Save M’sia movement to oust Najib too fragile to last?

Foreign Policy said many of Mahathir’s allies suspected the veteran politician was only interested in orchestrating Najib’s downfall and nothing more.

(FMT) – The Save Malaysia movement to unseat the prime minister is an “unlikely coalition” that while probably causing Najib Razak “real problems”, appears too fragile to last, global politics and economy magazine Foreign Policy wrote recently.

In a commentary titled: “Is Malaysia’s single-party state starting to crack?”, the US-based magazine highlighted the Save Malaysia movement led by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, as well as what he and his allies hoped to achieve.

Speaking about the group’s preparation to tour Malaysia’s rural states in a bid to deny Najib the support of ethnic Malays he has long enjoyed, the commentary added, “The 90-year-old Mahathir is most likely gambling that he can convince powerful figures within Umno, such as Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, that Najib’s position is untenable and that they should try to arrange a face-saving exit for him before the next general election, which must be held before 2018.”

The movement has even garnered the support of former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed by Mahathir, the commentary pointed out, while quoting former Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim as saying members of the movement were wary of going overboard in their bid to remove Najib and risk a draconian government response instead.

“We don’t want to go to jail if we can avoid it,” Zaid was quoted as saying.

Despite pressure from Mahathir’s new alliance, Najib still enjoyed the upper hand, as he still commanded rural votes, Foreign Policy pointed out.

“There’s also the possibility that Mahathir’s fragile alliance will crack before it achieves its aims.

“Some who have joined aren’t just interested in seeing a change at the top of the government, they’re demanding the rollback of the divide-and-rule ethnic policies practiced for decades by the ethnic Malay-dominated government,” Foreign Policy said, noting however that many of Mahathir’s allies suspected the veteran politician was only interested in orchestrating Najib’s downfall and nothing more.

The commentary also said Mahathir was hoping his strong allegations of financial corruption at 1Malaysia Development Berhad to which he linked the prime minister to would be sufficient to bring Najib down. “But there’s reason to doubt, regardless of the name of his movement, whether that will be sufficient to Save Malaysia.”