The parliamentary by-elections and the shaping of Malaysian political landscape after the 12th general election

The 12th Malaysian General Election on the 8th March 2008 ended with the ruling coalition, the National Front suffering a rather humiliating defeat that it ever experienced before. For the first time since independence, the party failed to secure the two thirds majority in the parliament and lost the control five states out of thirteen states that formed the Federation of Malaysia. The significance factor that determined the triumph of the opposition front was the role played by Anwar Ibrahim. In the March election, however, Anwar was barred from standing as a candidate due to legal provision after being convicted and jailed for a sodomy case which he vehemently blames as a political conspiracy. Following an allegation that Anwar was involved with a new sodomy case with his close aide, his wife, Wan Azizah who is the president of the Justice Party decided to vacate the parliamentary seat in Permatang Pauh to pave way for Anwar to contest. The result of the by-election proved that the support for the opposition was growing and the Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi was blamed for the continuous decline of the ruling coalition. This led to his stepping down as the prime minister to pave the way for his deputy Mohd. Najib Razak. After the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election, there were two more parliamentary by-elections, in Kuala Terengganu and Bukit Gantang. The results of these by-elections clearly showed that the opposition is maintaining the momentum in the run up to the 13th general election scheduled for 1912/13. This paper will discuss how the scenarios as shown by these three parliamentary by-elections will determine the future political landscape of Malaysia prior to the general election