Related article: A Onetime Political Star Returns to Malaysia’s Stage Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is besieged by a brewing leadership crisis in his own political party in the wake of disaster at the polls in March. Not only is there a challenge from veteran politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, but at least two of the country’s normally apolitical sultans are in the mix. Meanwhile, the rank-and-file are demoralized by the magnitude of the loss, the biggest in the ruling coalition’s history.