KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s king is set Tuesday to meet the heads of political parties as he swiftly began the task of finding a new prime minister amid a worsening coronavirus pandemic.
The resignation Monday of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin after less than 18 months in office followed mounting public anger over what was widely perceived as his government’s poor handling of the pandemic. Malaysia has one of the world’s highest infection rates and deaths per capita, with daily cases breaching 20,000 this month despite a seven-month state of emergency and a lockdown since June.
The monarch has ruled out a general election as many parts of the country are COVID-19 red zones and health facilities are inadequate.
Muhyiddin was appointed caretaker prime minister until a successor is found.
Local media said Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah has summoned party leaders to the palace later Tuesday, all believed to be at the same time. This included parties formerly in Muhyiddin’s government as well as the opposition.
The king plays a largely ceremonial role but he appoints the person he believes has majority support of Parliament to be prime minister.
Muhyiddin took power in March 2020 after initiating the collapse of the reformist government that won 2018 elections. With a razor-thin majority in Parliament and an unstable coalition, he held office less than 18 months, making him the country’s shortest-ruling leader.
Before choosing Muhyiddin, Sultan Abdullah interviewed all 222 lawmakers individually then sought nominations from party leaders in an arduous selection process. His choice of Muhyiddin as the prime minister was disputed by the predecessor he ousted, Mahathir Mohamad, and the opposition.
An official from Mahathir’s party confirmed it has been invited to the meeting Tuesday.
The selection this time will be another tough chore for the monarch because no coalition can claim a majority. The three-party alliance that is the biggest opposition bloc has nominated its leader, Anwar Ibrahim. But the bloc has less than 90 lawmakers, short of the 111 needed for a simple majority. That’s also less than the 100 lawmakers believed to have backed Muhyiddin.
Other contenders include former Deputy Prime Minister Ismail who is from the United Malays National Organization, the biggest party in Muhyiddin’s alliance.
Local media said another possible candidate is Razaleigh Hamzah, an 84-year-old prince who was a former finance minister. Razaleigh, an UMNO lawmaker, is seen as a neutral candidate who could unite the warring factions in UMNO.
A leader from eastern Sabah state on Borneo island, Shafie Apdal, has also been named in the race. It is unlikely as his party only has 8 lawmakers but some say a leader from Borneo may be seen as acceptable to all.
But Mahathir, 96, has called for a national recovery council to be formed and led mainly by professionals to resolve the country’s economic and health crises.
The Bersih electoral reform group urged contenders to pursue political stability by offering multi-partisan governance and institutional reforms, and not just horse-trading over numbers and positions.
“The endless political machination due to winner-takes-all politics in a de facto hung parliament for the past one and a half year must now end to enable a more effective governance of health and economy. The new Prime Minister must quickly convene a special meeting and table a motion of confidence in himself to prove his majority,” it said in a statement.
It warned that a short-sighted and self-serving government would be punished by voters in the next election.
Malaysia’s king to meet political leaders to find new PM
https://arab.news/mn8xz
Malaysia’s king to meet political leaders to find new PM
- Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah has summoned party leaders to the palace later Tuesday
China’s top diplomat to visit Somalia on Africa tour
- Stop in Mogadishu provides diplomatic boost after Israel formally recognized breakaway Somaliland
- Tour focusses on Beijing's strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa
BEIJING: China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing on strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa as Beijing seeks to secure key shipping routes and resource supply lines.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by US trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure program and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2 percent this year.
China, the world’s largest bilateral lender, faces growing competition from the European Union to finance African infrastructure, as countries hit by pandemic-era debt strains now seek investment over loans.
“The real litmus test for 2026 isn’t just the arrival of Chinese investment, but the ‘Africanization’ of that investment. As Wang Yi visits hubs like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the conversation must move beyond just building roads to building factories,” said Judith Mwai, policy analyst at Development Reimagined, an Africa-focussed consultancy.
“For African leaders, this tour is an opportunity to demand that China’s ‘small yet beautiful’ projects specifically target our industrial gaps, turning African raw materials into finished products on African soil, rather than just facilitating their exit,” she added.
On his start-of-year trip in 2025, Wang visited Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Nigeria.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
Beijing, which reiterated its support for Somalia after the Israeli announcement in December, is keen to reinforce its influence around the Gulf of Aden, the entrance to the Red Sea and a vital corridor for Chinese trade transiting the Suez Canal to Europe.
Further south, Tanzania is central to Beijing’s plan to secure access to Africa’s vast copper deposits. Chinese firms are refurbishing the Tazara Railway that runs through the country into Zambia. Li Qiang made a landmark trip to Zambia in November, the first visit by a Chinese premier in 28 years.
The railway is widely seen as a counterweight to the US and European Union-backed Lobito Corridor, which connects Zambia to Atlantic ports via Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
By visiting the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Wang aims to highlight Beijing’s push to position itself as a champion of free trade. Last year, China offered tariff-free market access to its $19 trillion economy for the world’s poorest nations, fulfilling a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing.
Lesotho, one of the world’s poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, was among the countries hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year, facing duties of up to 50 percent on its exports to the United States.
