Results mean ‘profound transformation’ for Malaysia

IVY SAM, Agence France-Presse, March 10, 2008.

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KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia’s political landscape was dramatically transformed yesterday after the government slumped to its worst-ever election results, losing its two-thirds majority and four states to a buoyant opposition.

The stunning rebuke suffered by the Barisan Nasional coalition, which has governed for half a century, put a serious question mark over the future of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who faced angry calls to quit.

His government was punished over rising inflation and the mishandling of racial tensions in a result that for the first time in four decades deprives the coalition of its ability to change the constitution at will.

Mr. Abdullah was sworn in for his second term today by Malaysia’s king at the royal palace in Kuala Lumpur in a solemn ceremony.tSLinks(“topStoriesInSection”,”LAC.20080310.MALAYSIA10″,5);

But yesterday he conceded that Saturday’s results could be a vote of no-confidence in his leadership.

Opposition leader and former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, who has made a spectacular political comeback since his 1998 sacking and imprisonment, was jubilant.

“It is a new dawn for Malaysia,” he told AFP yesterday, saying it defeated the “myth” that Mr. Abdullah’s UMNO party, which leads the coalition, was invincible. “I can see some leadership turmoil happening in UMNO,” he said. “They will have to reinvent by focusing on leadership change.”

Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asian expert at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, who is here for the election, said the result represented a “profound transformation” for Malaysia.

“Abdullah’s administration did not fulfill the promises for which he had a phenomenal mandate when he came into office, and this is the main reason he’s lost a tremendous amount of support,” she said.

Ms. Welsh said the challenge would be for opposition parties to put aside their differences and work in harmony.

Barisan Nasional won 137 seats in the new 222-seat assembly.