Prime Minister Najib Razak stands on firmer ground after gaining his first mandate in weekend elections after years of walking a tightrope between voters demanding change and resistant hardliners.
The Britain-educated economist with a patrician air took office after the ruling party dumped his predecessor over a 2008 parliamentary election performance that was the government’s worst in its now-56 years in power.
But after facing down a challenge from a multi-ethnic opposition on Sunday, and even snatching back a key state lost five years ago, Najib finally has a mandate to call his own.
On reforms, he is the emperor without any clothes
Najib, 59, is the son of a Malaysian founding father, hails from the Muslim-majority nation’s revered ethnic Malay nobility, and has served three decades in the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the country’s dominant party.
But what he really stands for, if anything, has been debated by analysts.
With pressure rising for greater political space, the mild-mannered UMNO lifer has sought to cast himself as a reformist through limited efforts including replacing security laws widely criticised as tools to stifle dissent.
But his moves are dismissed by the opposition – which has called for an end to authoritarianism and widespread corruption – as mere window-dressing and are viewed with distaste by UMNO conservatives.
Caught in the middle, Najib has avoided deep reform, and a continued flight of urban voters on Sunday suggest they still see his UMNO-dominated Barisan Nasional (National Front) regime as an arrogant, corrupt, status-quo force.