Miracle in South-East Asia !

Last week brought a change of government in Malaysia and it came at the ballot box and not by way of civil war and it brought to an end sixty-one years of one party rule.  What is significant is that this change of government came from within that ruling party when a former prime minister emerged from retirement to rally the population and reform a regime of endemic corruption.

This resurrection reads like something from a Hollywood movie.  When the state of Malaya gained independence from Britain it joined with Singapore as a united entity which soon fell apart. Singapore ended the relationship and went its own way very successfully while Malaysia tried to balance the aspirations of its predominantly Malay population with its Chinese and Indian minorities.

As its former prime minister, Mathathir Mohamad was an acerbic leader who frequently clashed with other world leaders.  He groomed his deputy, Anwar Ibraihim as his successor but the two men fell out and Mathathir had Anwar jailed on a trumped up dishonesty charge

.  When Anwar emerged from prison he quickly became the leader of the opposition to  Najib Razak, another who Mathathir had sponsored for leadership before his retirement.

Malaysia has increasingly become adept at holding onto power by the old guard.  Critical newspapers have been silenced and standing in opposition brings peril.  Anwar was on the cusp of winning power when he was jailed again on trumped up sodomy charges - and is still in prison.  The king of Malaysia has indicated that he will issue a pardon and Mathathir has  promised to step aside for his elevation to the prime ministership.  Mathathir is ninety-two years old.

The defeat of this long standing government came as a shock.  They seemed unassailable. with control of the media that virtually closed down most forms of opposition communication with the public, but a festering case of sensational fraud was foremost in voters minds.  An ingenious  electronic robbery had stolen billions of dollars from the states IMDB sovereign wealth fund and millions unexpectedly reappeared in the prime minsters personal bank account.   This was unconvincedly explained away as a personal loan from an unnamed Middle Eastern friend, but the robbery remains unsolved.

There is the expectation that Malaysian politics will now tread a predictable path.  Mathathir will await Anwar emerging from those sodomy charges and hand over power to his former deputy.  Sixty-one years of corruption will be swept away and a shining new administration will emerge that takes Malaysia to prosperity in this twenty-first century.

That old guard is dug in deeply and it will resist change.  One of the problems is that the government apparatus has had no experience of doing things in any other way than under the direction of the people in power and it will take time and immense effort to change course to new directions.  There is also the risk that in adopting change the balance between the more populous Malays and the other ethnic minorities may become unsettled.

Those with high expectations might be well advised to wait until the dust settles to see how this change of tack turns out !