Does Malaysia's Umno have to 'outdo' rival PAS to regain the Malay vote?

When it came, the purge of Malaysia's oldest party - the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) - was brutal and thorough, as embattled president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi cleaned out his senior ranks for political survival after a humiliating election defeat.

A string of high-profile names were dumped from the party structure, including former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who was expelled for breaching party discipline by a leader seeking to squash internal critics who had got in the way of efforts to consolidate Umno after its first-ever defeat in the 2018 general election.

The show of strength appears to have worked and, according to observers and party insiders, Ahmad Zahid's position is safe - for now.

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Delegates at the party's annual meeting in January voted to leave the presidency and deputy presidency uncontested in elections that run from February to mid-March.

The removal of the president's opponents means there is no one left inside the party to go against the decision.

"He excised those potential challengers," said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. "(And) he still enjoys widespread grassroots support within the party."

Umno has a history of booting out problematic leaders. Two-time prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, was sacked in the late 1960s after a falling-out with Malaysia's first premier Tunku Abdul Rahman.

"Historically the grassroots have always been loyal to the party's cause and its elected leaders. The recent purge will not cause the party to collapse," said Adib Zalkapli, a Malaysia director with political risk consultancy BowerGroupAsia.

But at best, it is a small reprieve for Ahmad Zahid and his party, who are faced with the reality that they are no longer the party of choice for the country's majority Malay-Muslim community.

Then prime minister - and Umno vice-president - Ismail Sabri Yaakob called for national polls in November under persistent pressure from Ahmad Zahid, who was convinced wins in two state polls several months earlier would multiply across the country if a snap election was held.

What happened instead was a near wipeout for Umno. It finished with just 26 of the 222 seats in parliament, a far cry from the supermajorities it had enjoyed over most of the six decades that it retained power.

Crucially, long-time rivals the Islamist party PAS rode a 'green wave' of support from conservative Malays to become the single largest party in parliament with 49 seats, stealing Umno's base.

And with six state elections expected to be held later this year, Ahmad Zahid is left with very little time to convince lost supporters to return.

"The biggest concern here is PAS. Nevermind the [coming] state elections, we're looking at the future and the trend [in their favour] is clear," an Umno leader, who asked not to be named, told This Week in Asia.

Ahead of the November polls last year, a few political observers had predicted the Malay vote - which accounts for well over half of Malaysia's 32 million-strong population - would swing sharply away from Umno. But nobody thought the grand old party would be decimated.

PAS, and their Malay nationalist partners Bersatu led by former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, dominated the four northern states on the Malaysian peninsula, winning all but a handful of seats. PAS candidates also unseated some big names, including Nurul Izzah Anwar - the daughter of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim - in her former fortress of Permatang Pauh in Penang.

And in many seats that PAS and Bersatu lost, the margin by which they did was too close for comfort for Umno and their new allies in Anwar's Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition.

The PAS-Bersatu alliance, dubbed Perikatan Nasional (PN), finished the race with 74 seats in parliament, the second largest coalition behind PH's tally of 82.

More importantly, PN made significant inroads with Malay voters despite being formalised just two years before the election, indicating this could be just the start for the alliance.

Analyst Oh Ei Sun said the race was on between Malay-based parties such as Umno, PAS and Bersatu to flex their conservative credentials to win over a demographic that was increasingly leaning on religion to guide their world view.

"So if Ahmad Zahid and Umno were to regain their Malay-Muslim support base, they would have to outdo especially PAS in this regard," Oh said.

The rise in religious conservatism in Malaysia has arrived in tandem with other Muslim and Muslim-majority nations, Oh said, pointing to the recent imposition of an extramarital sex ban in neighbouring Indonesia and the ban on female education in Afghanistan.

This leaves Umno at a crossroads: revert to their traditional centrist position that helped form a binding coalition to keep power, or continue to pivot to conservatism and race-baiting to lure back Malay-Muslims?

"The main thing is still in comparison to PAS, [Umno] do not advocate enough [for] the infusion of religious elements and expressions into every aspect of sociopolitical and socioeconomic intercourse," Oh said. "And there is a growing demand for such infusion."

But observers say it is too soon to write off Malaysia's oldest party, whose founders led negotiations to secure the country's independence in 1957.

It retains the best internal structure among Malaysia's political parties, BowerGroupAsia's Adib said, and the purge of dissidents leaves no credible challenge to the party president.

"Umno holds strategic positions in the government and their rivals Bersatu and PAS are in the opposition - it's an excellent position to be in for a party with just 26 seats in parliament," he said.

Ahmad Zahid's decision to back Prime Minister Anwar's bid to form government has brought dividends to the party - the Umno president is now a deputy prime minister and several of the party's senior leaders were made ministers with key portfolios.

Their access to government machinery grants them powerful leverage to reach out to their target demographic and convince them that their interests are in good hands.

"Ahmad Zahid and Umno need this government to succeed and deliver. And they hold important positions in the government so they have the power of incumbency to fight the 'green wave'," Adib said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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