“A New Dawn for Malaysia”?

The Aftermath of the 12th General Elections

Trevor W. Preston

The 12th Malaysian general elections held on March 8, 2008 had been a relatively

low-key affair, with most Malaysians resigned to victory by the ruling 14-party multi-

ethnic Barsian Nasional coalition government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

However, as the results were announced that night, it steadily became apparent that the

Barisan Nasional coalition had suffered its worst ever electoral performance. The ruling

coalition secured just a simple majority of 140 seats, losing its three-decade old two-

thirds supra-majority in the national parliament. The opposition--an informal alliance of

the multi-racial PKR (People’s Justice Party), Chinese based DAP (Democratic Action

Party), and Malay Islamist based PAS (Pan Malaysian Islamic Party)--quadrupled its

presence in parliament from the last election of 2004 from 20 to 82 seats. The Barisan

Nasional coalition also incurred heavy losses at the state level, failing to wrestle control

of the then only opposition controlled state of Kelantan, while losing control of the four

industrialized and prosperous states of Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor to this

informal opposition coalition.

Anwar Ibrahim, de facto leader of PKR and primary opposition leader,

immediately declared “A new dawn for Malaysia,” where it could finally move beyond

its entrenched race based dominated political system. Do these results signify a new dawn

for Malaysia? Has ethnic politics been repudiated in Malaysia? How did the Barisan

Nasional government lose so badly? How did the opposition achieve their historic

political breakthrough? My paper argues that the results of the 12th Malaysian general
elections were unprecedented but not extraordinary. The results do not represent a

fundamental realignment of a Malaysian political system institutionally apportioned on

ethnic and racial lines, but rather were driven by significant shifts of these same

entrenched ethnic political dynamics. Malaysia’s transition to a more contested

democratic politics will be tenuous as ethnic polarization will continue to shape the

landscape of Malaysian politics. The historic victories of the opposition in much of

industrialized and urbanized Malaysia, however, presents an opportunity to construct

alternative multi-ethnic power sharing and governance models to the long standing

Barisan Nasional models that have held sway since independence in 1957.

My discussion proceeds by setting out the political context of the 12th Malaysian

general elections. I then highlight some significant results with an analysis of the

dynamics of the campaign and show how concurrent political and social discontent

brewing amongst all three of Malaysia’s major ethnic communities contributed to a broad

based swing against the government. Finally, I assess some future implications of

Malaysia’s altered political landscape for the Barisan Nasional government, the

opposition, and for some of Malaysia’s other important political institutions.

Political Context of the 12th Malaysian General Elections

As Malaysia approached its 12th general elections in 2008, the Barisan Nasional

government could feel reasonably confident of another overwhelming electoral victory. It

had accrued all the institutional and electoral advantages of a 51-year old incumbency.

Control of all levers of power granted Barisan Nasional unlimited access to governmental

discretionary funds to distribute as patronage or as inducements to both its firm and

prospective supporters. The Barisan Nasional was also able to manipulate the ostensibly

2
independent electoral commission into drawing constituency boundaries to the advantage

of the government. The electoral commission allocated more sparsely populated rural

seats than more heavily populated urban seats, and delineated constituencies with more

mixed ethnic populations, seats traditionally won by the coalition. The unlimited

financial resources and institutional advantages of the coalition were also complemented

by its control of almost all of Malaysia’s print and broadcast media. Both the state media

and the private media, owned by financial interests linked to component parties of the

coalition, relentlessly pushed the message of the government while ignoring or vilifying

opposition parties and their leaders.

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi entered the 2008 elections in a strong political

position as well. Abdullah had endeared himself to the Malaysian public with his low-key

and affable leadership style. He had succeeded Malaysia’s long time Prime Minister

Mahathir Mohammed (in 1981-2003) in October 2003 with an inordinate amount of

political good will from the Malaysian public. His predecessor Mahathir bin Mohammed

had changed the face of Malaysia’s social and economic fabric forever, but his legacy

still remains contentious in Malaysia today. Mahathir was a dynamic leader with a clear

vision of how to modernize Malaysia. Mathathir, however, brokered no political dissent,

and with his zero sum game leadership style, he provoked two major leadership crises in

the ruling party of UMNO (1987-88, 1998-99) that led to wide-spread political

crackdowns across the country, detaining opposition political leaders, democracy and

civil society activists. Mathathir ultimately triumphed through both crises, but he was

seriously weakened during the second UMNO crisis which led him to identify a more

pliant successor and embark on a leadership transition to Abdullah. Tired of the intense

3
political factionalism and perceived excesses of a Mahathir administration which had

often violated democratic norms and condoned corruption, Malaysians gave Abdullah a

record electoral victory in 2004 on a platform of reform, good governance, and

accountability and transparency in government. The extent of the record 2004 electoral

victory gave Abdullah a strong personal mandate as Prime Minister. However,

restrictions on political activity and political free speech of the Mahathir era were not

lifted. Any discussions of reopening debate on the core issues which have divided

Malaysia since independence--Malay special rights, affirmative action, and the ethnic

based allocation of political power, resources and wealth--were met with a backlash from

hard line Malay nationalist elements.

The opposition--comprising an informal coalition of the multi-racial PKR,

Chinese based DAP, and Malay Islamist based PAS--was divided and weak. The Barisan

Nasional had triumphed in every election by offering itself as the only multi-ethnic

institution capable of governing Malaysia’s divided and plural society. The opposition

traditionally could not offer an alternative to Barisan Nasional because it was comprised

of political parties that appealed to narrow constituencies: Chinese cultural

vernacularism, Islamic fundamentalism, or UMNO internal factionalism. The DAP and

PAS throughout their histories had been successful on their own terms, but each alone

could not hope to govern Malaysia on a national level. PKR, led by former Deputy Prime

Minister and UMNO stalwart Anwar Ibrahim, was in a long line of political parties

created out of the fallout of UMNO internal factionalism. It was expected to merge back

into the UMNO fold after its supporters grew tired of their time in the political

wilderness.

4
Analysis of the 12th Malaysian General Elections

The extent of the “political tsunami” that demolished the long static Barisan

Nasional system stunned almost all political forces in Malaysia. Barisan Nasional

suffered an unprecedented defeat, losing its comfortable two-thirds parliamentary supra-

majority for the first time since 1969. 1 The ruling coalition won just a simple majority of
0

140 seats, losing 59 seats. UMNO, the Malay party linchpin of the coalition, survived the

anti-government swing with 78 seats, winning 67% of its contested seats. However, its

non-Malay component partners in peninsular Malaysia, MCA, MIC, Gerakan, and PPP,

were wiped out, winning only collectively 20 seats, or 32% of its contested seats. Major

leaders such as Gerakan acting President Dr Koh Tsu Koon and MIC President Samy

Vellu lost their seats in the electoral rout of these non-Malay Barisan Nasional

component parties. The opposition benefited from this collapse in government support

by increasing their presence in parliament from 20 to 82 seats. PKR was the biggest

performer of the opposition parties, becoming the official opposition with 31 seats, a

major increase from its sole seat held in the last parliament by its President Wan Azizah

Wan Ismail. DAP and PAS also increased their presence in parliament with 28 and 23

seats respectively, achieving major victories in their urban Chinese and rural Malay

electoral strongholds.

Barisan Nasional also suffered further defeats at the state level, failing to wrestle

opposition control of the one state of Kelantan, while losing the four states of Penang,

Kedah, Perak, and Selangor to the opposition. In Penang, the incumbent Barisan Nasional

government led by Gerakan since 1969 was turfed out by the opposition led by the DAP.

DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng emerged as Penang’s new Chief Minister with the

5
opposition controlling two-thirds of the state assembly. In Malaysia’s rice bowl state of

Kedah, PAS took control of the state in a coalition of 23 seats with PKR. In Perak, the

election results produced a hung assembly, with the opposition putting together a

precarious minority government. 2 In Kelantan, under opposition control since 1990, PAS
1

defeated Barisan Nasional with an increased majority after holding a narrow 1 seat

advantage at time of dissolution.

In perhaps the biggest surprise of the election, the most industrialized state of

Selangor, adjacent to the commercial capital of Kuala Lumpur, fell to an opposition near

two-thirds majority of 36 seats led by the PKR. The opposition coalition took control of

the state government with the appointment of a PKR secretary-general, Khalid Ibrahim as

Chief Minister. In the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur itself, the opposition took 10 of

11 federal seats, including a noted win by Nurul Izzah Anwar, daughter of PKR de facto

leader Anwar Ibrahim, in the prestigious seat of Lembah Pantai held by a cabinet

minister. With a string of opposition victories in Penang, Selangor, and Kuala Lumpur,

the Barisan Nasional coalition was shut out of much of urban and industrialized

Malaysia. Indeed, while popular vote totals indicated that the Barisan Nasional secured a

narrow 51.2% victory on a national level, but it won only 48.1% of the vote in peninsular

Malaysia only. 3 With these major electoral breakthroughs across the country, the
2

opposition now has reason to claim to represent a significant slice of Malaysian popular

opinion, seriously threatening Barisan Nasional as the only popularly representative

national institution.

A macro-analysis of the 12th Malaysian general elections must begin with a

simple question: what happened? Attention first must turn to the dynamics shaping the

6
campaign. The campaign itself was a 13-day affair, the longest period of campaigning

allotted since the 1969 election. The Barisan Nasional government entered the campaign

complacent and overconfident. Wrangling over initial candidate selection led to a great

deal of internal factionalism within UMNO, in turn deflating BN’s electoral machinery

and depressing some of its more rabid partisans. The opposition of PKR, DAP, and PAS,

while not formally aligned in a coalition structure, spent a great deal of time co-

coordinating their political strategies. To avoid vote splitting, each of the opposition

parties pledged to put up only 1 candidate each in “straight fights” with the Barisan

Nasional in every peninsular Malaysian constituency.

At the heart of the opposition political strategy was PKR de facto leader Anwar

Ibrahim, a charismatic orator, an adept political strategist and a political bridge builder

between the irreconcilables of the DAP and PAS. Anwar not only kept the peace in the

opposition coalition, but he relentlessly toured the country, haranguing Barisan Nasional

at his nightly ceramahs (political speeches) with vivid anecdotes of Barisan malfeasance.

Anwar, originally dismissed by the languid government media as irrelevant, was

subsequently demonized as an untrustworthy political chameleon, fueling even more

interest in his campaign from ordinary Malaysians. Anwar and the opposition focused

their political critiques of the government on so-called bread and butter issues: increases

in costs of living, price hikes of household living essentials such as petrol and cooking

oil, and a 45% rise in crime during the Abdullah era. 4 Such a basic bread and butter
3

approach could speak to the broadest spectrum of Malaysian society, irrespective of race

and class. Indeed, cries of Barisan Nasional = Barang Naik (prices of goods rise) rang

out throughout opposition ceramahs in the country.

7
 The specific context of Malaysia’s fragile multi-ethnic demographic balance also

points to larger shifting ethnic political dynamics underpinning the 2008 elections. These

shifting political dynamics came out quietly in post election analyses of changing voting

patterns by ethnic group for the Barisan Nasional. Preliminary figures reached by the

Singaporean based scholar Ong Kian Ming indicated broad based swings against the

government from all three of Malaysia’s ethnic communities. 5 The extent of the swings
4

illustrated wide-spread discontent in the non-Malay community, manifesting in 30% and

42% swings against the coalition from the Chinese and Indian communities respectively.

Interestingly, the Malay swing against the government was substantially less at 5%.

Chinese dissent centered first on the failures to reform the abuses and excesses of the

Malay favored New Economic Policy after three decades of implementation. The hard-

line Malay nationalist backlash that met some of their critiques of the NEP was voiced in

racially provocative statements made by assorted UMNO politicians. These racially

provocative statements were centered around the infamous unsheathing of the traditional

Malay ceremonial dagger “Keris” during the UMNO general assemblies of 2006-2007. 6 5

The increasing Islamization of Malaysian state and society was also a major source of

discontent in the Chinese community. The insensitivities of Malaysian religious

bureaucrats in the handling of so called “body snatching” cases--literally the spiriting

away of the remains of new Muslim converts for Islamic burial rites without the consent

of their non-Muslim family members--contributed to a perception that other minority

faiths were not respected and religious freedom in Malaysia was steadily eroding. This

combination of UMNO’s bludgeoning defense of an unrestricted NEP agenda and a

8
religious bureaucracy seemingly interfering in Chinese cultural and religious autonomy

drove an anti-government mood of the Chinese community.

Indian discontent was a relatively recent phenomenon, exploding in the

November 2007 Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) protests in central Kuala Lumpur

of about 30,000 disgruntled members of the Malaysian Indian community. The Indian

community, because of its small demographic weight in Malaysia, has long been

marginalized in Malaysia in terms of political power, corporate equity and relative

absolute poverty. Forming no majority of their own in any Malaysian constituency, most

members of the community opted to support the Barisan Nasional in overwhelming

numbers through their representative Barisan component party, the MIC, in order to gain

access to the Barisan system of the ethnic apportionment of political power and material

resources. Hindraf was originally an obscure collection of Malaysian Indian lawyers and

activists who were drafting a lawsuit against the British crown, claiming damages for the

colonial era indentured labor servitude of the Malaysian Indian community. But in the

aftermath of the violent repression of the November 2007 protest, the Malaysian Indian

community reassessed its unquestioned support for the MIC and the Barisan Nasional.

Hindraf’s lawsuit against the legacy of British colonialism became less important than its

transformation as a vehicle for a Malaysian Indian political reawakening. A demand to

address the marginalization of the Malaysian Indian community through confrontation

rather through the gradualism advocated by the MIC became the dominant demand of

Malaysian Indians, embodied in the Tamil slogan Makkal Shakthi (People Power). The

huge across the board swing from the Malaysian Indian community was premised on

these new confrontational demands.

9
 Dissatisfaction within the Malay community was also building up to the 2008

elections. The slight swing of the Malay community (some 5% against UMNO and the

government) illustrates that such discontent was limited to a narrower base than Non-

Malay discontent, primarily in urban Kuala Lumpur and in the narrow Northern and East

Coast Malay heartland belt. Malay discontent in urban Kuala Lumpur was driven mainly

by bread and butter issues of increases in costs of living and price hikes of household

daily essentials. The new urbanized Malay professional and working classes, the direct

beneficiaries of the New Economic Policy, were hit harder than other communities

because of their reliance on salaries and fixed incomes. However, major sociological

shifts in the Malay community were also a factor in a slight swing against the

government. The increased religiosity of most middle class Malays, originating in the

post 1979 Islamic Revival era and accelerated under modernization, made the community

less receptive to appeals of material development than appeals premised on spiritual

development and moral probity. The political appeal of PAS was attractive for Malays as

it is unapologetically Islamist with a strong emphasis on protecting a strong Malay

Islamic identity. Attempts by Barisan Nasional to wrestle control of PAS dominated

Kelantan during the election with promises of economic development were decisively

rejected by the Kelantan electorate. PAS’s political platform of an administration derived

from Islamic tenets and principles, and its prospective “negera kebijaksana” (caring

society), also allowed it to take control of a second Malay heartland state of Kedah, and

make major electoral gains in industrialized Selangor and urban Kuala Lumpur for the

first time. Significant increases in Malay popular support for overt Islamist politics is

10
another important underlying shift in ethnic political dynamics that shaped the historic

results of the 2008 elections.

The confluence of these shifting sentiments amongst all three of Malaysia’s ethnic

communities (Chinese frustration over the abuses of the New Economic Policy and

Islamization, Indian self-empowerment and confrontational politics, and urban Malay

discontent and a drift towards Islamist politics) led to a historic broad based swing

against the government. Ethnic based swings against the government are not infrequent

in Malaysian electoral history. The 1969 election witnessed a major Chinese swing

against the government, which led to ethnic confrontation and political crisis as Malays

largely favored the coalition. The 1999 election witnessed the reverse as Malays,

disillusioned with UMNO over the Anwar Ibrahim affair, swung against the coalition

while Chinese largely supported it, reminiscent of the 1969 racial riots. However, the

absence of threats of ethnic political confrontation over the major defeats suffered by the

coalition was directly related to a broad based, multi-ethnic swing against Barisan

Nasional. As the results were announced on election night, March 8, 2008, a political

calm prevailed as the streets of the capital were quiet and no violence was reported.

Implications of the 12th Malaysian General Elections

Assessments of the aftermath of the 2008 elections immediately turned to the

future of incumbent Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and his now badly bruised Barisan

Nasional coalition. The loss of its two-thirds parliamentary majority was a major defeat

for the coalition as it has always been considered the measuring stick of Barisan electoral

performance. A two-thirds supra-majority allows the coalition to amend Malaysia’s

11
constitution at will. Losing the two-thirds majority is a psychological blow to the

coalition, but with a simple majority, it is still firmly in control of the federal government.

Almost immediately after the 2008 elections, pressure mounted from within

UMNO for Abdullah to resign as party president and Prime Minister, It is certainly fair

to state that the political performance of Abdullah over the five years of his premiership

was underwhelming. He entered high office in 2003 with high hopes of reforming

Malaysia, but he deflated those high expectations with his overcautious, indecisive and

ineffectual leadership. Major campaigns against corruption, reforming law enforcement,

and introducing transparency in Malaysian government institutions were announced, and

later quietly abandoned. Dominated by a kitchen cabinet including his controversial son-

in-law Khairy Jalamuddin, 7 Abdullah was perhaps the weakest Malaysian Prime Minister
6

in history. The worst ever electoral performance of Barisan Nasional in the 2008

elections was a direct repudiation of his leadership .Finally on July 10 2008, Abdullah

announced in principle that he would retire as Prime Minister sometime in 2010.

Increasing pressure from the Malay grass roots of UMNO forced Abdullah to move up

the timetable for the transfer of power to his Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

Najib was sworn in as Prime Minster on April 3 2009 ending Abdullah’s brief and

disappointing premiership. In this respect, UMNO does not look very kindly on leaders

with poor electoral performances, previously ousting two more senior and powerful

Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman and Mahathir Mohammed for similar electoral

setbacks in 1969 and 1999. But perhaps it is not altogether fair to burden Abdullah with

most of the blame for the 2008 elections. Abdullah was an accidental Prime Minister; he

never actively sought nor contested for the position of UMNO President and Prime

12
Minister. The malaise of Abdullah’s leadership is not the singular cause of the coalition’s

defeats in the 2008 elections, but just a symptom of a larger political problem now facing

the coalition: the institutional rot of UMNO and the non-Malay components of Barisan

Nasional. UMNO, which began its life as a strong and an ideologically cohesive political

party of Malay nationalism, has been transformed into an ideologically barren clientelist

party of dispensing patronage, government contracts and subsidies to prospective

supporters. One notable Malaysian newspaper columnist wrote of UMNO’s

transformation as “no longer the party [of] struggle for bangsa, agama dan tanahair

(nation, religion and country)…the by words among many party members these days are

compensation, reward, commission, projects and habuan (share).” 8 7

Such a transformation was already apparent during the Mahathir years, but it

metastasized during Abdullah’s premiership. Any underlying political reform of the

system was blocked by powerful clientelist interests in the party, subsequently paralyzing

Abdullah’s leadership and dashing high expectations held by ordinary Malaysians for

Abdullah. The necessity of party renewal, of introducing both internal party rules and

governmental guidelines to combat corruption, is the future challenge for Abdullah’s

successor. However, Malaysia’s new Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak will also have to

introduce these reforms without substantial non-Malay participation in the Barisan

Nasional coalition structure. The non-Malay component parties: MCA, MIC, Gerakan

and PPP are so weakened politically after the 2008 elections that they face years of

political rebuilding and grassroots renewal in order to become relevant again to their

particular ethnic constituencies. Any prospective reform will also have to unfold in an

era of increasing internal UMNO party factionalism. Recent periods of UMNO internal

13
factionalism in 1987-88 and 1998-99 coincided with periods of great Malaysian political

instability. How Barisan Nasional absorbs the aftershocks of the 12th Malaysian general

elections, and if it responds to its underlying structural weaknesses, will in large matter

determine its performance in Malaysia’s next general elections, scheduled for 2013.

The aftermath of the 12th Malaysian general elections also poses serious

existential challenges for the opposition of PKR, DAP, and PAS. The stunning electoral

breakthroughs on election night brought elation to the opposition and its long

marginalized supporters. However, with the opposition now in control of five states and

a significant presence in parliament, it too must now face the realities of Malaysia’s

multi-ethnic demographic balance. The informal election specific coalition that

emphasized non-competition with each other and political cooperation to defeat a

common enemy, Barisan Nasional, must now give way to a formal coalition of power

sharing and multi-ethnic governance. In the immediate aftermath of the election, many

Malaysians were hopeful of an end to communal based power sharing formulas through

an embrace of a truly color blind, multi-racial politics. Indeed, the national success of

PKR as an official multi-racial party produced optimism that such a multi-racial politics

was possible. Both PKR and DAP must be given credit for offering candidates of diverse

racial backgrounds. Of PKR’s 31 successful parliamentary candidates, 19 are Malay, 7

are Chinese, and 4 are Indian. Of DAP’s 28 successful parliamentary candidates, 22 are

Chinese, and 6 are Indian. 9

But ethnic politics remain as durable and entrenched as ever in Malaysian politics,

as indicated by a close analysis of the ethnic composition and balance of the opposition

PKR may be an officially multi-racial party but it is Malay based and Malay led. DAP is

14
a largely urban Chinese based party with Indian participation. PAS remains open to

Muslim members only. A truly non-communal based Malaysian politics may not be

possible in the short term, but the opposition’s communal based makeup could also serve

as the strong building blocks of an alternative communal based power sharing and

governance institution to the Barisan Nasional. The rise of such an alternative formalized

opposition coalition could be the first step to building a legitimate and competitive two-

party system in Malaysia. At the heart of the building of such a prospective opposition

coalition will be the figure of Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar has had a long career in Malaysian

politics, now maturing in its third stage as a prominent opposition leader, after stints as an

UMNO Malay nationalist and an Islamist NGO activist. He is a controversial figure,

attracting great loyalty and great derision simultaneously. Yet he is a skilled and

accomplished politician and remains the only politically viable figure to lead an

opposition coalition in competition with Barisan Nasional. After a 10 year ban on active

political activity as a result of his controversial convictions for corruption and abuse

power expired in April 2008, Anwar reentered parliament in an easy by-election victory

on August 28. 2008. The challenges of the opposition in building this coalition, while

also offering effective management of its five controlled states, will in large part

determine whether the 2008 elections were either a landmark or an aberration in

Malaysian political history.

The historic results of 12th Malaysian general elections will also have certain

significant ramifications for some of Malaysia’s other political institutions. An

immediate impact will be felt with the introduction of a vigorous federalism to

Malaysia’s political system. With the opposition in control of five states, we can expect

15
conflicts over the jurisdictions of federal and state governments, the management of

natural resources including the sharing of revenues from the state oil company, Petronas,

and disputes over federal transfers to state governments to emerge as new flashpoints in

Malaysian politics. Malaysia since independence has been an ostensibly federal country,

but the long dominance of the Barisan Nasional coalition at all levels of government has

made potential conflicts between the federal and state governments moot. The opposition

at times has controlled state governments, notably in Kelantan (1959-78, 1990-present) in

Trengganu (1959-64, 1999-2004) and in Sabah (1985-94), which sparked occasional

conflicts between the federal and state governments.

The opposition’s assorted victories in these largely Malay dominated or

economically marginal states gave the Barisan Nasional federal government an immense

amount of leverage to isolate these states, cutting federal transfers and withdrawing state

oil royalties in order to cripple opposition management, thus setting the stage for these

states to defect back to Barisan Nasional in the next elections. However, the opposition’s

control for the first time of the industrial frontline states of Penang and Selanagor makes

such a politically hardball strategy economically risky and politically untenable. How the

Barisan Nasional federal government and the opposition controlled state governments

manage their political differences will be a significant measure for a more competitive

multi-party system in Malaysia. A first test will come with the opposition’s stated

intention to revive local government elections, suspended since 1965. Local government

is infamous in Malaysia for its inefficiency and its multitude of corruption abuses

involving directly appointed local councilors and mayors. Questions have arisen about

whether state governments can introduce local government elections unilaterally, or if the

16
consent of the federal government is needed. Other opposition promises of eliminating or

drastically scaling back the New Economic Policy in the awarding of state contracts and

tenders have also come into question as the federal government sees such policies as

exclusively under federal jurisdiction. A major challenge for the opposition will be to

both exercise the distinct powers of state government, but also recognize its limitations.

In this respect, the Malaysian constitution gives ultimate primacy to the federal

government as federal statutes are recognized to take precedence over state statutes if

they are found to be in conflict.

Finally, Malaysia’s political culture is also changing in the aftermath of the 2008

elections. Observers had long characterized the Malaysian political system as a semi-

democracy, a type of electoral authoritarianism where the Barisan Nasional exercised its

democratic legitimacy on narrow procedural terms through the winning of periodic

elections, while ignoring general democratic norms in terms of political free speech,

political association and civil liberties. Such a model of governance is perhaps akin to

the East Asian developmental states of South Korea and Taiwan where political

participation and mobilization were discouraged and instead channeled towards economic

modernization and development. Malaysia’s political culture for years was premised on

the basis that development must be the entire focus of its politics. Malaysian political

parties became less important as representing ideological currents than as delivery

systems for the provision of government services and public works. 10 Barisan’s entire
9

2008 electoral campaign was based on this pragmatic, constituency service approach

which emphasized the material benefits of development while ceding national political

issues such as democratic reform, corruption, and judicial reform to the opposition.

17
Malaysia’s private and state media endlessly pushed the government’s developmental

accomplishments, but most Malaysians were not paying attention to the print and

broadcast media. Malaysians in large numbers were turning to the Internet, to such

websites as Malaysiakini [malaysiakini.com] and Malaysia Today [http://www.malaysia-

today.net/2008/] for their political information. Political discourse on the Internet tackled

the central political issues of democracy, political equality, corruption and abuses of

power that Barisan Nasional and the mainstream Malaysian media would not address.

These new avenues of political communication--the Internet, along with other new

technologies such as cell phone text messaging or SMS--did not transform Malaysian

political culture by themselves; they simply facilitated the political cultural shifts already

sweeping a broad swath of Malaysian society.

Appeals to development and material economic rewards were ineffective for a

rapidly evolving political culture in Malaysia more receptive to political appeals framed

around democracy, equality, fairness, and transparency. Malaysia’s new democratic

consensus is a welcome development in its political trajectory, but democratic politics

can be no panacea for Malaysia’s continuing challenges of multi-ethnic power sharing

and governance. There are many issues based around these democratic ideals which can

unite Malaysia’s three diverse communities. Yet the major shifts of sentiments within

each of Malaysia’s ethnic communities that produced the historic 2008 election results,

such as opposition to the New Economic Policy and affirmative action and debates over

religious politics and Islamization, cut across ethnic lines and could lead to future inter-

ethnic political conflict. Any democratic shift will be a difficult transition, but ironically,

the historical legacy of the Barisan Nasional power sharing formula of multi-ethnic

18
governance, now challenged with the development of an alternative formalized

opposition coalition, could serve to mollify the more difficult aspects of the transition.

1
“Election Results 2008”, New Straits Times, 10 March 2008. “12th General Election

Results”, The Star, March 10, 2008. Election Commission of Malaysia, accessed March

21, 2008, < http://www.spr.gov.my/index/pagemulabi.htm>

31 of the 59 seats in the state parliament. The government subsequently collapsed

January 25 2009 with the defection of 3 members to the previous Barisan Nasional state

government. The deposed government subsequently sued and Perak remains in limbo

with no recognized state government since January 2009. New state elections may be

imminent to resolved the impasse;

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beritamalaysia/messages>
4
Baradan Kuppusamy, ‘Rampant crime turns election issue”, in Inter Press Service

News Agency , January 8, 2008, < http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40833>

2008, L 10
6
Carolyn Hong, “Umno reprimands Youth wing leaders for speeches on race”, Straits

Times, accessed March 21, 2008,< http://malaysia-

today.net/blog2006/newsncom.php?itemid=1113 > The offending remark by an UMNO

delegate in response to the unsheathing of the Keris by UMNO youth chief Hishamuddin

19
Hussein is as follows : “Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed

his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham when is he going to use it?”
7
For more information see Malaysia Today, Khairy Chronicles - Khairy Jalamuddin :

Rasputin or Boy-Genius ? (Malaysia: np, 2006) , a delightfully entertaining mix of fact

and fiction which focuses on the alleged unhealthy influence of the son in law of the

Prime Minister.
8
Zainon Ahmad, “UMNO must take the blame”, The Sun, March 14, 2008, L8
9
Election Results 2008”, New Straits Times, 10 March 2008. “12th General Election

Results”, The Star, March 10, 2008.

20