An onslaught of political scandals is gripping Malaysia and a transfer of power entangled with uncertainty, have shaken the elite here, with exceptionally terrible timing.

According to the New York Times, “as a major trading nation, Malaysia has been slammed by the global downturn. Its exports have collapsed by nearly one-third, and current projections show that its economy will shrink by as much as 5 percent this year.”

Nevertheless, the main decision of the government and opposition parties seems to be what analysts claim is an increasingly dysfunctional political system. The person in line to become prime minister has been instigated in a murder of a Mongolian woman whose body was destroyed with military-grade explosives.

The head of the main opposition party awaits trial on (homosexual) sodomy charges, in an intensely politicized case. The government is exploiting draconian laws to persecute other opposition figures, and suspended last week a Member of Parliament for one year after he accused the prime-minister-in-waiting of being a murderer. Also the state legislature has been paralyzed for a six weeks by a disagreement over who should govern.

Salehuddin Hashim, secretary general of the People Justice Party, the largest opposition party, said, “at the rate things are going, we’re going to be a failed state within a decade.”

The oil-rich nation of Malaysia has a large well-educated middle class. Hence, the pessimism may appear hyperbolic. Yet analysts insist the current political turmoil strikes at the heart of the functioning of government, harming institutions like the royalty, the judiciary and the police force.

Zaid Ibrahim, the founder of Malaysia’s largest legal firm, who resigned last September as law minister over the government’s practice of detaining its critics without trial, said, “I see a rough ride ahead for the country. The institutions of government have become so one-sided it will take years to restore professionalism and integrity.”

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