by Marc Lurdes, CNN
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) Malaysian
Prime Minister Najib Razak has suffered a stunning election loss to former
leader Mahathir Mohamad,
who at 92 is set to become the world's oldest leader.
Scandal-plagued Najib, 64, was thrashed at the
polls by a coalition of parties led by Mahathir, who led the country for 22
years and came out of retirement to challenge Najib in the country's 14th
general election.
The defeat is a humiliating fall from grace for
Najib, the scion of one of Malaysia's most prominent political families, and
his coalition party, Barisan Nasional, which had led the country since its
independence 61 years ago.
With all 222 seats in the country's Parliament accounted for, Mahathir's coalition had officially won 121 seats -- enough to form a simple majority and take control of the House. Barisan Nasional, in contrast, only had 79 seats -- a far cry from the 133 it won in the 2013 election.
The bloodbath did not end there -- Najib also saw
several members of his Cabinet, ministers and deputy ministers, defeated at the
polls, and crashed out of eight of the battles for control of 12 state
legislatures contested in the election.
According to a statement by the country's Election
Commission, over 76% of the 14.3 million eligible voters in the country turned
out to cast their ballots, which opened at 8 a.m. local time and went on until
5 p.m. The turnout was lower than the 85% the country saw in 2013.
While the defeat surely spells the end of Najib's
political career, for Mahathir, it represents the culmination of a stunning
return to power, a decade-and-a-half after retirement.
Remarkable
victory
Mahathir's victory is all the more remarkable
considering he is 92 years old, and was fighting the very party he led for over
two decades.
Bridget Welsh, a John Cabot University expert on
Malaysian politics, said Barisan Nasional could have won the elections had it
not been for Najib.
"Najib is a liability. His narcissism cost
them the elections," she said, of a Barisan Nasional campaign that
featured Najib and his election promises as a centrepiece.
Welsh added Najib's re-election campaign never
really took off.
"He used racial politics and money, like he
did in 2013, but it did not have the same traction.
"This was a Malaysian tsunami across races,
generations and background."
James Chin, the director at the Asia Institute in
the University of Tasmania, said Najib had "finally run out of
tricks" and said Mahathir had pulled off a masterstroke in snatching the
rural vote away from Najib.
He compared the campaign speeches given by the two
men on Tuesday night, hours before voting began. "Najib was still playing
the bribery game -- you give me your vote, I give you this or that. Mahathir,
on the other hand, came across as a statesman and appealed to Malay
dignity," he said.
Chin called out two things that helped turn the
tide against Najib -- a high voter turnout and the swing in rural support.
"Even if the rural voters didn't understand
1MDB, they understood that some monkey business was happening. And so the Najib
brand became toxic," he said.
Comeback
for Anwar?
One of the twists of the election came in the form
of Mahathir's embrace of Anwar Ibrahim, his former deputy and later political
foe, whom he once jailed on
sodomy and corruption charges critics said were politically motivated.
Anwar remains imprisoned after being found guilty
of sodomy a second time in 2015 -- a charge he has also said is politically
motivated. He's expected to be released in June, after serving the bulk of the
sentence.
Prior to the election Mahathir pledged he would
step aside for Anwar, after securing him a royal pardon. Mahathir has pledged
only to serve two years before handing over to his former rival.
Calling it an "unprecedented" alliance in
Malaysian politics, Welsh told CNN before the election the two former political
enemies had "not only a strategic (alliance) but one based on an idea of
statesmanship, of moving the country in a different direction.
"It speaks a lot to the character of both
Mahathir and Anwar that they can come together," she said.
"I don't think it's been easy for either of
them. For Mahathir he's had to face some of the things he's done, and to
apologize. For Anwar, it's to go along with someone who's created a lot of harm
to his family."
A
contentious election
Najib had been under massive
pressure in the run up to the elections, chiefly due to long-running
allegations of corruption and misappropriation of money from a state fund,
known as the 1Malaysia Development Berhad, but also because of deeply unpopular
moves such as the introduction of a goods and services tax (GST), which many
Malaysians feel has caused the cost of living to spike sharply.
The elections have been contentious. Najib came
under fire from opposition parties and civil society groups for a redrawing of electoral lines that skewed constituencies
heavily in favor of his ruling coalition, towards the rural ethnic Malay-Muslim
voters that have traditionally formed Barisan Nasional's power base, and away
from the urban voters that have largely abandoned his coalition.
Najib also rammed through a bill in Parliament,
days before it was dissolved and elections were called, that was ostensibly targeted at
curbing the spread of fake news, but which critics said was aimed at
stifling free speech and dissenting voices. Mahathir has become one of the
first people to be investigated under the law.
There was also deep unhappiness at the fact that
the elections were held on a weekday -- only the fifth time in the country's history such a thing has happened, and the first time in the
country's history it was held in midweek. Many believed that the choice to have
it on a weekday was a deliberate attempt to suppress the number of votes cast.
The country's Election Commission also came under
significant fire, with overseas voters furious about the length of time it took
them to get their postal voting ballots. Malaysians in London staged a protest earlier this week
excoriating the commission for the late arrival of their ballot papers.
Election
day controversies
Polling day came with its own share of
controversies. Voters in some areas were turned away by election officials for
wearing shorts and flip-flops, despite a statement from the Electoral
Commission's chairman the day before that there wouldn't be a dress code for
voters.
There were also allegations of discrepancies in
voting papers, with some voters who turned up to cast their ballots
told that they had already voted.
Earlier in the day, opposition politicians claimed
their phones and
email accounts had been hacked and spammed, saying it was a
deliberate attempt to disrupt their communications.
Vote counting by officials went on into the
morning, with final results still pending. Najib and Prime Minister-elect
Mahathir are expected to address the nation early Thursday. And for the rest of
the country, the party has already begun -- May 10 and May 11 have already been
declared public holidays in celebration of one of the most remarkable moments
in Malaysia's modern history.
Marc
Lourdes is a former Asia director of CNN Digital now based in Kuala Lumpur.
Follow him on Twitter at @marclourdes.
