When God trumps politics, it’s last rites for Malaysia’s Opposition bloc

(Bloomberg) – Malaysia’s opposition alliance is at risk of collapse as one leader predicts “funeral rites” for the bloc after months of bickering between two of its three members.

Disunity within the seven-year-old Pakatan Rakyat alliance could benefit Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak as he fends off calls to resign from former premier Tun Mahathir Mohamad over his handling of a troubled state-run investment fund.

Pakatan Rakyat has already been tested in the past year over disagreements on governance in opposition-held Selangor state, and by the jailing of former leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy. The disparate alliance is largely held together by the goal of unseating a party that’s been in power since independence in 1957.

Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), whose conservative faction defeated moderates in party polls this month, is pushing to cut ties with the mostly ethnic-Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP), even as it plans to stay in Pakatan Rakyat.

PAS’ efforts to implement Islamic criminal law in opposition-run Kelantan state led the DAP to call it unconstitutional in secular Malaysia.

“Najib has his own set of problems within Umno and they are very serious ones,” said Ibrahim Suffian, an analyst at the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research in Kuala Lumpur, referring to the ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno).

“The PAS election results are a welcome respite for him. The fact that the opposition will not be able to function as effectively puts him at a stronger position.”

The future for Pakatan Rakyat is seen by some of its leaders as bleak.

The DAP’s parliamentary head Lim Kit Siang said his “most pessimistic forecast” of the alliance foundering seems to be coming true.

Disparate group

The group formed by three opposition parties in 2008 has sought in several elections to unseat the Barisan Nasional coalition led by Umno. The final member of the alliance is Anwar’s People’s Justice Party, known by its Malay acronym PKR. Pakatan Rakyat controls three of the country’s 13 states including two of the most prosperous.

Under PAS’s hudud laws, adulterers and apostates could face death by stoning, while those found guilty of theft could have their hands amputated. DAP’s officials have called the PAS plan to implement the Islamic penal code a “betrayal” of the opposition’s pact.

At a meeting this month, the PAS leadership declined to let members debate whether to sever ties with the DAP, drawing the ire of some who felt the move needed to be discussed to weigh the repercussions.

Accept resignations

In Penang state which the DAP runs, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said he will “immediately accept without question” the expected resignations of PAS representatives in his administration and related agencies.

PAS severing ties with the DAP but staying in the broader alliance is a “seeming self-contradictory position”, Lim said.

“Whilst I enjoy friendly and good working relations with many PAS representatives, I understand they would have to resign for ethical and moral reasons.”

A dysfunctional opposition also puts at risk the alliance’s control of Selangor, Malaysia’s most populous state which accounts for about a quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Pakatan Rakyat holds 43 of 56 Selangor state seats, of which 15 are controlled by PAS. Umno has 12, and the remaining one is held by an independent.

Deep trouble

“The Selangor government is in deep trouble,” said Mohd Hatta Ramli, a PAS member of federal parliament who describes himself as a moderate and lost his position on the central executive committee last week.

“All of this now works in Umno’s favour — the opposition pact is almost done with.”

Najib, 61, has brushed off calls from Mahathir to step down over alleged mismanagement of the economy and the performance of a state investment company whose advisory board he chairs. Regaining administrative control of Selangor, which it ceded in 2008, would benefit Najib and Barisan Nasional, which lost the popular vote in 2013 general elections even as it kept a parliamentary majority.

“We are going back to pre-1998 politics in Malaysia” where opposition parties were fractured and disorganized, Ibrahim of the Merdeka Center said.

“A time where Umno will prevail even if there is infighting and the opposition parties will be involved in three-cornered fights in elections, giving an advantage to Umno-BN.”

It makes more sense for the opposition to split now, Hatta said.

“There is three years before the next general elections, hopefully there is time to find a common stand and resolve contentious issues,” he said.

“It is better now than later.”