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Malaysia
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Malaysia’s political turmoil: Muhyiddin Yassin retains crucial backing from Umno

  • The prime minister’s allies from the United Malays National Organisation say they will continue to support him after a late-night meeting on Monday
  • Muhyiddin’s future had been cast into doubt after the country’s king rejected his unilateral plan to declare a national emergency

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Malaysia's Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin gestures after the March announcement of his cabinet. Photo: EPA
Tashny Sukumaranin Kuala LumpurandBhavan Jaipragasin Hong Kong
Malaysia’s embattled Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has retained the crucial backing of his ruling coalition’s biggest component party, putting an end to earlier speculation that he would be forced out of the job following disgruntlement among key allies over his now-aborted plan to suspend parliament and indefinitely rule by decree.
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In a statement, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the leader of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) – whose 39 MPs form the biggest bloc in Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional alliance – said the party would continue to back the prime minister as cooperation with the opposition bloc led by veteran politician Anwar Ibrahim was out of the question.

Zahid added that his party would refine its cooperation with the ruling alliance based on the values of “respect and political consensus”. His remarks followed a closely watched meeting of Umno’s Supreme Council that ended in the early hours of Tuesday.

Expectations earlier had been that Umno would declare support for Anwar, leader of the opposition Pakatan Harapan alliance.

But in his statement, Zahid said working with Anwar’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat and its ally, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), was untenable.

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Najib Razak, the scandal-tainted former prime minister and party grandee, was among those who suggested on Monday that Umno was open to cooperating with Anwar. He however drew a line on working with the DAP, a decades-long Umno rival that draws most of its support from the country’s minority Chinese community.

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