Malaysia's Government

by Becky

The Malaysian coat of arms

As promised, this week I am going to tell you a little about the government in Malaysia.  Malaysia is type of representative democracy known as a constitutional monarchy, meaning there is a King but the King's power is limited by the constitution.  They have a Prime Minister and parliamentary system much like the parliamentary system in the United Kingdom.


The King

First, let's talk a little more about the King.  It's pretty interesting and unlike any other monarchy in the world! There are 9 Malay states that each have a hereditary ruler of their own, usually known as the Sultan of that state.  Every 5 years a new King of Malaysia, or Yang di-Pertuan Agong (literally "He Who Is Made Lord") is elected from one of the 9 states.  They rotate through the states in a specific order.  That way, over the course of 45 years, the Kingship passes from state to state and finally back to the first state in the cycle.  

We learned about this from watching our favorite YouTube channel, Geography Now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV-H1EKmCxA

The most recent King, Muhammad V of Kelantan, didn't finish his 5 year term, and just abdicated his throne on January 6, 2019.  That was only a couple of weeks ago.  But last week a new Deputy King was elected to fill the rest of the term. 

The royal headgear

The Prime Minister

OK, now let's talk about the Prime Minister because that's pretty interesting too!  The Prime Minister is appointed by the King and selected from one of the members of the majority coalition in Parliament.  Ever since Malaysia was founded in 1963, up until a few months ago, there had always been the same majority coalition in Parliament:  the BN coalition.  The last Prime Minister from the BN coalition, Najib Razak, was just voted out of office in May 2018 after almost 10 years due to widespread anger at the corruption in his government and his theft of billions of dollars from government funds.

There was some breath holding after the election because people weren't sure whether there would be a peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected PH coalition and the new Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad.  But it all worked out, which was a victory for democracy here in Malaysia.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad

The interesting thing, though, is that the new Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, is actually an old Prime Minister from the ousted BN coalition!  He is 93 years old and served as Prime Minister from 1981-2003...making him the longest term Prime Minister in Malaysia ever.  He's pretty popular though, and was in charge of Malaysia during its period of rapid modernization in the 80's.

If you want to read more about it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/asia/malaysia-election-najib-mahathir.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer

That's all I'm going to tell you about this week so that you have time to read the kids' articles!  Next week I'll tell you a little bit about the history of the Malay peninsula before it became the country of Malaysia.