Assessing Political Dynamics in Contemporary Malaysia : Implications for Democratic Change

This article examines political dynamics in Malaysia and assesses the prospects for change in the direction of greater political liberalization. It focuses on the 12th General Election of 2008 and its implications for opportunities and challenges for liberal democratic change in Malaysia. It discusses the role of the internet-based new media in shaping an emerging public sphere, and some factors affecting the changing role of non-Malay voters in the political process. This article argues that democratization in Malaysia is already occurring, albeit at a gradual pace; it is being pushed by the new political forces of civil society actors, newly empowered opposition parties, and the internet-based media. The boundaries of this emerging democratic space is simultaneously being shaped and contested by the political competition between status-quo and reformist forces in this society. Some institutional changes have expanded the parameters of democratic space, although the entrenched dominant institutions of the ruling regime continue to wield sufficient amounts of institutional capacity to subvert any consolidation of these democratic changes for now.

asianetwork Exchange | fall 2011 | volume 19 | 1 come of the 11th General Election of 2004, in which it achieved its best electoral performance since independence (see Tables 1 and 2

below).
How do we explain the best and worst electoral performances for the ruling BN coalition within two electoral cycles?Were there underlying structural and institutional factors that were shaping political development in new directions in Malaysia?This article will situate the 12 GE within a broader political context and provide a preliminary assessment of the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for liberal democratic change in Malaysia.It will discuss the role of the Internet-based new media in shaping an emerging public sphere in Malaysia and some factors affecting the changing role of non-Malay voters in the political process.

Historical Background
Malaysia is characterized politically, socially, and culturally by its pluralism.It consists of a multiracial, multireligious, and multi-ethnic society.Demographically, Malaysia's population of 28.7 million is constituted by Malays (50.4 percent), ethnic Chinese (23.7 percent), ethnic Indians (7.1 percent), other indigenous races (11.4 percent), and other racial/ethnic groups (7.8 percent). 4The ethnic Chinese and Indians, who are predominantly non-Muslim, arrived as immigrants in Malaya (as it was then known) in the early nineteenth century when it was ruled as a British colony.Perhaps one of the most significant features of the Malaysian political landscape is the "special rights" of the Malays.As scholars have written, "special rights" for Malays can be traced back to the British colonial period.
The British accorded a special status to the Malays.They were regarded as the original inhabitants, although, as their name suggests, the fifty thousand or so orang asli ("aborigines") had been there longer.The British believed that they should offer "protection" to the Malays, thus supplementing the protective role of the [Malay]   rulers. 5is historical legacy was institutionalized at independence in 1957 through a political compromise whereby the Chinese and Indians were given citizenship status, and the indigenous Malays retained their "special rights, " so that "national and state identification was to be through 'Malay symbols, ' such as allegiance to Malay royalty and the declaration of Islam as the official religion." 6 After the racial riots of May 1969, constitutional amendments in 1971 extended Malay special privileges to include, among others, preferential treatment in public service employment, admissions into local universities, and the awarding of business licenses by the government. 7The New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1970 further institutionalized these Malay privileges in the economic sphere.Based on these factors, scholars have labeled the Malaysian state as essentially "a 'Malay-based' polity, both in form and substance." 8 In other words, "Malay political power and dominance is the overriding theme in Malaysian politics." 9 Given this background, for decades scholars have explained away Malaysia's (liberal) "democratic recalcitrance" 10 by pointing to a combination of factors that consist of its deeply divided society along racial, ethnic, and religious lines; a compliant middle class that is politically and economically dependent on the state; 11 and the grip on power by the politically dominant United Malays National Organization (UMNO). 12All of these have to some degree acted as barriers to greater political liberalization in the direction of liberal democratic governance.
Then, slightly over a decade ago, in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the subsequent political crisis over then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's sacking and jailing of his deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, civil society actors began to mobilize through the Reformasi movement, seeking to build the political/institutional foundations of an alternative form of governance-one that would be based on the principles of good governance and liberal democratic norms. 13However, two major developments occurred at this time: (1) the retirement of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in October 2003, who was replaced both as president of UMNO and prime minister by Abdullah Badawi; and (2) the subsequent electoral victory by the ruling BN coalition in the 11th General Election of 2004, in which it won 198 of 219 seats in Parliament, (i.e., 90 percent of the total seats).(See Tables 1 and 2.) The incipient movement toward greater political liberalization appeared to have stalled, reverting back to the primacy of "developmentalism" over liberal democratic governance. 14Apart from the institutional barriers to greater political liberalization, there appeared to also be a durable political culture working against political transformation.In describing the political culture of "developmentalism, " Malaysian political scientist Francis Loh Kok Wah writes, The discourse of developmentalism came into its own amidst this economic growth [in the period between the late 1980s and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997].It coincided with the consolidation of Malaysia's middle classes involving all ethnic groups.Embraced by the middle classes, the new political culture places value on sustained economic growth that facilitates an improvement in material standards of living while also resulting in the spread of consumerist habits.Its corollary is an appreciation of the value of political stability, which many Malaysians believed could only be guaranteed by a strong BN-governed state even when authoritarian means were resorted to.Developmentalism, therefore, is the cultural consequence of the strong developmental state when citizens begin to enjoy improved living conditions as a result of the economic growth the state has fostered.This developmentalism increasingly displaced the ethnic political discourse and practice in the 1990s. 15

Post-Developmentalism?
The veil of "developmentalism, " however, appeared to have masked some fundamental structural and institutional inequalities underlying Malaysia's political economy and society.The ethnic restructuring of the Malaysian economy and society through the NEP of 1970 and its successor policy, the New Development Policy (NDP) of 1990, and the affirmative action/preferential treatments given to ethnic Malays under their status as bumiputera (sons of the soil) have over time solidified a society divided between Malays and non-Malays. 16So while the discourses of "developmentalism" and political stability have been used repeatedly to explain electoral authoritarianism in Malaysia, political contestation and conflict have never been far from the surface.
Four years after BN's resounding victory at the polls in 2004, the outcome of the 12 GE in 2008 was markedly different, with the ruling coalition losing its two-thirds majority in Parliament as well as its political control of the state legislatures in four states (bringing the total number of state governments under opposition rule to five). 17For democracy advocates, this turn in Malaysia's political trajectory, as measured by election outcomes, appeared to be the next major phase in the country's political liberalization, in effect, putting it back on the (gradual) path to liberal democratic reform. 18emo cratic Change   (1990, 1995, 1999, 2004, 2008); PBS (Sabah) (2004, 2008); Gerakan (1990,  1995, 2004, 2008) **Semangat ' 46 (1990, 1995); PBS (Sabah) (1990, 1995, 1999)

Loss of Non-Malay Support
In his assessment of the 12 GE, Thomas Pepinsky identifies one of the main causes of the ruling regime's poor showing as "non-Malay voters' rejecting the incumbent coalition in favor of secular opposition parties." 21 There certainly appears to have been a shift in the level of support for the ruling BN coalition among the Chinese and Indian voters (see Table 3). 22he two ethnically based component parties in the BN coalition, the Malaysian Chinese Association (hereafter MCA) and the Malaysian Indian Congress (hereafter MIC), were the biggest casualties in the 12 GE.This is arguably one of the most significant political developments in Malaysia coming out of the 12 GE.For over half a century (and at least since the racial riots of 1969), the non-Malay minority appeared to have settled into an implicit social/political compact with the Malay majority whereby they tacitly accepted the status of "second class citizens, " subordinated institutionally to the majority Malay-Muslim population.Under the "consociational democracy" model, 24 non-Malay elites had assumed the role of acting on behalf of their respective minority Chinese and Indian constituencies in political negotiations with the dominant UMNO.This, however, put the non-Malay elites in a position that allowed them to join their Malay elite counterparts in exercising control over economic resources and political institutions, often in self-aggrandizing ways.In the 12 GE, the non-Malay elites in the ruling regime appear to have lost their credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of Chinese and Indian voters, especially in their ability to advocate for their respective communities in negotiations within the ruling coalition.The emergence of the opposition alliance (PKR-DAP-PAS) 25 has provided these hitherto politically marginalized voters a viable political alternative, thereby creating sufficient differentiation among the choices available for them at the polls.Non-Malay voters are now able to seriously contemplate shifting their support and allegiance away from what was until now their primary (and oftentimes only) political vehicles, their respective ethnic political parties of MCA and MIC.

Street Protests on the Eve of the 12 GE
Among the most unprecedented events to take place in the last decade of Malaysia's political history in terms of contentious politics at the mass society level were two major street protests that took place in November 2007, less than five months prior to the 12 GE.(1) On November 10, an estimated 40,000 individuals, consisting of a coalition of seventy civil society groups, joined by members of opposition political parties and concerned individuals, took to the streets of the nation's capital, Kuala Lumpur. 26Organized under the Coalition of Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH, which is the Malay word for "clean"), this protest was to petition the king for reforms to the electoral system, which has been criticized as being biased in favor of the ruling coalition; 27 and (2) on November 25, an estimated 30,000 ethnic Indians organized as the Hindu Rights Action Force (HIN-DRAF), an Indian nongovernmental organization, marched peacefully on the streets of Kuala Lumpur to protest the ruling BN coalition's consistent neglect of the Tamil-speaking Hindu working class, by any measure considered to be an economic underclass in Malaysia today.These large scale political protests were significant in at least two respects.First, they broke the psychological barrier among Malaysians (which has existed ever since the May 13, 1969 bloody racial riots) against voicing their political opposition publicly, and second, they emboldened latent political discontent, especially since ethnic Indians have tradition- ally been regarded as a passive community that loyally supports the ruling regime, despite their deteriorating economic condition for the past five decades.The sight of these protesters (often relayed through the medium of new media (e.g., YouTube video clips over the Internet, SMS messages, cell-phone images) being beaten and sprayed with acid-laced tear gas by the government's security forces marked a turning point in the politics of contention between the ruling regime and the opposition forces in Malaysia. 28Voters in Malaysia had come to realize that they now had avenues to circumvent the dominant institutions of the ruling regime, and that through these alternative avenues they could channel their voices of political dissent.In the case of the Chinese and Indian voters, these political developments have been quite unprecedented.

New Media & the Emerging "Public Sphere"
Among the most significant new institutions that have emerged in shaping the emerging democratic space in Malaysia is new media.New media captures both the new medium of information as well as the fledgling "public sphere" that it represents through Internet-based news portals, blogs, e-mails, video clips on the web and cell phones, mobile short messaging service (SMS), and other means.Scholars have traced the introduction of new media into the Malaysian political landscape to the Reformasi movement of 1998. 29In the wake of the 12 GE, there were numerous assessments by election candidates (representing both the ruling regime and the opposition coalition, which were then confirmed by analysts) of the defining role played by new media in BN's poor electoral performance. 30In this sense, new media came into its own with the 12 GE.
Institutionally, the mainstream media in Malaysia has been firmly in the grip of the ruling regime for decades and continues to be so today, both in terms of its corporate ownership 31 and in its perceived role as a mouthpiece for the ruling BN coalition. 32In the case of the new media, it has circumvented the institutionalized mainstream media to create a parallel "institution" not only for the dissemination of information but also to facilitate the role of civil society.For example, one scholar points to the many creative ways in which different kinds of media were used during the campaign period of the 12 GE, especially in "fomenting alternative imaginaries and contesting cultural maps of meanings to Malaysian society at large, and in the process engender[ing] shifts in dominant power relations." 33 He goes on to state, "political parties did not have the monopoly on electoral campaigning.Numerous individuals and civil society groups also took the initiative to engage and educate the Malaysian public on what was at stake in the 12th General Election." 34 Capturing the many platforms through which the new media manifests itself, he writes, "[on] polling day, the hand phone was again indispensable in facilitating timely and contrapuntal informational flow." 35 In short, the 12 GE demonstrated the various forms and broad range of new media in "the cultural production" and "contestations of social power in contemporary Malaysian society." 36 One of the interesting insights with regard to new media during this past decade is the speed with which it has emerged as a dominant factor in the changing political dynamics in Malaysia.In a study conducted of blogging in Malaysia in 2006, based on the demographic that was actively engaged in it, the authors were not too optimistic of the potential of this form of new media to change the political landscape.They write, "the possibility of blogging to act as a vehicle for political change and democratization should be viewed with caution." 37 Two years later, in their observations of the role of bloggers in the 12 GE, they reassessed their earlier conclusions, sharing the view that bloggers were now assuming the role of "thought leaders for a new generation." 38 They write that, in the context of a asianetwork Exchange | fall 2011 | volume 19 | 1 controlled mainstream media, "there is no doubt that, in the recent general election, these 'thought leaders' have become crucial in 'the shaping of opinions' through 'online political discourses' of the nation.... " 39 The dynamic and protean nature by which the new media has developed also suggests that its next phase of transformation would be left only to the political imagination of Malaysia's netizens.
The transformation that would allow new media to form a more robust democratic culture and consequently become the next step in the trajectory of liberal democratic reform in Malaysia is through the formation of a "public sphere." Political philosopher Charles Taylor in his discussion of civil society as "public sphere" reminds us that in liberal society there is a social form of power that society wields to counteract the power of the state. 40Taylor defines a public sphere as: A common space in which the members of society meet, through a variety of media (print, electronic) and also in face-to-face encounters, to discuss matters of common interest; and thus to be able to form a common mind about those matters.I say "a common space" because, although the media are multiple, as well as the exchanges taking place in them, they are deemed to be in principle intercommunicating (emphasis added). 41e "common space" of the public sphere then is seen as a space for discussion, not strictly a physically identifiable place, but rather, the domain in which discussions take place (i.e., through the media, books, pamphlets, and newspapers.) 42Taylor argues for a view of the public sphere as "a space of discussion which is self-consciously seen as being outside power" with its role expressed in these terms: "It is supposed to be listened to by those in power, but it is not itself an exercise of power." 43 Taylor points to two justifications for this.First, that the public sphere is seen as society's check on power, that is, giving shape to the claim that "political power must be supervised and checked by something outside, " so that the check can be seen to be "ideally disengaged from partisan spirit." 44 Second, the rise of the public sphere effectively puts an end to the "old ideal of a social order undivided by conflict and difference." 45 Quite the opposite.The public sphere is a sphere in which constant debate and argument take place; and so that these potentially divisive moments do not signal or even result in a general weakening (or breakdown) of the whole political structure (or order), it is important that the public sphere be maintained as an "extrapolitical" sphere. 46By carving out an extrapolitical status for the public sphere, it could be defended against accusations (often made by representatives of ruling regimes) that it will have potentially destructive or destabilizing effects on the whole polity.Indeed, this could not be further from the truth since the role of the public sphere is essentially to provide an arena in which potentially divisive issues could be hammered out with the ultimate hope of reaching some form of (unforced) 47 consensus that incorporates the common wishes of the people.Taylor elaborates that "people's views can be altered by the interchange" that transpires in the public sphere, and that "consensus sometimes emerges" through the fact that "citizens frequently understand themselves as [being] part of a community and don't vote out of individual interests alone." 48 A flourishing public sphere then is essential to any democracy because it ensures that a democratic process is maintained in political decision making. 49lso, it is only if the public sphere is maintained as an extrapolitical domain that it can then be seen as a cluster that could be linked to other extrapolitical spheres, thereby forming the conceptual boundaries of a civil society in its broadest sense.
The next phase of political liberalization in Malaysia should be one where the trajectory of new media as a complementary actor or facilitator of the democratic process is institu- tionalized by the gradual creation of a "public sphere" as described above.It is only then that the new media could claim to be a "free" uncensored media.In other words, by circumventing the current dominant institutions that represent the mainstream media in Malaysia, new media is creating a new democratic institution.

Conclusion
To summarize, these are some of the institutional changes that have swept across the political landscape in Malaysia in the wake of the 12 GE: (1) There is now a higher level of voter choice differentiation. 50This is certainly true for non-Malay (Chinese and Indian) voters, but this is also the case for Malay voters, who now have three choices from which to choose: the status-quo option in UMNO, and two different offerings within the opposition coalition, a liberal choice in PKR, and a more conservative alternative in PAS. 512) For the first time in recent political history, there is an increasingly viable two-party coalition system in Malaysia, with the BN coalition parties having to face a nascent "shadow government" in the Pakatan Rakyat (People's Coalition).The PKR-DAP-PAS opposition coalition-controlled governments in the state legislatures of Selangor, Penang, Kedah, and Kelantan have provided an opportunity for these state governments to begin building the necessary levels of institutional density to create sufficient amounts of institutional capital among themselves to govern effectively.52 (3) The new media is beginning to create an Internet-based public sphere in which voices critical of the government are no longer "hidden transcripts" of the oppressed 53 or the politically discontented, but rather are starting to potentially form an "imagined community" 54 of democracy advocates who have become sufficiently emboldened through the act of sharing images in their minds of "the art of the possible." 55 This has resulted in citizens engaging with the political process in more direct ways than merely passively casting their ballots at every election cycle.56 When one observes political developments in the run-up to and since the 12 GE, democratization in Malaysia was already occurring, albeit at a gradual pace.Democratization was being pushed by new political forces such as civil society actors, newly empowered opposition parties, and the Internet-based media.In effect, new institutions were being formed around new political forces.The pace of change is being determined by these new political forces having to challenge structural and institutional barriers representing eliterun institutions such as the dominant political parties.Often times, sites of political contention where political change emerges are situated beyond the arenas in which elite coalitions and power-sharing arrangements are being negotiated and perpetuated.It is in these new political spaces that the contours of emerging democratic space in Malaysia are being (re) delineated, often by circumventing conventional institutional barriers to political liberalization and democratization.The democratic space that is emerging in Malaysia today is simultaneously being shaped and contested by the political competition between statusquo and reformist forces in this society.And the boundaries of this new political space are constantly being redrawn depending on the outcomes of these political contestations.Taken together, the institutional changes discussed above have expanded the parameters of democratic space in Malaysia, although the entrenched dominant institutions of the ruling regime continue to wield sufficient amounts of institutional capacity to subvert any consolidation of these democratic changes for now.We will continue to witness these new political dynamics in Malaysia in the upcoming 13th General Election, expected to be held in 2012.that could be used in ethnically divided societies such as Malaysia, whereby "the main ethnic communities are all represented in the government" in a "grand coalition consisting of leaders of each major ethnic community." "The ethnic parties of the consociational regime have to reach decisions by consensus, taking into account the disparate and conflicting ethnic interests that they represent.Moreover, the principle of proportionality should be observed in areas such as political representation, civil-service appointments, and the distribution of public funds to assure each community that its interests are truly being served, " All quotes taken from Harold Crouch, Government and society in Malaysia (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1996), 152, 153.One of the main sources of contention among the non-Malays is that over time, and especially since the NEP, the Malays have benefitted disproportionately from public policies enacted by the ruling BN coalition.In the case of the elites who lead the Chinese (MCA) and Indian (MIC) ethnic parties within the ruling coalition, this has gradually eroded their legitimacy, resulting in the loss of non-Malay support for the BN in the 12 GE.For an assessment of the effects of the NEP on the ethnic Chinese support for asianetwork Exchange | fall 2011 | volume 19 | 1 Demo cratic Change asianetwork Exchange | fall 2011 | volume 19 | 1

TAble 3 : eSTimATed chAnge in eThnic VoTeS For bAriSAn nASionAl: 2004 (11Th gener Al elecTion) VS. 2008 (12Th gener Al elecTion) Party name Percentage of malays Votes: Split comparison 2004 vs. 2008 ge Percentage of chinese Votes: Split comparison 2004 vs. 2008 ge Percentage of indian Votes:
asianetwork Exchange | fall 2011 | volume 19 | 1 the DAP in substantial numbers; only about a third of Chinese voters are estimated to have voted for the MCA" (108); and (3) "[In] districts where the MIC fielded candidates, only three in ten Indians are estimated to have voted for them." (108).All quotes taken from Pepinsky, "The 2008 Malaysian Elections: An End to Ethnic Politics?"For a critique of the Malaysian Chinese Association, the main political party within the ruling BN coalition that 22. represents the ethnic Chinese constituency, see James Chin, "Malaysian Chinese Association Politics a Year Later: Crisis of Political Legitimacy, " The Round Table 99 no.407 (April 2010): 153-162.Data drawn from Pepinsky, "The 2008 Malaysian Elections: An End to Ethnic Politics?";Meredith Weiss, "Edg-23.ing Toward a New Politics in Malaysia: Civil Society at the Gate, " asian survey 49, no. 5 (2009): 742-758; and William Case, "Transition from Single-Party Dominance?New Data from Malaysia, " Journal of East asian studies 10 (2010): 91-126.Arendt Lijphart came up with the concept of "consociational democracy" to describe the political arrangement 24.