Malaysia: Mahathir's Last Hurrah?

Summary

Nineteen ninety-five saw Malaysia's ruling coalition achieving its greatest electoral triumph ever in the country's nine general elections since independence. Riding on a wave of national euphoria produced by eight successive years of high growth, improving ethnic relations and widening international respect, the Barisan Nasional (National Front) easily swamped the opposition in the parliamentary and state assembly elections held on 24–25 April. The fourteen-party multiracial coalition substantially increased its support among the hitherto pro- opposition Chinese and Indian minority while consolidating its preeminent position among the dominant Malays. Although the Barisan failed to lure Sabah's Christian Kadazan/Dusun population away from Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS, or United Sabah Party), and made relatively little headway against its old religious rival, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), in the largely agricultural northern Malay heartland states, its overall performance lent unprecedented credibility to its claim to be the party of all Malaysians, and shattered the Democratic Action Party (DAP), hitherto the chief representative of non-Malays in the country.

For Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's Prime Minister since 1981, the results were a massive popular endorsement of his post-1990 policy of subordinating racial redistribution to national growth and development, and he proceeded accordingly, simultaneously pressing his plans to turn Malaysia into a fully industrialized nation by the year 2020, and urging greater efforts to improve inter-ethnic harmony and strengthen national unity. But any hopes Dr Mahathir, who is seventy, might have had that he, and the country, could now leave off politicking to concentrate fully on the business of development were soon dashed by the intense manoeuvring in his core United Malays National Organization (UMNO) ahead of its triennial election in 1996, and by renewed speculation about his relations with his protégé and deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, who is forty-eight. Rumours of a possible bid against Dr Mahathir as party president only ended in late November after he announced to the UMNO general assembly that it would “not be long” before he had to step down and that Anwar would succeed him.