Malaysia: snap election if parliament can’t decide Mahathir-Anwar stalemate

King finds neither interim prime minister Mahathir Mohamad nor his on-off rival Anwar Ibrahim commands a distinct majority

Parliament will be asked to vote next week – and if it fails to break the deadlock an election will be called

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Mahathir Mohamad, interim Prime Minister of Malaysia. Photo: BERNAMA/dpa

Published: 12:05pm, 27 Feb 2020Updated: 8:44am, 28 Feb 2020

Snap elections will be called if Malaysia’s 222-member parliament cannot decide next week who they back as leader, interim prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday, in a sign the political uncertainty gripping the country is set to continue.

Mahathir, who resigned on Monday but was reappointed as caretaker prime minister hours later, said the country’s monarch had spent the past two days speaking to lawmakers to determine who had the support of the majority but was not able to reach a conclusion.

“[The king] says that the right forum will be the parliament … so Dewan Rakyat [the lower house] will be called on the second of next month in order to determine who gets the majority support to become the next prime minister. However if the Dewan Rakyat fails to find a person with the majority, then we will have to go for a snap election,” Mahathir said after launching an economic stimulus package to offset the effects of the coronavirus.

Mahathir said he was prepared to accept someone else as prime minister, including his party president Muhyiddin Yassin. “If everybody chooses him, I am OK.”

He also underlined his wish for a non-partisan government, saying the prime minister was entitled to choose members of his cabinet.

“He can choose any member that will not be tied to any particular party. All the parties will have some representative in the cabinet,” he said.

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