theGuardian

After controversial re-election by National Front coalition, three anti-government figures arrested and activist student charged

Opposition activists have staged numerous peaceful demonstrations since the 5 May general election won by the National Front coalition with a weakened parliamentary majority. The activists insist the coalition, which has governed since 1957, retained power through bogus ballots and other irregularities, though the prime minister, Najib Razak, and electoral authorities deny manipulating the results.

The latest arrests involve Tian Chua, a senior official in the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s People’s Justice party; Haris Ibrahim, a rights activist who leads an anti-government group; and Tamrin Ghafar, an opposition party member. The men have criticised the National Front at recent political gatherings.

Chua wrote on Twitter that police detained him at an airport and told him he was being held for sedition. Ibrahim and Tamrin were held separately, but it was not immediately clear for what they were being investigated. Police officials responsible for their case could not immediately be contacted.

After his arrest, Chua tweeted that Malaysians should not allow themselves to be “overtaken by fear [but should] continue to assemble peacefully and have faith”.

Their arrests occurred hours after prosecutors charged the student Adam Adli, 24, with making seditious statements that included calling for people to “go down to the streets to seize back our power” while addressing a political forum. He pleaded innocent at a Kuala Lumpur district court on Thursday and was released on bail before a hearing set for 2 July.

Sedition as defined by Malaysian law includes promoting hatred against the government.

Rights activists have long criticised Malaysia‘s anti-sedition law as a tool to curb democratic dissent. Najib said last year the government planned to eventually abolish the Sedition Act, which was introduced in 1949 during British colonial rule, and replace it with new laws that would strike a better balance between allowing freedom of speech and ensuring public stability.

Adli, who was arrested last weekend, faces three years in prison and a fine if convicted.

Hundreds of people have demonstrated peacefully in recent days against Adli’s arrest. Adli became publicly known in 2011 when he brought down a flag bearing Najib’s portrait at the ruling party’s headquarters during a demonstration. He was subsequently suspended for three semesters from his teaching course at a Malaysian state-backed university.

The home ministry said it had seized more than 2,500 copies of newspapers published by opposition parties from stores nationwide since Wednesday. The government-issued publication licences for those newspapers specify they should be distributed among party members only and are not for retail sales, the ministry said in a statement.

BBC

A Malaysian student has been charged with sedition and three opposition figures have also been detained amid tensions after the 5 May polls.

Student Adam Adli was charged over his call for protests against alleged election fraud.

The other three men, politicians and activists, were also detained under the Sedition Act, reports said.

The ruling coalition secured a simple majority in the polls – the closest since Malaysia’s independence in 1957.

It was the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition’s worst election result ever, securing just 46.6% of the popular vote.

The government said that the elections were free and fair, but the Anwar Ibrahim-led opposition said the results were marred by fraud, alleging multiple irregularities.

The opposition have held several rallies around the country to protest, drawing crowds.

‘Stifling dissent’

Mr Adli was arrested after he reportedly told members of a public forum to “go down to the streets to seize back our power”, AP news agency reported.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge at a Kuala Lumpur court, and was released on bail on Thursday. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in jail.

Senior opposition politician Tian Chua, and opposition activists Haris Ibrahim and Tamrin Ghafar have also been arrested.

Police chief Mohamed Salleh confirmed that they were detained for offences under the Sedition Act, Reuters news agency reported.

On his Twitter feed, Tian Chua said he was arrested as he was about to board a flight. He urged Malaysians not to be “overtaken by fear”, but to “continue to assemble peacefully & have faith”.

There are also reports of police raiding newspaper offices and seizing opposition newspapers.

Activists have argued that Malaysia’s sedition law is used to stifle dissent.

“The [sedition] law is open to abuse,” Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, Mr Adli’s lawyer, told AFP news agency.

“It’s an infringement to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.”

In a statement on Wednesday, human rights group Amnesty International called for Mr Adli’s “unconditional release” and said that the Sedition Act “has been implemented over the years to repress political dissent”.

Prime Minister Najib Razak said in July 2012 that the government would seek to repeal Malaysia’s sedition law, replacing it with a National Harmony Act. However, the law is currently still in force.

The White House

President Obama called Prime Minister Najib on the evening of May 13 to congratulate him on his victory in parliamentary elections and to reaffirm the strong bonds of friendship between the United States and Malaysia.  The President noted that Malaysians had turned out in record numbers to vote and welcomed the Prime Minister’s efforts to address concerns about election irregularities. The two leaders discussed the importance of continuing to deepen our bilateral cooperation, including on expanding cooperation on trade, regional security, and multilateral cooperation.

[TERJEMAHAN]

The White House

Bagi pihak Presiden dan rakyat Amerika Syarikat, kami mengucapkan tahniah kepada Perdana Menteri Najib atas kemenangan koalisinya dalam pilihanraya Parlimen pada hari Ahad, 5 Mei. Kami juga ingin mengucapkan tahniah kepada rakyat Malaysia kerana peratusan keluar mengundi yang tinggi, dan juga kepada parti-parti pembangkang untuk kempen mereka, kerana pembangkang yang teguh adalah batu asas kepada demokrasi. Kami juga sedar bahawa terdapat laporan tentang berlakunya penipuan dalam proses pilihanraya, dan percaya bahawa ianya sangat penting bagi pihak bertanggungjawab menyelesaikan isu-isu yang berbangkit. Kami menanti hasil siasatan mereka. Amerika Syarikat akan meneruskan hubungan yang rapat antara kerajaan dan rakyat Malaysia demi mengukuhkan demokrasi, keamanan dan kemakmuran di rantau ini.

The White House

On behalf of the President and the people of the United States, we congratulate Prime Minister Najib on his coalition’s victory in Malaysia’s parliamentary elections on Sunday May 5.  We also congratulate the people of Malaysia, who turned out in record numbers to cast their votes, as well as the parties of the opposition coalition on their campaigns, as a vibrant opposition is a foundation of democracy.  We note concerns regarding reported irregularities in the conduct of the election, and believe it is important that Malaysian authorities address concerns that have been raised.  We look forward to the outcome of their investigations.  The United States looks forward to continuing its close cooperation with the government and the people of Malaysia to continue to strengthen democracy, peace, and prosperity in the region.

The Jakarta Globe

After the 13th general election in Malaysia recently, Prime Minister Najib Razak grumbled about a “Chinese tsunami” that barged against his Barisan Nasional coalition, leaving it with only 47 percent of the popular vote. Barisan Nasional has a Chinese component, the Malaysian Chinese Association, but the Chinese vote went heavily to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, a three-party coalition led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Still, thanks to the gerrymandering of rural constituencies and to the huge perks of incumbency, Barisan Nasional won 133 of 222 parliamentary seats at stake and retained power. Najib remains prime minister.

So why is he grousing about a Chinese tsunami? I think it’s because he has felt a tectonic shift — in this case a tectonic shift in the political mood of Malaysia. It well may be that Malaysian politics will never be the same again. That doesn’t bode well for the Barisan Nasional, or for Najib himself.

Perhaps it’s a comeuppance. There were numerous reports of shenanigans attributed to the ruling coalition. Of flying voters. Of immigrants in Sabah who were given identity cards on condition they would vote for the ruling coalition. Of padded voters’ lists. Of people long dead who were able to vote. Of the Barisan Nasional campaign doling out a total of $2.5 billion to poor voters, and resorting to other forms of subsidy schemes.

If these reports are true, and the evidence is piling up that they’re accurate, then there’s nothing that the local politicians of the Philippines, past masters of election fraud, can teach their Malaysian counterparts. However, to the credit of the Malaysian politicos, although there were some accounts of violence, there wasn’t a single shooting throughout the campaign.

As for the tsunami, it wasn’t Chinese. True, most Chinese Malaysians are sick and tired of the discrimination they’ve suffered over four decades. It rankles that they don’t have equal rights in business, in the civil service and in education. They clamor for a Malaysia that is a meritocracy like next-door Singapore. But there aren’t enough Chinese voters to raise a tsunami.

The tsunami was Malaysian — Muslim Malay and Chinese and Indian Malaysian. Urban, young and idealistic Malaysian. It had nothing to do with ethnicity. It had everything to do with a thirst for change. They’re through with divisive racial politics. They want an end to corruption and cronyism. They want to unleash the potential of a richly diverse Malaysian nation.

Once again, Anwar Ibrahim has failed to win the prime ministership, but he has led Malaysian politics out of the wilderness — and that should be enough for now. He won’t rest, however. Insisting the elections had been stolen from Pakatan Rakyat, he is leading public protests reminiscent of Cory Aquino’s civil disobedience campaign in the Philippines after she thought Ferdinand Marcos had robbed her of the presidential election in 1986.

Aquino’s protest movement led to regime change only because it merged with a military coup. For a people power revolution to succeed it must be supported by a sizeable part of the military, or else the entire military must stay neutral. That won’t happen in Malaysia. But national politics will continue to change. Meanwhile, the Najib government will try to rule with a weak and questioned mandate. It will have to cope with the divisions it has largely created, economic problems from exorbitant election spending, and extravagant promises impossible to keep.

Najib himself is politically wounded. His rivals in the ruling party, the United Malays National Organization, smell blood. That’s a pity because among party eminences, he is the one who has a streak of the reformist in him. To survive, UMNO must undergo sweeping and painful reform to match the shifting mood of Malaysian politics. Otherwise, the election this month was its last hurrah.

The New York Times

Not long ago he was flirting with the idea of semiretirement, maybe a teaching job at an American university. But now Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the Malaysian opposition, former political prisoner and longtime bugbear of the establishment, says those plans are firmly on the shelf.

After a disputed election this month, in which he and his allies won a majority of votes but failed to capture control of Parliament, Mr. Anwar has returned to his roots as a political street fighter, drawing large crowds across the country to protest what he calls mass vote rigging.

“Rise up!” he beseeched a crowd of thousands crammed last week into a field in this seaside city. “We won the election, but we were robbed of victory.”

Street politics is a sort of political oxygen for Mr. Anwar, who turns 66 in August. His wife jokes that when he complains of aches or fatigue, the only way she can revive him is with a microphone and a crowd.

As a Malay radical in the 1970s, he led student protests for expanded Malay rights and was imprisoned for two years without trial. In the 1990s, he led tens of thousands of followers through the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the capital, embarrassing the government during a visit by Queen Elizabeth II. He was later convicted of sodomy, a charge brought by his political enemies that was ultimately overturned. He spent six years in prison.

Now, as Mr. Anwar poses a new type of challenge to his government, many questions loom for him — and indeed for this relatively prosperous but unsettled country of about 30 million people. How long will he continue to protest the election results? And how long will the government, which has been slowly relaxing its mildly authoritarian powers, put up with the unrest?

At stake in the battle, besides the questioned validity of the election, is a fight over two visions for the future of this multiethnic country: the government view that continues to favor the Malays and those linked to the governing coalition with preferences versus Mr. Anwar’s campaign to curtail patronage and make government assistance operate on the basis of need, not ethnicity.

For Mr. Anwar, a Malay who once defended those preferences, the shift is a personal sea change, which some say is born of political ambition but that he says came to him during years of reflection in jail.

“My dream was to have a Malaysian spring that would be unique in the sense that we would do it through votes, not in the streets — a peaceful transition into a vibrant democracy in Malaysia,” Mr. Anwar said in an interview at his modest office in an obscure neighborhood outside Kuala Lumpur. Now, with victory elusive, he said he wanted a peaceful resolution but hedged when asked how far he would take his protests.

Malaysian politics, so closely entwined with the country’s ethnic complexity, can be bewildering to outsiders.

Like Indonesia, Myanmar and many other countries in Asia, Malaysia is a product of European colonialism and still a work in progress. The mix of ethnic Malay, Chinese and Indians (a much smaller group) is far from a melting pot — more a Babel of language, a hodgepodge of foods and a tense coexistence of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.

Malay Muslims have a slim majority of the population but have dominated politics since independence from Britain in 1957. Their wide-reaching set of preferential policies — cheap loans, scholarships and government contracts among them — were put in place in large part to help them rise in a society in which much of the wealth was held by the strongly entrepreneurial Chinese, who make up about a quarter of the population.

Under the social contract of decades past, ethnic groups shared power within the governing coalition led by the United Malays National Organization, or U.M.N.O. But that informal compact is now in tatters, with a majority of Chinese Malaysian voters defecting to the opposition over resentment of what many term “second-class citizenship.”

The falling out between the governing party and Chinese Malaysians seems mutual. “It’s the first time that a Malay government thinks it can govern virtually without any minority representation,” said Bridget Welsh, an associate professor at Singapore Management University and a leading researcher on Malaysian politics who said that many people “feel traumatized” by the election and the alleged irregularities.

The May 5 election was the closest that the opposition had come to defeating the governing party. Mr. Anwar and his allies won 51 percent of the vote, compared with 47 for the governing coalition. That was not enough for Mr. Anwar to win control of Parliament because the governing coalition is strong in rural areas, where it captured many more small districts, adding up to a comfortable majority of 133 seats, with 89 for the opposition.

There are glimmers of a multicultural Malaysian identity among Mr. Anwar’s supporters. At rallies where speaker after speaker proclaims interethnic brotherhood, Chinese Malaysian women in skimpy shorts stand next to Malay Muslim women fully covered in Islamic robes. Chinese Buddhists drape themselves in the green flag of the opposition’s Islamic party.

Mr. Anwar, his supporters say, is a sort of midwife in the slow birth of Malaysia’s multiethnic identity.

“Anwar sparked people’s thinking,” said Mohammed Razif, a 30-year-old Islamic teacher who attended the rally Tuesday. “Malaysia is a multicultural country, but only recently I realized that not every race is treated equally.”

Najib Razak, the prime minister who was returned to power after the elections, announced what he described as a “unity cabinet.” It includes several new faces, including the head of the local chapter of Transparency International, an anticorruption group.

“Together we will act to bring about national reconciliation,” he said.

Yet his new cabinet is most notable for the dominance of Malays — and the near absence of ethnic Chinese. Mr. Najib angered many in the opposition when he said that his coalition’s weak showing was the result of a “Chinese tsunami,” the withdrawal of support by Chinese Malaysian voters.

The opposition said the shift in support was by voters of all ethnicities and that singling out Chinese Malaysians served only to deepen divisions.

Such anger and frustration are palpable at opposition rallies, where protesters wear black because, as their T-shirts proclaim, they see May 5 as “the day that democracy died.”

At the rally in Kuantan, leaders of the opposition took turns addressing the crowd, but when Mr. Anwar’s arrival was announced, people rose to their feet and cheered. An ethnic Chinese woman, wearing a Malaysian flag draped over her shoulders, began jumping up and down.

“At the moment, he’s the only leader who can keep the opposition together,” Selva Raja, a courier-company employee who attended the rally, said.

Mr. Anwar paced the stage, telling the crowd that the election had been stolen and that the governing party was trying to divide the country.

“Look to your left; look to your right; look in front of you and behind you,” Mr. Anwar said. “You will see Chinese, Malays and Indians. This is the new Malaysia.”

Wall Street Journal

Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has found something new to fight over with the country’s government: U.S. President Barack Obama’s message of congratulations to Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Mr. Obama called Mr. Najib on May 13 after his win in Malaysia’s parliamentary elections. Mr. Najib’s National Front coalition won 60% of the seats in the national parliament, although Mr. Anwar’s opposition alliance secured 51% of the popular vote on May 5 and is claiming that vote fraud tipped the balance in the government’s favor.

According to the White House, Mr. Obama “noted that Malaysians had turned out in record numbers to vote and welcomed the Prime Minister’s efforts to address concerns about election irregularities.” He also discussed trade issues and other matters.

The Malaysian government late on Tuesday issued a statement saying that the U.S. President “expressed his understanding and acceptance of the process and results” of the May 5 polls.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, though, Mr. Anwar questioned whether the U.S. was fully aware of the vote-fraud allegations, and also pointed out that Malaysian government statements on calls between Mr. Najib and Mr. Obama sometimes differ from the accounts provided by the White House.

Referring to Mr. Obama, Mr. Anwar said, “I don’t think he is privy to the fact that there is this huge feeling and expression of anger and outrage against this mass rigging and fraud.” Mr. Anwar went on to say that the U.S. had recognized elections under late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and under Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

“So I think it is also important that the Americans be given the facts to objectively evaluate people,” Mr. Anwar said. “Do you accept the process when the media is not free? Do you accept the process when you cannot monitor the votes, where it went to? Do you accept the process when clearly the electoral list is compromised.”

A Malaysian government spokesman said the government’s account of Mr. Najib’s conversation with Mr. Obama was accurate. Mr. Najib previously has denied the opposition’s allegations of electoral fraud, as has Malaysia’s Election Commission. Some political analysts have also noted that decades of gerrymandering have given a strong voice to rural electoral districts that tend to favor government parties.

But the closeness of the election race and the vote-fraud allegations are raising temperatures across this influential, predominantly Muslim country of 28 million people. Tens of thousands of people packed into a sports stadium last Wednesday to hear Mr. Anwar detail his fraud allegations, many wearing black T-shirts bearing the date of the May 5 elections. Subsequent rallies have been held in other areas, including Penang and Perak states.

In an interview last week, Mr. Anwar said the opposition is gathering what he described as further evidence of election fraud that he intends to submit to the country’s Election Commission and local courts to try to force a re-run of the election in dozens of electoral districts.

This was not telecast in Malaysia. Click this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KouzWrakky4

Bangkok Post

BN under pressure to dismantle race-based policies as opposition draws more support from all sides, lifting popular vote above 50%.

History was supposed to have been made on May 5, the day Malaysians came out in record numbers to vote for a new government.

Some pundits predicted the country’s 13th general election — GE13 in the local shorthand — would be a defining moment that ended the grip on power by the Barisan Nasional (BN). Many were preparing for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to be ushered in as prime minister the next day.

The huge interest in the contest for 222 Parliamentary seats and 505 state seats was reflected in the record turnout — 84.84% or 11.25 million of the 13.2 million registered voters. Of the total, 2.3 million were new voters.

Since independence from Britain in 1957, Malaysians have known no other government than BN, a coalition of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), MCA and Gerakan representing the Chinese, and MIC representing Indians.

The opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) comprises the new and predominantly Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP), PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) and PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) led by Anwar.

Anwar was quick to declare victory via Twitter early on election night, five hours before the official announcement at midnight by the Election Commission. The results showed the BN returning to power, but not without bleeding more seats at both the federal and state levels compared to 2008. As well, its share of the popular vote fell to 48.7% against 51.3% for the PR.

But in Malaysia, where the government for years has been accused of skewing electoral boundaries to favour candidates in its rural heartland, losing the popular vote is no bar to winning the House.

BN won 133 federal seats, just one less than in 2008, and 274 out of the 505 state seats. PR won 89 parliamentary seats, six more than in 2008. The opposition retained control of Malaysia’s two wealthiest states — Penang and Selangor. PAS held on in Kelantan but lost Kedah to BN. Anwar’s party also caused hairline cracks in BN’s once “fixed deposit” states — Johor and Sabah.

The opposition continues to insist that it was robbed of victory, that the polls were rigged and the process marred by fraud. The poll watchdog Bersih has also refused to recognise the BN government until it verifies reports of electoral fraud.

Reports from southern Thailand, to cite just one example, said that BN was paying 400 to 500 ringgit in “travel expenses” to each voter holding Malaysian nationality to travel south to cast ballots. International observers, however, said the polling process on the whole was fair and transparent.

A group of young voters in Sabah participated in a silent walk on Tuesday to express their disappointment over the results, which they felt did not reflect the nation’s desire for a change in government.

Addressing some 60,000 supporters at a rally last Wednesday night, Anwar vowed that PR would challenge the results in at least 30 seats.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was sworn in on Monday, conceded that his party had some work to do to regain voters’ trust.

The clear winner among the political parties that contested the election was the DAP, which engineered what Najib ruefully called “the Chinese tsunami” of votes that abandoned the BN. That left the BN’s Chinese-based parties including MCA and Gerakan as the biggest losers.

Chinese voters increasingly are expressing their disapproval of decades of race-based development policies that favour ethnic Malays. They claim the policies have not promoted equality but have simply entrenched corruption.

However, BN’s weaker showing points to a strong wave of rejection from all Malaysians and not just from the minority Chinese. A major swing in the urban and middle-class electorate shows that Malaysia’s urban-rural rift is widening.

Experts analysing the results say there has been a political awakening in the country, which in the longer term will be beneficial. The evolution will continue, with the restlessness of the younger generation wanting to have a say in their future ensuring that the politics of race will sooner rather than later be put out to pasture.

Rather than blaming the Chinese for voting for the opposition, the BN should admit that it has failed to heed the new political reality. MCA and MIC had failed to serve the community they were created to serve and they no longer appeal to the younger voters.

Though Najib has made a lot of changes since he came to power four years ago, he has to do more. His government must continue to dismantle bumiputera policies and also introduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to make Malaysia more competitive and lift it out of a middle-income trap.

As well, a total review of the education system can no longer be avoided, a social security system needs to be in place, and exorbitant higher education fees addressed. The rising crime rate is also a serious matter.

Now it is time for reconciliation, as unity is the key in diverse Malaysia. However, equality for all, regardless of gender, race or religion is a critical factor. For unity to work, Malaysians should not longer be judged based on their race.

The government has five years to undo past mistakes and bring change or else the next battle — GE14 — will be won by the party that can present a better united front.

Asia Times Online

On May 13, 1969, the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur was a living hell with vehicles, houses and the national consciousness set ablaze. Clashes between ethnic Malays and Chinese claimed 196 lives according to official police estimates. Independent foreign observers estimated the death toll as ten times higher.

Triggered by the outcome of the 1969 elections, that riot paved way for two years of emergency rule and a fundamental change in politics and society. The then ruling Alliance Party – a coalition of three communal parties representing Malays, Chinese and Indians and their regional allies in Sabah and Sarawak – found itself

Personified by the marching multi-ethnic youth clad in black, Malaysia has finally left behind the threat of ethnic riots after 44 years. Najib may believe that his party and coalition won the 2013 election, but anyone who has seen the recent rally crowds will conclude otherwise: they have lost a generation and the popular mandate to rule.

The New York Times

If there was a moment after the nail-biting national election on Sunday when Malaysians could envision a respite from five years of political turmoil, it did not last long.

Within hours of the election commission’s announcement early Monday that Prime Minister Najib Razak’s governing National Front coalition had won a majority in Parliament, Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader, declared that the voting was rigged, said he would contest the results and called for nationwide protests.

The prime minister’s office countered that Mr. Anwar was a poor loser stirring up unrest, while the police warned that the opposition leader and dozens of other people who spoke at a protest rally in a packed soccer stadium just outside the capital, Kuala Lumpur, on Wednesday night could be charged with sedition.

Such tit-for-tat exchanges between the government and the opposition were commonplace after the 2008 election and in the campaign for the vote last Sunday. But analysts say that the continuing political attacks and threats of protest this time are raising the specter of a potentially explosive showdown fueled by ethnic tensions laid bare again in the vote and longstanding animosity between Mr. Najib and Mr. Anwar.

“In a way, it’s escalated things,” said Simon Tay, the chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. “And with an escalation, you’re not sure of what the results will be.”

The election was itself something of a referendum on the ethnic-based politics that has prevailed under the National Front, which has led the country since its independence from Britain in 1957. Under that system, ethnic Malays have been given preferences in land purchases, bank loans and university admissions.

Voters were essentially given a choice between a semiauthoritarian government that has delivered economic development, albeit through ethnic-based political and economic policies, or a total change in leadership to a combative but untested opposition.

With a record 80 percent of registered voters turning out, the National Front won 133 of the 222 seats in the federal Parliament. But the tally represented a loss of seven seats compared with 2008 and, for the first time since 1969, the governing coalition took less than 50 percent of the popular vote.

While rural Malay Muslims tipped the balance to Mr. Najib, a higher-than-anticipated number of Chinese-Malaysians voted for the opposition.

Mr. Najib, 59, said at a nationally televised news conference early Monday that he was surprised by the voting pattern, which he called a “Chinese tsunami.” This was repeated in comments in Malay-language newspapers that implied that Chinese voters had betrayed Mr. Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, which many Chinese supported in the past.

Analysts said that Chinese voters were upset that the government had not made more progress in rolling back official preferences for ethnic Malays.

While Mr. Najib has urged national reconciliation and called ethnic-based campaign politics “unhealthy,” some analysts said his “tsunami” comment only magnified the ethnic debate in Malaysia and exacerbated post-election tensions.

“The political divide in Malaysia is poisonous,” said Karim Raslan, a Malaysian newspaper columnist and political observer.

The weeks before the election featured vociferous attacks in the strongly pro-government mainstream news media, in which Mr. Anwar, 65, was labeled a divisive, pro-American agent, while another senior opposition leader was rumored to be gay. (Spreading such rumors has become a not-uncommon political tactic in a country where homosexuality remains illegal.) A number of sex tapes purporting to be of opposition candidates, including Nurul Izzah Anwar, 32 — the opposition leader’s daughter, who successfully defended her seat in Parliament — were anonymously posted on the Internet.

The governing coalition “hasn’t learned anything from the voter backlash,” Ms. Nurul said. “I foresee the continuation of gutter, racist and hate politics.”

The opposition’s campaign platform included allegations that the governing coalition perpetuated widespread official corruption and would expand the state affirmative action programs that favor Malay Muslims, who account for 60 percent of Malaysia’s 29 million people. The government has rejected such claims.

The roots of the current dispute are also extremely personal and date back to 1998, when Mr. Anwar, who at the time was a senior UMNO leader and deputy prime minister, was ousted in an internal party struggle with Mahathir Mohamad, 87, the country’s prime minister at the time. Mr. Mahathir retains significant influence within the party.

Mr. Anwar was arrested and beaten while in custody and in 1999 was sentenced to more than five years in prison on corruption and sodomy charges, which he served. The charges were later dropped, but relations with Mr. Mahathir remained fraught.

“Certainly the level of dislike, disdain, of lack of respect for each other has gone up considerably in the last 10 years or so, especially since after 2008,” said Lim Teck Ghee, head of the Center for Policy Initiatives in Kuala Lumpur.

Last year, Mr. Anwar said he was “willing to forgive but not necessarily forget” his dismissal and imprisonment. Still, Mr. Lim said there remained widespread concern within UMNO that Mr. Anwar would open legal inquiries against Mr. Mahathir, Mr. Najib and other senior party officials should he ever become prime minister.

“It’s not simply concern about who is the next prime minister,” Mr. Lim said. “Mahathir’s very afraid that if Anwar and the opposition come to power, Mahathir’s place in history is going to be smeared, and I think he is fighting that very, very strongly, and this feeds into the politics of hate in the country.”