Malaysian politicians started running for office on Saturday. The current Prime Minister, Ismail Sabri, will be running against veterans Anwar Ibrahim and Muhyiddin Yassin in what is expected to be a close race.
Polls and experts say that no single party or coalition will win a simple majority in the 222-seat parliament. Instead, they say, opposing alliances will have to work together to form the next government.
Around 21 million Malaysians are old enough to vote in the election on November 19. With the economy slowing down, inflation and recent political instability are at the top of their minds. Since the last election in 2018, Malaysia has had three heads of government.
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Ismail, the former prime minister Muhyiddin, and Anwar, who has been in the opposition for a long time, all lead coalitions that are in competition with each other. Several other parties are also running, including one that was started by another former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad. This is likely to split the votes even more than usual.
Adib Zalkapli, a director at the political consulting firm Bower Group Asia, said, “This is the first time we’ve seen three coalitions with experienced leaders that are all strong.”
He said it was likely that the polls wouldn’t show a clear winner and that coalitions would have to work together to form a government.
The state news agency Bernama said that Prime Minister Ismail, who is part of the Barisan Nasional coalition, said that there was no easy way to win a seat in parliament in this election.
On Saturday, he and other leaders turned in their nominations, which officially started the two-week campaigning period.
The election is happening at a time when the Malaysian economy is expected to slow down because of a global slowdown. This will make it harder for the economy to recover from the slump caused by the pandemic. Also, inflation is going up, and this week the Malaysian central bank raised interest rates for the fourth time in a row.
POLITICAL INFIGHTING
In 2018, the opposition in Malaysia worked together to defeat Barisan, which had been in power since the country got rid of British rule and had never lost an election.
When Najib Razak was in charge of Barisan, there was a lot of anger about the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal and other allegations of corruption. Najib started his 12-year prison sentence for bribery this year.
Anwar, Muhyiddin, and Mahathir were part of the opposition at the time, but their alliance fell apart after only 22 months in power because of fights between them. When it comes to this election, the leaders are not working together.
Graft-tainted After the opposition alliance fell apart, Barisan came back to power as part of a new alliance.
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A poll by the independent Merdeka Center showed on Friday that no single coalition will be able to win a majority. Instead, three or more coalitions will have to work together to form a new government.
The poll also showed that, of the three major coalitions, voters liked Anwar’s the most (26%), but almost 31% of voters still hadn’t decided who they would vote for. At 24%, Barisan came in second.