Malaysia Budget Announcement Raises Prospect of Early Polls
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Loading... - Genghis Fu
- 07 Sep 2022
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Talk of an early general election is swirling in Malaysia after the government announced that it would announce the national budget three weeks earlier than planned. Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said in a statement on Friday that the government budget will be unveiled on October 7 instead of October 28, the Associated Press reported. He added that Parliament’s final sitting of the year will be brought forward for that purpose.
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob told local media that there was nothing unusual in the decision to present the budget early and that other administrations have done the same. But the announcement has prompted speculation that Ismail Sabri may be preparing to announce a general election. The country’s next polls aren’t due until September 2023, but the Malaysian leader has come under pressure from his party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), to dissolve Parliament and call an early election.
The party believes that early elections would give it an advantage, following its convincing victories in the recent state elections in Johor (March 2022), Melaka (November 2021), and Sabah (September 2020) and the current disarray of the opposition. Indeed, reports last week suggested that UMNO powerbrokers have threatened to sack Ismail Sabri as party vice president if he doesn’t announce the elections.
According to Malaysian media reports that cited unnamed party insiders, this was one of four demands that UMNO leaders made in an ultimatum to Ismail Sabri at a meeting of the party’s political bureau last week. The other three centered on the fate of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who last week began a 12-year prison sentence over his involvement in the gargantuan 1MDB corruption scandal. The three demands were that the prime minister removes the attorney-general and chief justice involved with the case against Najib, and obtain a royal pardon for the former leader. Leading UMNO officials have denied that the party made an ultimatum to the prime minister. Read More...
