Lessons for ANC from Israeli and Malaysian elections
Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish supremacist, once said: “In every coalition there’s also some co-loathing.”
Recent elections in Malaysia and Israel display that insight, providing indicators of possible trends for the next few SA general elections.
Like the ANC, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) has been recognised as the party that delivered independence. It was the governing party from the end of British rule in 1957 until it lost its majority in 2018. Over the past decade, it has steadily been losing its allure, for several reasons but primarily its association with sleaze, graft and outright corruption.
Its former leader and Malaysia’s former prime minister, Najib Razak, was jailed in August for 12 years for corruption, and Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is facing charges of corruption and money laundering.
In the November 19 elections Umno won only 12% of the seats. Voters punished it for not dealing with its rotten legacy. But such is the depth of its influence in the DNA of Malaysian politics that, despite these weaknesses, it is still called on to be kingmaker.
Two septuagenarians lead the coalitions vying for Umno’s favour. Leading Pakatan Harapan (PH) is former Umno veteran Anwar Ebrahim with 82 seats, while the more Malay nationalistic, Islamist alliance
Perikatan Nasional (PN) of Muhyiddin Yassin won 73 seats. PN has proved that political Islam is the rising force, to the concern of Malaysia’s Chinese and Indian minorities, which make up 23% and 7% of the population, respectively.
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), PN’s coalition partner, won a big slice of the youth vote, which rose with the voting age reduced recently from 21 to 18. Support for sharia law rose from 52% in 2011 to 75% today, according to polling company Merdeka Centre.
Malaysia’s past stellar economic growth was diminished by economic challenges that have seen unemployment among those 15-24 years old reach almost 16%. As The Economist opined: “The past four years have shown how inept Malaysia’s government can be when its leaders are scrapping for survival. This election result threatens more of the same.”
Israel’s November 1 elections, based like SA’s on proportional representation, were the third in 44 months.
Israeli comeback king Benyamin Netanyahu and his Likud party grabbed the largest share of parliamentary seats.
Netanyahu is set to cobble together the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history. He needs the right-wingers to help him pass legislation to end his bribery and fraud trial.
The coalition is likely to include Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, within a far-right, anti-Arab bloc called Religious Zionism.
The potential right-wing coalition partners are hostile in their homophobia, keen on subverting the independence of the judiciary, and pushing for Israelis to pray alongside the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which has been a flashpoint for violence in the past.
The emergence of a far-right government will inflame the already volatile situation in Israeli-occupied territory. This year is set to be the deadliest for Palestinians since the 20002005 intifada, when 972 Israelis and 3,301 Palestinians were killed. According to the UN, 109 Palestinians, including 28 children, have so far been killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, a 40% increase on 2021.
Two stark reminders for the ANC as it goes into its December national conference and prepares for the 2024 general elections:
Struggle credentials can take it only so far. Umno’s case reflects that of several other parties, including Kenneth
Kaunda’s United National Independence Party in Zambia and the Indian National Congress, which have been reduced to shadows of their once glorious selves. As its overall support drops, coalition politics is going to be increasingly the name of the game. This is going to require the ANC to deal with its internal evils so that it can consolidate relations with parties committed to a nonracial, diverse, united and democratic SA.