말레이시아 2025: 안와르 통합정부 중간평가

초록

This article offers a midterm assessment of Malaysia in 2025 by examining the third year of Anwar Ibrahim’s Unity Government. Formed after the hung parliament of November 2022, the coalition maintained a relatively stable parliamentary majority, aided by the institutional constraints of the anti-hopping law and a transactional style of coalition management that relied on Barisan Nasional (especially UMNO) and East Malaysian parties (GPS and GRS). Yet political stability did not seamlessly translate into credible reform outcomes. Controversies over judicial independence—including the DNAA decision in Najib Razak– related SRC proceedings—together with rising cost-of-living pressures culminating in the “Turun Anwar” mass protest, exposed widening gaps between reform promises and public expectations. Meanwhile, party congresses within PKR, DAP, and PAS signaled a shift in political contestation from inter-coalition rivalry to intra-coalition and intra-party power realignments. The Sabah state election on 29 November further underscored the organizational weakness of Peninsular-based parties and the growing bargaining power of East Malaysia in federal coalition arithmetic. Economically, headline improvements in growth and trade surpluses coexisted with persistent structural vulnerabilities—an externally driven ringgit rebound, a fiscal structure dominated by operating expenditure, and politically constrained subsidy reforms. In foreign policy, Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship highlighted aspirations for middle-power diplomacy and multilateralism, yet domestic sensitivities over Palestine, intensifying U.S.–China competition, and the controversy surrounding the Malaysia–U.S. Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) revealed a “multi-audience diplomacy” dilemma in which autonomy and pragmatism pull in opposite directions. Overall, 2025 emerges as a critical juncture: the Unity Government’s survival-oriented stability has been secured, but its longer-term viability increasingly depends on whether stability can be converted into tangible and trusted reforms across political, economic, and diplomatic arenas.

키워드