His meeting with his host President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will attract big international media attention because it takes place amid the political tension in Myanmar, after the military toppled a civilian government on Monday. This will be the first opportunity for the international community to know the position of at least two leaders of ASEAN members. Will Jokowi have enough courage to show his leadership on the regional issue? Muhyiddin will likely be more outspoken in expressing his dislike toward Myanmar’s government and military for domestic political reasons.

We can only hope the two leaders will deeply discuss the coup of a democratically elected government under the de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi by army chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Feb. 1. The excuse for the takeover does not make sense at all, because the military did not show any evidence to support its claim that the 83 percent victory of Suu Kyi’s NLD party in the November 2020 election was illegal. The United Nations and Western countries have condemned the military action and the US has threatened to impose harsh sanctions against the generals, probably asset seizure.

Therefore, this working visit is very timely, not just to make Muhyiddin and Jokowi know each other better, but also to tell the Myanmar generals their thoughts about the coup. It will be scandalous if Jokowi and Muhyiddin only urge all sides in Myanmar to promote negotations and exercise restraint. For Muhyiddin, this will also be an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership to his political foes and allies at home. He replaced Mahathir after scoring an extremely razor-slim win at the parliament in March 2020, and his political survival is decided almost on a daily basis.

Leading opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has tried several times to oust Muhyiddin, but thanks to the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the royal institution, Muhyiddin can cling to power at least until August. Last month, at the request of the Prime Minister, King Al-Sultan Abdullah declared a state of emergency as an urgent measure to curb COVID-19 transmission.

Myanmar always attracts the attention of Jokowi and Muhyiddin due to their domestic situation. Both countries are predominantly Muslim, and the people are sensitive about the development there, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were forced to flee to the Bangladesh border, where their presence was also bluntly rejected. Thousands of Muslims from Myanmar also continue to enter the two countries illegally for asylum. But despite their empathy with the plight of the Rohingya, both Malaysia and Indonesia are reluctant to accept the Muslim refugees.

A UN fact-finding commission in 2019 concluded that Myanmar’s government, more precisely the military, with the help of extremist religious groups, committed genocidal crimes against hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in Rakhine State. The same generals who allegedly ordered the genocide were also responsible for the coup.

It will be disappointing if Jokowi and Muhyiddin fail to demonstrate a strong stance against the Myanmar generals.

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