Malaysia’s Muhyiddin has mastered dodging the opposition – but will a showdown with the king prove his undoing?
- The embattled prime minister has nimbly avoided repeated efforts to unseat him, but the monarch’s unprecedented rebuke last week has raised eyebrows
- Analysts say Muhyiddin is unlikely to be sacked – but some feel Australia’s 1975 constitutional crisis shows a path to do so within the Commonwealth
In unprecedented fashion, the constitutional monarch last week publicly chastised the Perikatan Nasional government over what he said was a deliberate attempt to mislead parliament over the status of emergency powers.
There was a growing consensus that “Muhyiddin has become, in a sense, a rogue prime minister and that it’s time [for Sultan Abdullah] to dismiss him,” said political analyst Oh Ei Sun.
On Monday, the country’s deep political dysfunction once again grabbed global headlines as opposition lawmakers briefly faced off with riot police as they tried to march to the parliament building.
All members of parliament were informed over the weekend that Monday’s proceedings, the final part of a planned five-day session, would be postponed, but opposition groups insisted on gathering to enter the premises.