On the surface, the recent six-state elections on August 12 ended in a tie.
The status quo has been maintained.
The ruling coalition, headed by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, managed to maintain control over the three states it previously governed, while the opposition, led by former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, secured the other three.
However, a closer analysis reveals troubling signs for the ruling coalition. The results distinctly underscore that Anwar Ibrahim is leading without the support of the Malay population. Although the final outcome was a 3-3 split, the ruling coalition secured its three states with a weaker majority, whereas the opposition claimed its three states with a more robust support. The ruling coalition retained its states with fewer seats, whereas the opposition governs its states with a larger number of seats. While the opposition has made advancements in all the states controlled by the ruling government, the government failed to make any headway in even one of the states governed by the opposition.
Most significantly, the state election results unambiguously and without a doubt indicates that Anwar Ibrahim lacks the backing of the Malays, who constitute the majority ethnic group in Malaysia. In essence, Anwar Ibrahim is running the country with the backing of minority ethnic groups, as the Malays have evidently thrown their support behind the opposition.
In Malaysian politics, an unwritten rule prevails: to rule the federation, one must rule the peninsular, and to control the peninsular, one must have the support of the Malays.
The tenure of our three preceding Prime Ministers, namely Mahathir, Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri, well all cut short due to their inability to secure Malay support.
Anwar Ibrahim's dual failures – first in the general election last November and again in the state elections on August 12 – to secure the Malay mandate underscore the vulnerability of his administration to potential coups.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a columnist at FMT, a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, a mathematics teacher in the Klang Valley and a seeker of the meaning of life. So far, there are three things that he holds to be unequivocally true. The first is that the purpose of life is to pursue happiness, the second is that you cannot be happy unless you carry your fair share of the world's weight and the third is that you can never underestimate your ability to take your own side.
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