Problems Still There, but Malaysia’s Ruling Coalition Just Keeps Rolling Along

Up a flight of grimy stairs, just beyond the neighborhood palmist, Lee Lam Thye, member of Parliament, sat at his weathered desk in the district office, head in hands.

His Democratic Action Party had scored well in Sunday’s national election, more than doubling the number of seats that it has in Parliament, and Lee, the deputy party leader, has had little sleep since.

“We’ll be even more active,” he said, glancing up at a visitor. “We’ll have to triple up on the role we’ve been playing.”

The Democratic Action Party leads the opposition in Parliament, where despite Sunday’s success it is still overwhelmed by the ruling National Front coalition of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed.

Outside Lee’s office, workers were removing posters that had been strung across the streets like laundry. They bore the party’s campaign rallying cry: “Deny the Two-thirds.” Against the powerful National Front, the best the opposition had hoped for was to trim the majority to the point where it could not automatically adopt amendments to Malaysia’s constitution.

Kept Big Majority

It failed. Mahathir’s coalition easily retained its two-thirds majority, and the prime minister told an election night victory party, “The administration of the country has been disrupted by groups who made issues of certain policies. . . . Now that the (National Front) has got its victory, we will implement them.”

Lee, whose party has been sharply critical of Mahathir policies, said, in the same vein, “We will continue what we’ve been doing.” So the prospect for Malaysian politics in the years ahead is continued domination by the front that has led the country since independence in 1963, with an outnumbered opposition nipping at its heels.

But the problems that helped to force the election will remain, primarily the division of political and economic power among Malaysia’s racial and cultural groups.

One of these problems, Islamic fundamentalism, was defused in Sunday’s voting. Half the country’s 16 million people are Muslim Malays, the bulwark of the moderate, multiparty National Front. The opposition Islamic Party of Malaysia, strong in the “Malay belt” of the north, campaigned for an Islamic state. It won just one of the 177 seats in Parliament.

Another problem pits the Chinese community, which accounts for about 35% of the population, against the Malay majority. The Chinese complain about provisions in Mahathir’s economic and social plans designed to assure a special status for Malays--a quota of scarce places in the universities, for instance, or a required share of the equity in business enterprises.

Lee said his party’s gains, primarily in Chinese urban areas, were a protest vote, “tantamount to a rejection of these policies.”

Last May, Mahathir told an Australian interviewer that if the country records no economic growth--and it has not for more than a year--”there cannot be a redistribution of wealth” and the pro-Malay policies would have to be “held in abeyance” in certain areas. But the statement was never published in Malaysia’s coalition-controlled press, and Mahathir said nothing similar in the campaign or since.

The third major racial group, which consists of Indians, accounts for only 10% of the population and lacks a strong political voice. The Indians, according to Paul Chan, an economist, “are hidden behind the trees on the (rubber) plantations and in the squalor of the slums.” An Indian party is part of the National Front.

Beyond problems among the racial communities, Mahathir faces the normal difficulties of balancing a multiparty coalition--allocating constituencies and Cabinet seats.

He also must deal with potential divisions within his own party, the United Malay National Organization. When he came to power in 1981, the stiff and sometimes arrogant Mahathir and his easygoing deputy prime minister, Musa Hitam, were considered the best and the brightest, a fresh wind taking over from the old-time politicians who had run the coalition for nearly two decades. They became known as the two Ms, and were reputed to be close colleagues.

But last spring, Musa quit his government post and appeared to be positioning himself to become the next prime minister if Mahathir proved to be incapable of withstanding the political fire of economic scandals and allegations of high-level corruption, none directed at Mahathir himself.

Musa was easily reelected to Parliament on Sunday, but with no more than a statistical mention in the press and a backhanded reference in the election editorial of the New Straits Times, the establishment daily owned by Mahathir’s party. The victory, it said, “reflects the faith the people have in the coalition. . . . Their trust stems from the confidence they have that the one-M government really works.”

Some politicians here say that Musa, 52 and nine years Mahathir’s junior, has time on his side. Others say he gambled and lost.

Once his new government is formed, Mahathir’s most immediate task will be to revive the economy. After years of steady growth, Malaysia, a major exporter of rubber, tin and palm oil, is staggering as the result of collapsing prices in all three markets. Light industry, including assembly work for foreign companies, has been hurt by recession in the industrial countries.

Chan, the economist, credits the government with taking quick action to try to counter the collapse in commodity prices. But he said the economic salvage work has yet to take hold. Appeals for foreign investment have run afoul of confusion on regulations, including the pro-Malay policies.

“It’s a matter of de-politicizing the system and sending clear signals to the foreigners,” Chan said.

Sunday’s results may quiet some foreign fears--many analysts here interpreted the new Mahathir mandate as a vote for stability--but even Malaysians remain skittish on investment.

“The problem is confidence,” Chan explained, referring mainly to the Chinese community. Capital flight, he said, “is sort of a public secret.”

Chinese Students Go Abroad

Meanwhile, lines of Chinese students form every day at the U.S. and Australian embassies seeking information on colleges abroad, complaining that the Malay quota here--a sort of affirmative action for the majority--is barring them from places for which they are academically more qualified.

Some problems are laid to the personality of the prime minister, a physician-politician whose skin seems to be getting thinner with every year in office. He is a man of ideas, not all of them good, his critics say.

“He just comes up with these things, puts them in motion and never looks back,” a mid-level Malaysian bureaucrat said. “If he did, he would see some messes.”

An example is the celebrated national car, the Proton, which was introduced last year. It is made here, with Japanese components. So far, the Proton has lost money on every unit sold.

Four years ago, Mahathir led his National Front coalition to a landslide victory at a time of burgeoning economic progress. On Sunday, although these are troubled times, the front did almost as well, winning 83% of the seats in Parliament.