The charging of Muhyiddin Yassin challenges the legitimacy of the ‘unity government

Lawfare is a bad strategy

Murray Hunter

The former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin charges under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act 1948 will become an unnecessary focus upon the legitimacy of Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister. As Muhyiddin has pleaded not guilty and claimed trial over the charges, the whole episode of how Anwar became prime minister will be brought to public attention once again.

Muhyiddin claimed he presented 115 statutory declarations, enough to give him the slimmest of majorities in the Dewan Rakyat. Technically, this should have been enough to win confidence of the former YDPA to commission Muhyiddin as prime minister. However, a string of events occurred where Ahmad Zahid Hamidi took UMNO (or part of Barisan Nasional’s 30 seats away) from the support Muhyiddin had, and upon this and some prodding, Sarawak GPS also switched sides.

This kept Malaysia in suspense for a number of days.

These events will be brought back to the public through this upcoming court case, and an astute defence team will make Muhyiddin’s case about the legitimacy of Anwar as prime minister.

Its fairly clear that there is a conspiracy or collusion across a number of parties to destroy Muhyiddin so he has no more standing as a leader. The entry of Royalty into the case tried to build up the issue that Muhyiddin has insulted royalty, which won’t go well for him in the Malay heartlands.

That is of course if the Malays don’t see through this plot. However, this case could dreadfully backfire, where the focus could potentially shift to Anwar’s path to the prime ministership. The upcoming case may be more likely to do damage to Anwar, while Muhyiddin’s folk hero status rises in the heartlands.

This is a bad strategy, not to mention Pakatan Harapan once opposed the Sedition Act, and cried foul when these laws were used against them.

Today, the PH crowd have won a little victory, where online portal comments have been anti-Muhyiddin. But in the heartlands Muhyiddin is becoming a hero fighting against an unjust government.

This will be a trial about Anwar’s legitimacy as PM

One only has to look at US politics to see how lawfare is going against Trump.