Kuala Lumpur: After a checkered victory in Saturday’s state elections that saw strong gains by the Malay-Islamist opposition, analysts say Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim faces a daunting task in uniting an increasingly polarized nation and strengthening his nascent unity government.
Anwar’s multi-coalition unity government and the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN) bloc, that includes the conservative Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, retained control of three states each, as widely expected. While the PN bloc, led by former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, failed to alter the status quo, it did make major inroads in the government-controlled states and nearly swept all the seats on its own turf on the back of continous support from the ethnic Malay majority.
PN took 60 per cent of the 245 state assembly seats contested, relying on the contention that Anwar and his multiethnic coalition would not protect Malays and Islam. Still, analysts said Sunday that what mattered was that Anwar had successfully kept control of the three richer and more developed states despite a strong opposition campaign.
In power for only eight months, Anwar has not yet won public confidence amid a rising cost of living and a slowing economy. Although his government has a two-thirds majority in Parliament, he was seeking to shore up support among Malay voters. While his Pakatan Harapan alliance generally held on to its political base, his ally in the government, the United Malays National Organization, suffered another routing after losing the majority of the Malay seats.