If a week is a long time in politics – as the former UK prime minister Harold Wilson once observed – then Malaysia has just demonstrated how much can happen in only three days.
The reformist government that was elected two years ago has collapsed. An alternative ethnic Malay-dominated coalition that would have dented Malaysia’s reputation as a multicultural, multi-faith country has been proposed instead. Moreover, the prospect of Malaysia evolving into an issues-based democracy, instead of one dominated by personalities and intrigue has suffered a devastating setback.
From May 2018 until his shock resignation on Monday, Malaysia was ruled under a coalition government by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who also served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003. Dr Mahathir’s most recent tenure in office was initially meant to be a caretaker government while his protege and designated successor, Anwar Ibrahim, awaited release from prison a royal pardon for a sodomy conviction.
The relationship between Dr Mahathir and Mr Anwar, however, has long been fraught and complicated, and many believe that the former is resisting attempts to hand power to the latter.
Last Friday, the presidential council of Dr Mahathir’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) party met to discuss a plan for the prime minister to step down and make way for Mr Anwar, who leads the People’s Justice Party (PKR), to finally take office.
By the end of Monday, however, PH's coalition government had fallen apart. One party left and another splintered – hoping to form a new government by allying with the main opposition parties. Dr Mahathir had been assumed to be behind the move, not least because the party that left – Bersatu – was set up as his own vehicle to return to politics. But he refuted the claims, handed in his resignation to Malaysia's king in protest and left his own party for good measure.
As the dust is settling, two things are clear.
Whereas previously, many were pressuring 94-year-old Dr Mahathir to set a date for his departure quickly, suddenly it appears that every MP from every party wants him to remain prime minister, and mostly for as long as he wants.
Moreover, Mr Anwar’s chances of succeeding him are looking slimmer than ever.
Many will see the current political turmoil solely through the Mahathir-Anwar lens. The pair's relationship goes back to 1982, when Dr Mahathir was a newly-minted prime minister and brought Mr Anwar, then a firebrand youth leader, into the government he headed at the time, under the Barisan Nasional (BN) party.
Mr Anwar advanced swiftly through the ranks, becoming a minister the following year, finance minister in 1991 and deputy prime minister in 1993. Five years later, though, he was sacked from all his posts and later convicted of sodomy and corruption.
Mr Anwar’s supporters claimed the charges were inflated, and the sodomy conviction was later reversed. Partisans of Dr Mahathir have claimed that Mr Anwar, although by that time already designated the former’s successor, was impatient and was trying to force his mentor from office. They point out further that he was convicted in the first instance and therefore guilty as charged.
In the two decades afterwards, Mr Anwar led a new movement for reform and came close to defeating the long-ruling BN coalition in 2013. Dr Mahathir officially retired in 2002, but handpicked the next two prime ministers – Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak – before becoming dissatisfied with them and using his influence to force them out of office.
Mr Najib’s premiership ended in May 2018, when the PH-led opposition – with, in a dramatic turn of events, Dr Mahathir at the helm – turfed BN out of office for the first time ever in a general election. This was not in the least due to the fact that Mr Anwar (who was back in prison for a second time) agreed to set the past aside, re-join Dr Mahathir’s ranks and assist his efforts against Mr Najib.
This was when Dr Mahathir's caretaker government began, as per his agreement with Mr Anwar. Dr Mahathir was meant to cede power after six months, pending Mr Anwar's receipt of a royal pardon and release from prison. Mr Anwar was cleared and freed shortly after the election, but nearly two years on, the handover of government never occurred.
Mr Anwar, meanwhile, has kept smiling while telling everyone not to fuss about the succession plan. But many suspect that the rapprochement between him and the prime minister is not real, and that their deal will go unfulfilled. Instead, Dr Mahathir might favour Azmin Ali, Mr Anwar's deputy in PKR.
And so to this weekend, when leaders of several factions went to the royal palace to tell the king that together they represent a majority in parliament and should be allowed to form a new government with Dr Mahathir at the helm.
Read More from Sholto Byrnes
The group represents almost entirely ethnically Malay and some Islamist-leaning political bodies, and would have a good chance of securing the more than 50 per cent Malay-Muslim vote. For BN politicians currently facing graft charges, there would be hope that the cases would be quietly dropped.
But all of this, according to Mr Anwar, has been done falsely in the current prime minister’s name. Dr Mahathir would not work with what he regards as the corrupt BN, Mr Anwar claims. The fact that he resigned – he is acting prime minister at the moment – and left his own party gives credence to the idea that overeager subordinates have gotten ahead of themselves.
On the other hand, Dr Mahathir has switched sides before in order to maintain his influence and top position.
With the departure of the mutineers, PH has lost its majority. Mr Anwar and Lim Guan Eng, the leader of the mainly Chinese DAP – which is also part of the crumbling PH-led alliance – have pleaded with Dr Mahathir to save the coalition. The opposition’s plan, they claim, is to woo him onto their side and to sideline non-Malays and non-Muslims from government.
Just what will happen in the coming days, when a new government must be formed, is unclear. But so far there is only one beneficiary: Dr Mahathir, who will have his pick of parties and politicians, with a new, devoted administration that will not require any promises about handovers.
The details of the plotting and “betrayals”, as Mr Anwar calls them, will also emerge. But for now, the doctor has consolidated his grip as Malaysia’s leading political force.
Sholto Byrnes is a commentator and consultant in Kuala Lumpur and a corresponding fellow of the Erasmus Forum
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Company name: baraka
Started: July 2020
Founders: Feras Jalbout and Kunal Taneja
Based: Dubai and Bahrain
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $150,000
Current staff: 12
Stage: Pre-seed capital raising of $1 million
Investors: Class 5 Global, FJ Labs, IMO Ventures, The Community Fund, VentureSouq, Fox Ventures, Dr Abdulla Elyas (private investment)
Like a Fading Shadow
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez
Tuskar Rock Press (pp. 310)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
THE TWIN BIO
Their favourite city: Dubai
Their favourite food: Khaleeji
Their favourite past-time : walking on the beach
Their favorite quote: ‘we rise by lifting others’ by Robert Ingersoll
Mina Cup winners
Under 12 – Minerva Academy
Under 14 – Unam Pumas
Under 16 – Fursan Hispania
Under 18 – Madenat
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The biog
Name: Fareed Lafta
Age: 40
From: Baghdad, Iraq
Mission: Promote world peace
Favourite poet: Al Mutanabbi
Role models: His parents
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The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
South Africa squad
Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wicketkeeper), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
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if you go
The flights
Emirates have direct flights from Dubai to Glasgow from Dh3,115. Alternatively, if you want to see a bit of Edinburgh first, then you can fly there direct with Etihad from Abu Dhabi.
The hotel
Located in the heart of Mackintosh's Glasgow, the Dakota Deluxe is perhaps the most refined hotel anywhere in the city. Doubles from Dh850
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Events and tours
There are various Mackintosh specific events throughout 2018 – for more details and to see a map of his surviving designs see glasgowmackintosh.com
For walking tours focussing on the Glasgow Style, see the website of the Glasgow School of Art.
More information
For ideas on planning a trip to Scotland, visit www.visitscotland.com
IF YOU GO
The flights
FlyDubai flies direct from Dubai to Skopje in five hours from Dh1,314 return including taxes. Hourly buses from Skopje to Ohrid take three hours.
The tours
English-speaking guided tours of Ohrid town and the surrounding area are organised by Cultura 365; these cost €90 (Dh386) for a one-day trip including driver and guide and €100 a day (Dh429) for two people.
The hotels
Villa St Sofija in the old town of Ohrid, twin room from $54 (Dh198) a night.
St Naum Monastery, on the lake 30km south of Ohrid town, has updated its pilgrims' quarters into a modern 3-star hotel, with rooms overlooking the monastery courtyard and lake. Double room from $60 (Dh 220) a night.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets