By Farish A. Noor

The by-elections in Malaysia this week have demonstrated in many ways the fact that Malaysia’s political landscape has changed very little over the past year: The ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) that is dominated by the UMNO party won the by-election in East Malaysia, but lost both by-elections in the West Malaysian states of Perak and Kedah. In the case of the latter, the results of the elections have shown that the prevailing political mood in West Malaysia remains in favour of the opposition made up of the parties of the Peoples’ Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat), which won a majority of the votes in the Peninsula during the general elections of March 2008.

Political commentators and analysts will now set about dissecting the results of these elections and engage in the arcane art of political predictions: Not least for the simple reason that the by-election results will be seen as the peoples’ verdict on the standing and popularity of the country’s new Prime Minister, Datuk Najib Razak.

Sworn in as the country’s sixth Prime Minister less than a week ago, Najib Razak hails from one of the oldest elite families that have dominated the internal politics of UMNO – and by extension Malaysia – for more than half a century now. Son of the country’s second Prime Minister and connected to several of the aristocratic families of the country, Najib ironically cuts a curious figure in the context of Malaysia’s new and increasingly complex politics. In the 1950s and 60s he would have been seen as a prime candidate for the office of Prime Minister thanks to his elite background and Western education. But today Malaysia is witnessing the emergence of a new society that is infinitely more complex compared to the Malaysia of the 1950s.

After several decades of uneven development, Malaysia is an anomaly of sorts: The country that once boasted of having the tallest building in the world is also one where the Health Ministry recently announced a two and a half-year course in ‘traditional Islamic healing’ that also involves, among other things, lessons for treating victims of witchcraft, black magic and all manner of hocus-pokus shenanigans that apparently is widespread in Malaysian society today. This is a Malaysia that on the one hand thinks of itself as an Islamic state while at the same time is deeply engaged in sorcery of all kinds, to the extent that a magic spell was found under the table of the former Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

It is also a Malaysia that is in many ways unable to speak to itself, and unable to deal with its manifold contradictions. As soon as he came to power Najib Razak made his first speech calling for national unity and propounded the notion of a ‘united Malaysia’ where all races and religious communities would be given equal treatment. Yet Najib leads the very same UMNO party whose leaders have, in the recent past, unsheathed weapons including the traditional Malay dagger (keris) in public while calling for the re-statement of Malay numerical dominance in the country. This is a country that aspires to reach the first-world status of a respectable democracy, yet also a country where Malaysians of Indian origin have suffered disproportionately while under police custody.

Prime Minister Najib needs and wants to be given a chance to show that he can succeed in changing the trajectory of the nation as it lumbers down the precarious path of intolerance and inequality. But the results of the by-elections in West Malaysia would suggest that many Malaysians are neither willing to listen or be persuaded by the rhetoric of reform that was, after all, articulated by his predecessor Badawi who failed singularly in his own appointed tasks of reforming the judiciary and police force.

So as the dust settles and Malaysians brace themselves for the full impact of the global economic recession that may well send the country back by two decades, Malaysia’s political impasse seems to have remained at the status quo of 2008. The victory of the opposition in the two by-elections demonstrate that Malaysians who support the opposition are prepared to think out of the box and to go against the grain of outdated political norms. One of the victorious candidates who won, for instance, was from the opposition Malaysian Islamic party, and he had won even in areas dominated by non-Malays and non-Muslims.

UMNO and the Barisan’s rhetoric, however, is still struggling to re-present itself as a discourse of national unity while at the same time harking on issues such as Malay rights and privileges. All of this is bound to send worrying signals to the leadership of UMNO and the Barisan, and add to the impression that the ruling coalition is living out its final salad days before its ultimate collapse. As in the case of other long-established parties such as India’s Congress party and the LDP of Japan, the case of UMNO and the Barisan in Malaysia demonstrates that being in power for too long may ultimately be the cause of one’s own downfall and undoing.