Early polls offer window of opportunity for tainted Najib

With new electoral boundaries drawn and troops being ordered to gear up for an early election, once-bitter rivals Mahathir Mohamad and jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim were recently captured in an awkward photo opp.

 

With each passing day, more signs are pointing to an early general election in Malaysia, one that Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition is bound to win. However, it is a vote he must call within the next year, or the window of opportunity will slam shut.

Much has been written about Najib’s sinking global reputation amid financial debacles at the 1 Malaysia Development (1MDB) dtate fund. However, for him and his ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition government, all that matters is Malaysia’s 13 million voters.

So far, signals point to an election in the second half of next year. For starters, the leadership of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the backbone of the BN coalition that has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957, has reportedly set a December deadline to finalise its list of candidates for the next general election.

The candidate selection, which will be supervised by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi – Najib’s No 2 – is designed to give Umno troops time to rally the party’s politically dominant rural ethnic Malay voter base.

Umno strategists are betting that cash handouts and other financial assistance schemes to blunt the sharp spike in the cost of living will help boost the party’s appeal among a Malay community whose support in the last two elections shifted to the rural-based fundamentalist Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and Parti Keadilan headed by jailed politician Anwar.

The BN is counting on the feel-good factor from big infrastructure projects such as the proposed multibillion-dollar high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. 

To be sure, there is widespread despair with the BN and Najib, whose personal popularity ratings dived below 30 per cent in several recent polls.

The Election Commission’s recent proposal to redraw constituency boundaries in ways that blatantly benefit the BN has sparked fresh debate about the uneven playing field in national elections and is expected to bring protests in November, as the pro-democracy Bersih group rallies support.

But this anger is unlikely to shift voter sentiment in a major way because the opposition is fractured, and there is deep voter discontent over the incessant politicking, particularly among the Chinese community.

There are signs that some segments of the Chinese community will swing back to the BN because of the push by the opposition Islamic party to impose punitive Islamic laws, or hudud, nationwide.

The growing sense of betrayal by PAS among the Chinese comes at a time when Najib is assiduously wooing Beijing as a chief economic patron.

Since Najib became prime minister in April 2009, Chinese state-controlled entities have secured multibillion-dollar projects, such as the second bridge linking the mainland with Penang, the Murum Dam in Sarawak and a near stranglehold on the supply of rolling stock for the country’s rail sector.

More recently, Beijing has stepped up to plug the debt burdens at 1MDB, with several Chinese state-owned corporations paying more than US$4 billion to acquire power plants and real estate projects. Najib is also leaning heavily towards China in the government’s high-speed rail project that will link Kuala Lumpur with Singapore.

Although Najib does not have to call for a national election until mid-2018, he cannot be assured that all the elements will remain in his favour for long.

The economic environment will be far more uncertain in 2018 and potential trouble spots, such as the country’s overheated property sector and concerns over the high levels of household debt, could boil over.

Najib also needs to secure a fresh mandate quickly to consolidate his hold on power after the severe mauling his reputation has taken both at home and abroad over the 1MDB fiasco.

For the moment, the premier’s clout stems from the support of Umno’s warlords because of his ability to keep the party’s patronage machine humming.

But another major scandal or an international censure similar to the recent asset forfeiture action by the United States Department of Justice could force a rethink among the party’s rank-and-file and cast Najib as a liability to the party ahead of a general vote.

There are growing tensions between the supporters of Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Zahid Hamidi, who is also Umno’s deputy president, and the party’s third-most senior leader, Najib’s cousin Hishamuddin Hussien, which could undermine the party’s unity and expose Umno to internal sabotage during the polls.

Najib’s stranglehold over Umno has helped him stay in power throughout the 1MDB debacle. Putting a lid on dissent in the party ahead of the next general election will determine how long he stays in office.