Here’s why Dr Mahathir is taking on the Sultan of Johor

Political analyst says it all boils down to winning Johor state, getting rid of Najib and scoring a point against royalty.

(FMT) – The real reason Dr Mahathir Mohamad is taking on the Sultan of Johor is to win the next general election, according to a political analyst.

By criticising China’s investments in Johor, especially the Forest City project, Dr Mahathir hopes to get rural Malays angry enough to vote for his newly-formed Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia and wrest Johor, at the very least, from Umno.

Two other reasons are Dr Mahathir’s desire to remove Prime Minister Najib Razak from office and his feud with royalty.

This is the view of Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a fellow and associate editor of Contemporary Southeast Asia at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, and a lecturer at the University Scholars Programme of the National University of Singapore.

Writing in the South China Morning Post, Mustafa says Dr Mahathir and those wanting to dislodge Umno see the Forest City project as a political godsend.

Forest City is a RM443 billion mixed property development project which is expected to be completed in 30 years.

China’s Country Garden has partnered Esplanade Danga 88, an associate company of Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor, which is the southern state’s investment arm. The largest shareholder of Esplanade Danga 88 is Johor ruler Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar.

The project is expected to house about 700,000 people on four artificial islands.

Mustafa sees three reasons for Dr Mahathir’s willingness to take on Sultan Ibrahim.

The first, he says, is Dr Mahathir’s “distaste” for Prime Minister Najib Razak and Najib’s wooing of investments from China, which the former prime minister claims is akin to “selling Malaysia to China”.

Second, the Forest City development is taking place in Johor, which PPBM has chosen as its home base.

It hopes to win Johor in the next general election and unseat Umno from its birthplace.

“Making those inroads hinges on wooing the Malay vote, especially in rural areas, away from Umno,” says Mustafa.

“Bersatu’s (PPBM’s) endgame is two-tiered. The first tier is to dislodge Umno from controlling the Johor state assembly by entering into some loose pact with the opposition, and in so doing, breaking the back of Umno.

“The second tier is to dislodge Mr Najib from government by either winning the national election, or narrowing Mr Najib’s winning margin in such a way his position becomes politically untenable both within his party and in government.”

Mustafa adds: “Dr Mahathir hopes that by playing on fears that Mr Najib is selling off Malaysia’s sovereignty (or simply Malay land to China), and suggesting the country is becoming a satellite state of Beijing, he can gain traction with the largely conservative rural Malay support base in Johor and beyond”.

He notes that Dr Mahathir has also peddled the alarmist view that Malaysia will be overrun by an influx of Chinese workers and residents who will “unbalance Malaysia’s constitutionally-enshrined ethnic quotas”.

Mustafa says a sizeable portion of conservative Malays remain apprehensive of Chinese Malaysians and a Sino-centric regional order, underpinned by a rising China.

As such, he sees this issue of “Malaysia selling its economic soul to China” as likely to be a hot-button issue during the election.

Mustafa thinks non-Malay opposition politicians are also likely to make it an electoral issue, but by arguing that the real concern over the funding from Beijing is whether it is finding its way to all Malaysians, regardless of race, or whether it benefits only the elites.

The third reason Dr Mahathir spoke out against the Johor Sultan, says Mustafa, is the historical animosity between him and Malaysia’s royalty.

“It was Dr Mahathir who launched a public campaign to curb the excesses of royalty and remove the sultans’ immunity from criminal prosecution after two assault cases involving the Johor royal family in the 1990s.”

More recently, Mustafa notes, Sultan Ibrahim rebuked Dr Mahathir for his criticism of the state’s Bangsa Johor concept, which bases its development on fostering unity through respect for race, religion and culture.

“Regarding their latest feud, Dr Mahathir’s grandstanding appears based on a mix of his anti-Najib sentiment and his long-standing contempt for royalty. For the Johor ruler, it is more about safeguarding his state from the parochial and racial politics of Dr Mahathir, so as to protect and promote the Bangsa Johor way of life.”

Mustafa says the real takeaway from the spat is how deeply entrenched racialised politics has become in Malaysia.

“With elections looming, all parties are likely to ramp up the racial and religious undertones of their campaigns to garner votes. That in turn suggests a likely rise in monarchical activism as a vanguard against the ethno-religious polarisation of state-society relations.”