UMNO Already Giving Anwar Political Headaches

SINGAPORE – Anwar Ibrahim's long-time supporters always believed his rise to the premiership would mark a new era of clean governance and democratization in Malaysia.

But few anticipated that when the 75-year-old politician finally clinched the top job, his government would include the very United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party he spent the bulk of his career lambasting as corrupt and anti-democratic.

UMNO was arguably true to that critique at its recently concluded general assembly meeting, where the party's top two leadership posts were closed to a vote and its incumbent president castigated the judiciary for supposedly politically persecuting imprisoned ex-premier and UMNO stalwart Najib Razak.

While Anwar may have benefited from UMNO leader Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, his graft-accused deputy premier, maintaining his leadership position uncontested by a potential challenger opposed to cooperation with his governing Pakatan Harapan (PH) bloc, concerns are rife that the two politicians' Faustian bargain will eventually end in political betrayal.

Meanwhile, in the Borneo state of Sabah, Anwar's“unity government” faced an early stress test when a Zahid-aligned UMNO leader tried and failed to topple the state's pro-Anwar administration through political defections. While the attempted political putsch was foiled, analysts say the drama is still evolving and could have implications at the national level.

UMNO's annual congress, held between January 11-14, was closely watched ahead of postponed leadership polls that must be conducted by May. In the wake of its worst-ever general election performance in November, which prompted broad initial calls for Zahid to step down, many observers saw a challenge to his role as party president as inevitable.

Former health minister and UMNO youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin indicated that he was preparing to throw his hat into the ring for the party's top job. He described talk of a resolution to keep the party's top two positions unchallenged in leadership polls, ostensibly to avert wider internal divisions, as“madness” and warned party delegates not to“kill democracy in UMNO.”

But the assembly nonetheless concluded with a majority voting by a show of hands to leave the party's president and deputy president in place without a vote. Having sidestepped a challenge to his leadership, Zahid called for ending the“blame game” over UMNO's dismal electoral performance and criticized party members that had attempted to“betray” his leadership from within.

“There is a real sense of recognition on the part of Zahid especially that holding a party election would actually weaken and threaten him. I think this is a sign of weakness, not a sign of strength,” Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate at the University of Nottingham's Malaysia Asia Research Institute, told Asia Times.

“While much of what's going on is about protecting personal interests, and that includes many of the delegates who are close to Zahid, I do feel that there are elements in the party that feel that stopping the contest will basically stem the divisions within the party and this comes from a mindset within the party of less appreciation of democratic practices,” she added.

In his speech, the UMNO leader defended the decision to form the government with PH as consistent with the party's constitution despite a resolution at last year's assembly to never accept cooperation with Anwar or the Democratic Action Party (DAP), an ethnic Chinese majority party that has for decades been a bogeyman to the pro-Malay nationalist party.

Zahid also heaped praise on Najib, who was among several UMNO leaders who faced criminal investigation when PH won power at the 2018 general election. Najib began serving a 12-year prison sentence in August on multi-billion dollar corruption charges at the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund he founded and oversaw.

“We demand that he is given justice in court. We demand that fair justice is given to Datuk Seri Najib,” said Zahid of his former boss, under whom he also served as deputy premier from 2015-18, during his assembly speech. Zahid characterized the multiple corruption-related court cases against Najib as“political and selective prosecution.”

“Zahid remains not a popular figure in the political spectrum,” said Welsh,“and ironically, what he did reminded people of why he's unpopular: by closing down dissent and defending Najib. He got his position [as UMNO president] all because of his loyalty to and closeness to Najib. He plays the Najib card, including at this meeting, in a way that basically empowers himself.”

Many view Zahid's remarks questioning judicial independence as irresponsible given his role as the country's second-ranking political leader. He currently faces 47 charges on allegations of misappropriation of funds from a charitable foundation he established, raising questions as to whether the judiciary could come under political pressure in adjudicating his cases.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court announced on January 16 that it had rescheduled graft proceedings against the deputy premier that were initially set to take place this week and run through April. Anwar has maintained that he considers Zahid, whose role was pivotal in brokering his unity government, innocent until proven guilty.

While Zahid has been afforded some political breathing room, analysts say the intra-UMNO“no contest” resolution could backfire and deepen internal divisions ahead of six state elections that must be held by July in a further test of the party's relevance in national politics. Analysts expect Zahid's opponents to contest other important party positions at the coming leadership polls.

Barring a vote for the party's top two positions“pushes the contest over who is in power just down into the rank and file, and so now the contest over the vice presidencies and the supreme council and other positions will become even more heated, because you can't have [a contest] at the top, and it just expands the issues of the division,” Welsh told Asia Times.

Zahid faced a major setback in Sabah only days before UMNO's annual meeting when the party was dropped from the state government after his graft-accused ally Bung Moktar Radin, Sabah's UMNO chief, withdrew his support for Chief Minister Hajiji Noor's administration. Bung, who was a deputy chief minister under Hajiji, is believed to have conspired with the state opposition party Warisan.

The political coup attempt faltered after five UMNO state assemblypersons defied Bung by continuing to support Hajiji. The maneuver marked the third attempt to bring down Sabah's government in five years and was deemed serious enough for Anwar and Zahid to fly into Kota Kinabalu to try to broker a state-level unity government solution, which likewise failed.

Hajiji's opponents challenged his rule on constitutional grounds, claiming that the chief minister must also lead the political party that“won a majority of the elected seats.” Hajiji had belonged to the federal opposition Perikatan Nasional's (PN) lynchpin party, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), but quit after the November general election upon pledging support for Anwar.

Hajiji separately leads a coalition of Sabah-based parties known as Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) that was itself registered as a party after state elections in September 2020. At the time of those polls, however, GRS did not yet exist and Hajiji was elected as leader of Sabah Bersatu, of which he is no longer a member, a fact that has thrown his chief ministership into dispute.

Hajiji was able to retain a simple majority in the state assembly throughout the maneuver to topple him and announced a cabinet reshuffle on January 11 that dropped Bung and other UMNO assemblypersons involved in the putsch while excluding Warisan and including PH. Crucially, all parties involved are supporters of Anwar's government at the federal level.

Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, believes Bung, who insists Sabah UMNO does not recognize the new cabinet line-up,“is likely to be regrouping and plotting for another round of political offensive against the Hajiji administration soon,” raising the risk of Anwar being regarded as incapable of managing the team of rivals backing him.

He added that Zahid's“evident inability to shore up Bung” despite personally appealing to Hajiji that Sabah UMNO be included in the state cabinet could weaken support for his leadership within the state.“If Zahid loses out to party leaders more sympathetic to PN than PH, it could potentially change the Malaysian political landscape yet again,” the academic told Asia Times.

Follow Nile Bowie on Twitter at @nilebowie

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