UMNO Minus Mahathir

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad resigned yesterday from the party he led for 22 years. It's good news for Malaysia's economic reformers and a sign that the country may finally be able to move beyond the divisive affirmative action policies that have hampered economic growth and soured its democracy for so many years.

Dr. Mahathir's ostensible reason for deserting the United Malays National Organization is the whipping it received in the March elections, when it lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament. The party's losses were due, in large part, to minority ethnic groups throwing their weight behind broad-based secular parties that support economic liberalization and corruption clean-ups, such as the multiracial National Justice Party, unofficially led by Anwar Ibrahim. Malays deserted UMNO too.

The defeat to a party led by his former deputy prime minister must have been especially bitter to Dr. Mahathir. Mr. Anwar was nastily ousted when he challenged the UMNO establishment in the 1990s. The economic and political liberalization he championed then is resurgent today.

The March elections created a crisis for UMNO, which has long based its power on the Malay vote. Dr. Mahathir wants the party to reassert its traditional preferences for Malays. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on the other hand, is trying to shore up his base by responding to what voters want. In the past few weeks, he has announced an anticorruption drive and judicial reform measures, as Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim explains on a nearby page.

Whether this is enough to save Mr. Abdullah's job remains to be seen. The UMNO party conference is in December, and Dr. Mahathir's action may intensify calls for the PM's resignation. Meanwhile, UMNO's internal squabbling gives opposition parties a chance to show they're capable of governing. Whatever the outcome, Dr. Mahathir's departure from UMNO is a sign that Malaysia's political debate is changing.

FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
May 20, 2008