Malaysias new Pakatan Harapan government rode to power on a pledge to clean up Malaysias foul politics. It was wise to focus on the UMNO-led Barisan Nasionals transgressions: Pakatans appeal lay less in its own glowing imagery and manifesto than in the electorates widespread contempt for the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which leads the now opposition Barisan Nasional coalition.

Pakatans manifesto, while helping bring it to power, now poses a dilemma. To firm its support, Pakatan must make good on its promise to cleanse political life, pressing down hard on the reformist pedal. It must show that the arrest of former prime minister Najib Razak was not sordid revenge but was instead the start of a renewal. As Pakatan does this, its purges and policy changes will affect the fortunes of those who, over a half-century of operation, have grown deeply entrenched. How likely now are these forces to make trouble?

Part of the answer lies in the nature of the democratic transition that Malaysia is undergoing. Analysts will debate at length how to characterise this process. But for now, in its abrupt and mass-based dynamic, it can be treated as a case of bottom-up transition (where citizens overthrow an authoritarian regime to install democracy), even if conducted peacefully within the electoral parameters of a competitive authoritarian regime.

In such conditions, while the once-dominant party remains stunned, the new government will grow tempted to drive swift and far-reaching reforms. Against this, the interests of the bourgeoisie and the military are inviolable if stability is to be preserved, and hence restraint is needed. In founding elections typically held at the end of a transition, the parties representing these the military and bourgeoisie must be helped to do well, lest the old elites regroup, reactivate their constituencies and through military force mount an authoritarian backlash.

In Malaysia, founding elections coincided with the transition, yielding a process that some analysts are already depicting as a spontaneous democratisation-by-election. In this situation, there was hardly time on Pakatans part let alone the political wisdom and will to ponder any need to cushion the blow dealt to UMNO. Nor in the flush of victory did Pakatan contemplate restraint in its pursuit of reforms. Rather, as headlines blared that heads will roll, the new government moved to flush out UMNOs allies.

To this end, the new Pakatan government targeted top officials in the Attorney-Generals Chamber and the courts, in the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, in the civil service and diplomatic corps, and perhaps most signally, in the sinecures that encrust the boards and management of Malaysias hulking government-linked corporations. At the same time, the new government has struck at the mass level, at least in the civil service, by terminating thousands of contract workers who were deployed under UMNOs old spoils system.

As UMNO endures rivalries and ruckuses in the wake of defeat, it may be regrouping. In recent internal elections, the party rejected the more reform-minded and tolerant leadership of Khairy Jamaluddin. It has instead installed a right-wing president, Zahid Hamidi, recalling the old order with its high-level privileging and ethnoreligious prioritising.

In making full use of Malaysias expanded political space, UMNO is working in concert with the Islamic Party of Malaysia to stir the nativist grievances of dispossessed party elites and the anxieties of the wider Malay-Muslim community by criticising Pakatans new appointments. And at the same time, UMNOs print media mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, is growing ever more shrill, insisting indignantly on Malay dominance while condemning what it casts as the Democratic Action Partys racist hold over Pakatan.

The resonance of these appeals among ordinary Malays is demonstrated by the vigorous emotive support that the fallen Najib now attracts. These supporters contribute to a legal defence fund on his behalf even as the shrink-wrapped fashion accessories and cash seized from his Kuala Lumpur properties are paraded publicly by police in order to discredit him.

This is bolstering Najibs position. He has been welcomed back to UMNOs delegation in the Parliament. He sits alongside Zahid in the oppositions front rank, and on the parliamentary sessions first day he wore all black as he helped to orchestrate a walk-out. At this point, if not yet a violent authoritarian backlash, we are likely to see a groundswell of Malay-Muslim grievance to the point that Najibs transgressions will be forgotten. Meanwhile, Najibs expert legal team will run circles around the governments newly instituted and untested prosecutors.

Malaysias new Pakatan government confronts an excruciating dilemma. To maintain support, it must rapidly undertake far-reaching reforms. But as Pakatan proceeds, old elites, with their prerogatives at risk, will reenergise nativist grievances that may cumulate in backlash. A cruel irony is unfolding. As Pakatan now checks the pace of reforms, UMNO leaders taunt it over broken campaign promises.

This article was published by the East Asia Forum on the 16th of August 2018.

William Case is Professor and Head of the School of Politics, History and International Relations at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.