The epidemic spreads to the political situation! Malaysia’s single-day death record high, the prime minister faces the crisis of stepping down

As Malaysia’s Wuhan pneumonia (novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) epidemic heats up, the political situation has changed abruptly, with the chairman of the ruling coalition’s largest party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), announcing that he no longer supports Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, calling on him to step down for his failure to prevent the epidemic. The president of UMNO announced that he would no longer support Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, asking him to step down for his failure to prevent the disease.

Comprehensive foreign media reports, key allies withdrew support for Muhyiddin in March 2020 to reach the climax of the tensions after taking power. The ruling coalition of Muhyiddin’s Indigenous Unity Party with UMNO and other parties has a narrow majority in parliament, but UMNO is unhappy about playing a supporting role to the indigenous group.

UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced early on the 8th that he was withdrawing his support for Prime Minister Muhyiddin, pointing out that the government he leads is not effective in preventing the epidemic and asking him to step down and let the interim leader take over until the epidemic stabilizes and then hold a general election.

UMNO currently holds 38 seats in parliament, and the opposition parties point out that the coalition government has only 77 seats left after losing UMNO’s support, so they have begun to pressure for a new prime minister to be elected through parliament. However, the Malaysian media pointed out that it was impossible to confirm how much support Amar Zahi has from UMNO MPs.

Malaysian Attorney General Idrus Harun issued a statement today (8), saying that there are no clear facts to show that Muhyiddin has lost the confidence of most MPs, so the prime minister and the current cabinet will continue to function.

At a time of political turmoil, the epidemic in Malaysia continues to burn, with 8,868 new cases confirmed today, the second highest number of confirmed cases in a single day since the outbreak, and a total of 808,658 confirmed cases. Another 135 new patients died of the disease, a record number of deaths in a single day, a total of 5,903 deaths.