the wide respect that Malaysians across the board, regardless of race and religion, accord the monarchy eventually won the day (Loh, 2019). With the reputation of politicians plunging in view of accelerating cases of corruption, the monarchy has emerged as a venerable institution providing much-needed checks and balances. Indeed, it was royal pressure on Muhyiddin to re-convene Parliament following the end of a COVID-19-related Emergency, and subsequent royal admonition of members of his government for refusing to debate the revocation of the Emergency ordinance, that brought about the downfall of the PN federal government—the shortest in Malaysia’s history (Jaipragas, 2021).

2.5 Conclusion

The stunning triumph of the multi-ethnic and reform-minded PH coalition in GE14 did not, as expected by some optimists, spell the end of identity politics in Malaysia as yet. On the contrary, in more ways than one it unleashed countervailing forces that sought to undermine the reformist trajectory that Malaysian politics has been undergoing since September 1998 when Prime Minister Mahathir sacked his deputy Anwar Ibrahim from the government and UMNO (Saravanamuttu, 2020).

The path of change towards a New Malaysia is not as seamless as one could imagine. Even from the early days of PH’s victory in May 2018, remnants of the old order, while showing signs of discomfort, were already preparing towards restoration of the hegemonic Malay-based ancien régime. As the black sheep of the PH family, PPBM elements, many of whom inherited and were still living with the UMNO DNA, were most vulnerable from top to bottom (Chin, 2020). Recent evidence has emerged that even PH’s then Prime Minister Mahathir was resistant to reform, as symbolized by his warning not to consecrate PH’s GE14 manifesto into a kind of scripture (Chua, 2022).

The tension between reformist and conservative wings of PH peaked towards the end of February 2020 when PPBM members and a rebel faction in PKR led by its Deputy President Mohamed Azmin Ali decisively left PH to form a new PN coalition with PAS and select UMNO leaders. Race and religion rather than universal values of democracy, justice and human rights have been of utmost significance in their list of priorities. The monarchy, meanwhile, stands as a permanent bastion to whom hegemonic stakeholders could always appeal to as a measure of last resort should signs emerge of manoeuvres being undertaken against the country’s ethno-religious foundations as immortalized by the Malay-Muslim nexuses of authority, also dubbed the ‘deep state’.