Malaysia's opposition gearing up for snap polls

Malaysia's opposition is preparing for early elections after a crucial vote in the lower house this week showed Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin may lack a parliamentary majority, said Mohd Shafie Apdal, a potential rival for the premiership.

Muhyiddin succeeded in his bid to replace the speaker of parliament's lower house by a margin of two votes. But he fell one vote short of a simple majority with only half of the 222 lawmakers in the house voting for his motion.

"It is not even a simple majority. It is clear that it is a hung parliament," Mohd Shafie told a group of reporters on Tuesday. "Elections are not far away, it's just around the corner," he said, anticipating Malaysia would hold a national election well before it falls due in 2023.

He said the tabling and parliamentary vote on the 2021 budget in November would be another crucial test for the government. Southeast Asia's third-largest economy has been grappling with political uncertainty since Muhyiddin was unexpectedly made prime minister in March by forging an alliance with the grafttainted UMNO party that was defeated in a 2018 election.

The opposition, which now includes his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad, has accused Muhyiddin of grabbing power by shifting allegiances instead of earning it at the ballot box, and has vowed to oust him.

However, the opposition has been fighting over who should be their prime ministerial candidate. Ninetyfive-year-old Mahathir and his allyturned-foe Anwar Ibrahim have both declared their intentions to be the bloc's candidate, but Mahathir later threw his support behind Mohd Shafie.