Determining Factors of Multiracial Political Parties in Malaysia-Ooi Kok Hin

KokHinOoi

DeterminingFactorsofMultiracialPoliticalPartiesinMalaysia

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Introduction

Malaysian politics cannot escape the subject of race. Even when we speak about moving beyond

racebased political party, we are essentially talking about building multiracial political party. At the end

of the day, no matter how much a political party trumpets its nonracial ideology, the party would still be

judged to be not multiracial if its membership and leadership are made up of mostly one racial group.

Therefore, a nonracial ideology is a necessary but insufficient condition for a party to be considered

multiracial.

The basis for this research springs from that assumption. What are the factors that enables a multiracial

political party to flourish? This is the research question that I want to address. The significance of this

study cannot be overstated. Malaysia is at a crucial crossroads again. The ruling Barisan Nasional,

having been denied the customary twothird majority in the 12th General Election in 2008, failed to

reclaim the magic number in the 13th General Election that was held last year. Similarly the opposition

Pakatan Rakyat regard their failure to wrestle the federal government from Barisan Nasional as a

testimony to the need for reforms. Undoubtedly, both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat strategists

are reconsidering their political tactics for future electoral success. The one major decision both

coalitions need to make is whether they will choose to embrace New Politics characterized by

moderation, the move to center, and the focus on public policy debates, or to cling to their traditional

strongholds and intensify racebased politics fueled by the twin Rs, race and religion. Can a multiracial

party flourish under the circumstances of the later? I doubt. On the other hand, the country is not close

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to the former scenario if the latest developments are telling. We are in a tug of war, neither here nor

there. If we can find out the significant factors that encourage the success of multiracial parties, such

findings have the ability to influence the parties involved and the public, ergo swing the odds to favor

NewPolitics.

By studying the historical trends, I proposed three determinants of multiracial political parties. While I

use data to back up my numbers, I primarily use case studies as the observations for my theories. In

doing so, not only do I potentially get to know the factors that lead to the success of multiracial parties, I

also come across factors which leads to the demise of some of them. What makes them succeed? What

leads to their demise? More questions are raised than answered. These questions prompt me to study

the matter further and, hopefully, contribute a theory that will encourage further research concerning

multiracial political parties in Malaysia. Note that the bulk of my discussion focuses on political parties,

instead of political coalitions. The two giant coalitions in Malaysia, Barisan Nasional and Pakatan

Rakyat, are heavily influenced by party politics each political party in the coalition has its own agenda

and we have to examine those agenda to get to the bottom of issues like why some parties are

multiracial and some not, is it possible to be multiracial by having a political coalition with each party

catering to its racial group, and whether multiracial parties can survive in a structure that encourages

racialideology.

Literaturereview

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Studies concerning Malaysian politics revolve around the issues of authoritarianism, vote pooling, voting

across racial lines, the staying power of UMNO and Barisan Nasional, the challenges to their rules, and

the likes. Many studies lightly touch on the subjects discussed in this paper. Maznah (2008) discussed

the implications for ethnic politics after the political tsunami of 2008 in which Barisan Nasional was

denied the twothirds majority for the first time in nearly four decades. Similarly, Pepinsky (2009) 1

examined the sustainability of racial politics and explanations on why nonMalay voters deserted Barisan

Nasional in the thirteenth General Election. There is also plentiful of research examining the relationship 2

between complex identities and political culture (Kling, 2006) , impacts of political Islam on multiracial 3

Malaysia (Liow, 2007) , and regime durability (Case, 1992) . But there is a profound lack of research 4 5

to study the trends of multiracial political parties. The closest research that resembles such effort is

Shakila Yaakobs historical examination of the concept of multiracial Malaysia. There is a real need to 6

study the factors that nurture and obstruct the success of multiracial political parties. Findings from such

research can have real world implications for policy makers and party strategists, especially at this time

of political uncertainty. Parties have to choose to intensify and revert to racebased politics or embrace

a new kind of politics. Studies of this sort then can be a reference or even a road map for parties

desiringtobecomemoremultiracial.

1Mohamad,Maznah."Malaysiademocracyandtheendofethnicpolitics?."AustralianJournalofInternationalAffairs():441459.2ThomasB.Pepinsky(2009)The2008MalaysianElections:AnEndtoEthnicPolitics?.JournalofEastAsianStudies:JanuaryApril2009,Vol.9,No.1,pp.871203Kling,Zainal."UMNOandBNinthe2004Election:ThePoliticalCultureofComplexIdentities."InMalaysia:RecentTrendsandChallenges.Singapore:InstituteofSoutheastAsianStudies,2006..4ChinyongLiow,Joseph."PoliticalIslamInMalaysia:ProblematisingDiscourseAndPracticeInTheUMNOPASIslamisationRace."Commonwealth&ComparativePolitics():184205.5Case,William."SemiDemocracyinMalaysia:WithstandingthePressuresforRegimeChange."PacificAffairs():183.6Yaakob,Shakila."PoliticalCultureandNationBuilding:WhitherBangsaMalaysia."MalaysianJournalofSocialPolicyandSociety3():2242.

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TheoryonThreeDeterminingFactors

I propose three determining factors of the success and failure of a multiracial political party: nonracial

ideology, democracy and structural incentives, and a broad winning coalition with nationwide appeal

andgeographicalpresence.

NonRacialIdeologyandRacialPhysicality

I regard nonracial ideology as an essential component of a multiracial political party. It is the antithesis

of racism and an upfront appeal for inclusivity, and perhaps diversity. When I say nonracial ideology, I

do not mean that the party is completely void of racializing. Racialization is inevitable in Malaysian

politics, as I have stated at the beginning. Perhaps it would be good to break racial ideology into two

components: racial and ideology. Race as a physical manifestation of skin color and cultural differences

is a descriptive fact. Almost everyone can distinguish other people racially. A political party which wants

to reach out to every one may recognize that in order to do so, they have to reach out to each one.

They would have to recognize racial physicality: differences that the people have as distinct racial

groups such as skin color, cultural practices, languages and ingroup niche. Indeed, Malaysian idealists

would have to accept this racial physicality as a fact and work with it, not against it. Some idealists

trumpet a vision of a united Malaysia but they never bother to interact with and reach out to the diverse

groups of people that make up the country. A multiracial political party which is keen to expand its

influence and longevity would recognize racial physicality and utilize it to their advantage they know they

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have to reach out to different groups of people and hence arrange their messages, tactics and other

meansofcampaigningtoachievesuchpurpose.

How about ideology? Ideo refers to ideas and logy refers to bodies of knowledge, a certain

discourse or collection therefore ideology is simply defined as a collection of ideas. What makes

ideology so powerful is that it encompasses everything, especially things that people regard as most

important to them such as identity, social status, cultural norms and religion. When we combine the

words race and ideology, we no longer have the meaning of race that we previously understood. A

synthesis has occurred. In racial ideology, ideology transforms the race part of the equation into

something dynamically social. This is the term of race that is understood by social and political activists

and perhaps the communists, and often associated with class inequality, prejudice, exploitation,

segregation, and repression. This concept of race that is more socially constructed also tend to result in 7

the victim mentality, in which one group sees themselves as being victims of oppression and injustice by

another group, or see themselves as victimized by circumstances. This nuances, of course, of the fragile 8

interracial relationship in Malaysia. Many Malays feel entitled to special rights and affirmative action not

only due to the much debated Article 153 of the Federal Constitution (which ensures special rights for

the Malays and Bumiputeras as long as the rights of others are not infringed ), but also because they 9

believe their community is economically disadvantaged and that they have been victimized by the

7"SlaveryandtheOriginoftheRaceIdeology."SlaveryandtheOriginoftheRaceIdeology.http://www.iclfi.org/english/wv/942/qotw.html8Fields,Barbara.IdeologyandRaceinAmericanHistory.Region,Race,andReconstruction:EssaysinHonorofC.VannWoodward.Ed.J.MorganKousserandJamesM.McPherson.NewYork/Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1982,pp.143177.)9FederalConstitution:(asat1stFebruary2013).PetalingJaya:InternationalLawBookServices,2013.

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colonial rulers in the past. Affirmative action is, for some of them, to right what has been wronged and

taken away from them. Similarly, many Chinese feel that they are victims of various proBumiputeras

policies and not surprisingly, they consider themselves as being discriminated politically, economically

andsociallybytheauthority.Thisisthedimensionthatracialideologyfunctionsin.

It is established then, that racial ideology is a different beast from racial physicality. A multiracial political

party would want to embrace racial physicality and work with diversity, but can it coexists with racial

ideology? I highly doubt it. It would be inconsistent to lash raciallycharged rhetoric at others and to

include them into the party. It is an either/or. Suffice to say that a political party based on a racial

ideology would inevitably fail to attract any racial group other than the one/s it claimed to champion. It is

clearthen,thatanonracialideologyisanecessaryconditionforasuccessfulmultiracialpoliticalparty.

DemocracyandStructuralincentives

In an environment whereby racial ideology is the trump card and kingmaker, a multiracial political party

will not be able to compete with parties that are ideologically racial. If time and again, elections are held

and the same parties win, the voters would be less inclined to vote for the losing parties after each

successive round. It is a rational decision as they do not want to waste their votes. However, this

resulted in the losing parties finding it increasingly difficult to survive. Therefore, I would argue that

democracyandstructuralincentivesmatter.

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Some may think it is a bit of a stretch. I would attempt to show otherwise. Suppose in a situation in

which the government is formed by political parties with racial ideology. In the next election, the ruling

parties are challenged by a few opposition. For our thought experiment, let us categorize the opposition

into two camps: parties with racial ideology and parties with nonracial ideology/multiracial parties. A

series of events can happen. Firstly, parties with racial ideology in both the government and opposition

will try to outdo each other in the racialideological warfare. This only serve to intensify the racial

nature of politics, which would be detrimental to the multiracial parties chances. Secondly, the

multiracial parties would either swim or drown. If they swim, they will adapt the racial ideology current

and compromise. If they drown, thats the end of their story and we have politics which are dominated

by racial ideology. Thirdly, multiracial parties might challenge the status quo and publicly denounce the

racialideological game. If this step is taken in the right time and the right setting, it would be

revolutionary. But if the environment rewards racial ideology, parties with racial ideology would just up

the game by claiming that multiracial parties are challenging their race (notice that although it is really the

racial ideology that is being challenged, it is more euphemistic and rewarding to shift the goal post and

use the term race). This would create opportunities for parties with racial ideology to champion their

race. Worse, in the absence of democracy, anyone who publicly challenge the racial ideology can be

charged for sedition or arrested without trial. It would be bad enough if the country has either structural

impediments or absence of democracy but if the country has both, multiracial parties cannot prosper.

One note on the definition of the terms. I define democracy in the broadest sense of the word. This

includes but not limited to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free and fair elections, and

representation of and for the people. Certain quarters in Malaysia (and other parts of the world) have

constantly undermined freedom as a fundamental prerogative of a free agency. As the Nobel laureate

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Amartya Sen noted, freedom is both an evaluative and effective measures of development. So much 10

has been misrepresented about the notion of freedom that we will need to discuss it at a separate

occasion. Suffice to say that freedom does not absolve ones responsibility to what one does or says, if

it infringes on another persons freedom. In fact precisely because one has freedom and freely choose

to commit some actions, one must be held accountable to those actions. For example, one shall not be

persecuted for ones political views even if it certain quarters feel offended by their views. If the law is

such that we should persecute some people because others take offence of what they stand for, then the

law, universalized, would have resulted in massive arrests of current politicians because many people are

offended by what they said most of the time. Ergo, as John Locke has written nearly four centuries ago,

it is not the diversity of opinions but the inability and unwillingness to tolerate the diversity of opinions

that causes wars among mankind. However, one shall be brought to justice if one infringes upon the 11

freedom of another individual such as doing, threatening or calling for the physical harm of another

individual.

In Malaysia, draconian laws which were legislated during the Communist Emergency and May 13 riots

(and stay way beyond their welcome) are structural impediments to the success of both multiracial

parties and of democracy itself. Structural impediments would prevent or preempt multiracial parties

from challenging status quo. Multiracial parties need democracy to replace these structural impediments

(This is not to say that we shouldnt value democracy in itself) and change the rules of the game. Once

wechangetherulesandinstitutions,wecanchangethegame.

10Sen,Amartya.Developmentasfreedom.NewYork:Knopf,1999.11Locke,John.Aletterconcerningtoleration.Raleigh,N.C.:AlexCatalogue,199.

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GeographyandNationwideAppealsforaBroadWinningCoalition

The third component of my theory is a broad winning coalition. As stated earlier, a political party would

not be perceived as multiracial if its membership and leadership are made up of mostly one racial group.

We can debate how many racial groups are needed to be considered truly multiracial and what the ideal

distributive composition (as a percentage of party membership and leadership) is, but few would deny

that that we need it. We do not know how much exactly but we know we need it. Hence, the term

broad. Just like parties with racial ideology, multiracial parties/parties with nonracial ideology need to

build a base of supporters. They need to occupy a slot in the political spectrum and stay relevant. They

achieve this by winning elections, and they win elections because of the votes and support of their base.

Hence, the term winning coalition. Pairing up both terminologies, we have a broad winning coalition.

Multiracial parties require a broad winning coalition because they appeal to more than one racial group

and because they need to win elections to stay in the game. A broad winning coalition necessarily means

two things: That particular multiracial political party must have nationwide appeal, and therefore, their

geographical presence is not confined to a few areas. This is a serious concern and a crucial challenge

for any party that aspires to be truly multiracial. Some political parties fail to achieve that status because

they cannot expand their presence beyond a few districts or states which are mainly populated by one

or two racial groups. This is especially important in the context of Malaysia because of the racial

distribution across geography. Most areas or constituencies are mainly populated by one racial group,

some are populated by a few racial groups but one racial group is the absolute majority, and only a

handful is considered mixed constituencies in which the racial distribution is relatively balanced or close.

This happens because of two reasons: firstly, direct result of colonial rule. The British encouraged an

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influx of Chinese and Indian immigrants and these people settle in a few areas associated with their

fields. For example, one see that former tinmining lands are populated by Chinese and estates are

populated by Indians. The colonial rulers also have a policy of divide and rule and somewhat encourage

spurred segregation. For example, the construction of Chinese village and Malay village meant that

these places will be concentrated with one racial group. Secondly, the population itself tend to segregate

themselves and concentrate into the areas populated with their own kins. This selfsegregation reinforces

the legacy of segregation, although urban cities increasingly make this defacto isolation an unlikely

option. In short, geographically speaking, racial concentration is a reality that multiracial parties have to

deal with. They cannot afford to confine themselves into their comfort zones, but consistently reach out

to other areas. Unlike parties with racial ideology that can afford to concentrate their effort on their

traditional strongholds filled with one racial group, parties with nonracial ideology/multiracial parties

need to reach out to each and every community spanning across the country. They must code their

message for a broad audience. It is established then, that a nationwide appeal and voter base is

indispensabletothebroadwinningcoalitionofmultiracialparties.

EmpiricalAnalysisandCaseStudies

This section deals with observations to support my theory. Of course, one could say that I can exercise

selective bias to cherry pick observations that support the theory and ignore those that do not.

However, thats precisely the merit of this approach. As Karl Popper noted, a proposition should be

able to be proven false by observation or experimentation. If we go the other way around, I will 12

12"Falsifiability."PrincetonUniversity.http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Falsifiability.html

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observe things and propose a theory. How would you falsify my claim? You point to a contrary

evidence or observation. Ergo, observation is what supports and falsifies a theory. I propose a theory

and we all can test whether it is true or false by observation and experimentation. I do not claim that this

study confirms the theory, but it does find evidence in support of the theory. I hope further research will

be done to bring more light into the matter than the current available literature. Nevertheless, heres how

this section will be arranged. Though I use data to back up the numbers, I primarily utilize case studies

for observations. This approach is valuable because we can examine the historical narrative of

MalaysianpoliticsandtheindividualcaseofmultiracialpoliticalpartiesinMalaysia.

NonRacialIdeologyandRacialPhysicality

Which party qualifies for the criteria of nonracial ideology? Any proposed categorization would, of

course, be debatable. I will focus the case studies on the major political parties in Malaysia today.

Barisan Nasional is a coalition made up of 13 component parties. United Malays National 13

Organization (UMNO) is the biggest and most dominant political party in Barisan Nasional. As the

name suggests, UMNO is a Malaybased political party. The entire membership and leadership are

exclusively Malays. The same goes to their partners, Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and

Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC). There are some political parties in Barisan Nasional that open their

membership to all, such as Gerakan and Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS). However, UMNO has always

been the dominant voice in Barisan Nasional and in the latest General Election, UMNO won 88 federal

13"ComponentParty."BarisanNasional.http://www.barisannasional.org.my/en/componentparty.12

seats and contributed 66.17% of the total seats held by Barisan Nasional in the Parliament. Thus 14

Barisan Nasionals politics is most influenced by UMNO. Another major component party, Parti 15

Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), is often overlooked because of the peninsularcentric views of

Malaysian politics. PBB contributed 14 federal seats, making it the second largest contributor next to

UMNO. PBB is the largest political party in the state of Sarawak, which has the most federal seats 16

(31) of all the states in Malaysia. Membership and leadership of the PBB is also limited exclusively to 17

Sarawak Bumiputera ethnicity. Ergo, the most influential political parties in Barisan Nasional are racial 18

in nature both racial physicality and racial ideology. Racial physicality is indisputable due to the

exclusive nature of their membership but some may contest the latter. We refer to the constitution of

these political parties for further examination. Party constitution is an important source for analysis

because it is the supreme law and foundation of a party. In UMNOs party constitution, it is stated that

they are first and foremost committed to racial ideology. Whether racial ideology is right or wrong is 19

not the focus of this paper. What Im stating is that these parties champion both racial physicality and

racial ideology. As my theory suggests, racial ideology is incompatible with a multiracial political party.

The observation so far is clear that they are not multiracial. This is further proven by the fact that these

parties of themselves (UMNO, PBB, MCA) do not enjoy popular support and have influential base

14"StatisticsfortheHouseofRepresentatives."TheOfficialPortalofTheParliamentofMalaysia.http://www.parlimen.gov.my/ahlidewan.html?uweb=dr&lang=en15Case,W.."UMNOParamountcy:AReportonSinglePartyDominanceinMalaysia."PartyPolitics():115127.16Ibid.17Whentranslationisnotavailable,Iciteoriginalsource.StatistikKeputusanKerusiParlimenYangDimenangi.SuruhanjayaPilihanRaya.http://resultpru13.spr.gov.my/module/keputusan/paparan/5_KerusiDR.php18"PartiPesakaBumiputeraBersatuSarawakHistory."PartiPesakaBumiputeraBersatuSarawakRSS.http://www.pesakabumiputerabersatu.org/2012/06/17/aboutus/19PerlembagaanUMNO.UMNOOnline.http://www.umnoonline.my/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/perlembagaanumno.pdf

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outside the racial group that they represent. But this is too easy. How about Barisan Nasional

considered as a whole? As a single entity. Although UMNO is the single most dominant party in the

coalition, UMNO is not Barisan Nasional and Barisan Nasional is not UMNO. The result is a tension

between what the component parties really are and what the coalition tries to portray itself as. Contrary

to perception, the approach known as consensus in which each component party is tasked to gain

support from the racial group it is supposed to represent, does not work to foster real unity. What it

merely does is prevent things from getting worse and out of hand. Consensus kept things under

control after independence and May 13 riots by getting everyone in the same boat and ensuring that no

one is completely sidelined. To its credit, this approach recognizes the need to work with racial

physicality. But the component parties racial ideology is at odds with any attempts to form a truly

multiracial coalition, let alone a single multiracial political party. As explained earlier, racial ideology

cannot coexist within a multiracial party. Thus Barisan Nasional as a whole is a tug of war between

parties with racial ideology and a governing coalition with nonracial ideology it strives to represent

everyone and be multiracial in its outlook but its component parties are committed to racial ideology.

Given my theory, Barisan Nasional (as a single entity) thus cannot be a multiracial party, though it is not

a party with racial ideology in principle. Naturally though, the component parties influence the politics 20

of Barisan Nasional and therefore, Barisan Nasional politics is inevitably inclined towards racial

ideology. If one day Barisan Nasional chooses to be a multiracial party, it would have to remove the

racial ideology of individual component parties and cater to each and every racial group as a single unit.

This is unlikely, but we should not be too quick to discard this possibility for if it happens, it will change

thelandscapeofMalaysianpolitics.

20"Constitution."BarisanNasional.http://www.barisannasional.org.my/en/constitution.14

What about the opposition? Pakatan Rakyat is made up of three main political parties: the Democratic

Action Party (DAP), Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS). DAPs

constitution states that they are committed to social democracy and uphold the national constitution in its

original, secular form. Thus on paper, DAP is a party with nonracial ideology. This claim is often 21

disputed by DAPs critics. But critics have to differentiate between the partys ideology and certain

actions or statements which may be racial in consequence. We make the distinction earlier on between

racial ideology and racial physicality. DAP struggles against racial physicality. The party membership

and leadership predominantly consists of the Chinese, followed by the Indians. Efforts have been 22

made to attract the Malays but it has yet to reach a significant percentage of the party membership and

leadership. How much is enough? We do not know. But unquestionably there is a real need to attract

more Malays to enable the party to be truly multiracial. This supports my theory that a nonracial

ideology is necessary but insufficient criteria for a political party to be considered multiracial, and that

the missing factor is racial physicality. DAP cannot afford to be complacent with their electoral success

among their nonMalay base. It is not enough to preach that the party is for all Malaysians and not

reaching out to other racial groups. Traditionally DAP is strong among the nonMalays because they

challenged MCA , MIC and Gerakan on issues popular with the nonMalays such as vernacular

education and affirmative action (It is no accident that DAPs opponent in the General Elections is

21PartyConstitution.DAPMalaysia.file:///media/archive/DAP_constitution.zip/DAPMalaysia/DAP_Constitution_en20100609.pdf22DataisnotavailablebecauseDAPdoesnothavearacecolumnintheirmembershipapplication.BestestimatesfromDrOngKianMing,thepartysElectionStrategistandSerdangMP(MemberofParliament)areasfollows:Morethan50%Chinese,nomorethan40%Indians,andnomorethan10%Malays.

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almost always another nonMalay political party). If they want to be a truly multiracial party, they need

to actively seek out other racial groups, gradually shift the balance of power and their salient issues to be

less Chinesecentric and hence risk to forgo their advantage in these areas. Would they be willing to do

so?Thatisthepricetheymustpaytobemultiracial.

PAS meanwhile is an Islamist party. In the context of Malaysia, religious ideology and racial ideology 23

are often intertwined. This is further compounded by PAS membership criteria, which states that one

must be a Muslim and embrace Islam. Article 160 of the national Constitution defines a Malay as a 24

Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, adheres to

Malay customs and is domiciled in Malaysian or Singapore. As a result, there is a clear correlation 25

between the religion that one professes and the racial group that one belongs to. MalayBumiputera

makes up 67.4% of the population and Muslims make up 61.3% of the population. That means more 26

than 90.95% of MalayBumiputeras are Muslims. The number would have been higher among the

Malays only because some Bumiputeras in east Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak) are Christians or

animistic. These data means nearly all of PAS members are Malays. Hence PAS is not a multiracial

political party. This recognizes my theory that a multiracial party needs both racial physicality and

nonracial ideology. PAS does not fulfill the first criteria, and it cannot be said to pass the second

criteria due to direct consequences of the partys membership restrictions. PAS has to amend its party

23PerlembagaanPartiIslamSeMalaysia(Pindaan2011).PartiIslamSeMalaysia.http://www.pas.org.my/v2/index.php/info/perlembagaan24SyaratKeahlian.PartiIslamSeMalaysia.http://www.pas.org.my/v2/index.php/syaratkeahlian25FederalConstitution:(asat1stFebruary2013).PetalingJaya:InternationalLawBookServices,2013.26PopulationDistributionandBasicDemographicCharacteristicsReport2010.DepartmentofStatisticsMalaysia.http://www.statistics.gov.my/portal/index.php?option=com_content&id=1215

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constitution to be multiracial. Although PAS created a PAS Supporters Club to appeal to the

nonMuslims, this unprecedented progress is still a long way to go as members of the Supporters Club

arenotevenrecognizedaspartymembers,letaloneabletoinfluencethepartysdirection.

PKR is the youngest political party among all the parties we discussed. It is actually a merger between

Parti Keadilan Nasional and Parti Rakyat Malaysia in 2003. The widelyaccepted narrative is that the

history of PKR as we know it today begins with the Reformasi (reformation) movement in 1999. It was

started by Anwar Ibrahims supporters after he was sacked by the then Prime Minister Mahathir

Mohamad. The party website stated that they are committed to social justice and anticorruption

agenda. For observers, PKR is regarded as a centrist political party and leans towards the progressive 27

movement, though it suffers from a lack of specifics and many people do not know what it really stands

for, unlike its two partners with wellestablished ideologies. PKR is considered by some to be the only

major political party that is multiracial. We can explain this through racial physicality and its nonracial

ideology. PKR opens its membership to all and among the few things the party can boast about is its

multiracial membership and leadership. Its racial distribution nearly mirrors that of the population

distribution. The party does not commit to racial ideology and this helps to attract people who wants 28

to be part of a party with nonracial ideology. What separates PKR from its two partners is that the

party actually succeed in getting a diverse group of people into the party. People who wants to break

27"MatlamatdanAsasPerjuanganPolitik."KeadilanRakyat.http://www.keadilanrakyat.org/keadilan/pengenalan/matlamatdanasasperjuanganpolitik.28Noofficialdocumenteddataisavailable.However,PKRSecretaryGeneralrecentlyannouncedthatthepartyhasabout50%Malays,25%Indians,15%Chineseand10%SabahandSarawakBumputeras."PKRkeentosignupmoreChinesemembers."KiniTV.http://www.kinitv.com/video/6104O8.ThisroughlycorrespondwiththedataIreceivedfromformerPKRCommunicationsDirector,NikNazmiNikAhmad:55%Malays,20%Indians,15%Chineseand10%SabahandSarawakBumiputeras.

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away from racial ideology but see DAP as predominantly Chinese and PAS as predominantly

MalayMuslim find a home in PKR. In spite of its shortcomings in other areas, PKR achieves both

racialphysicalityandnonracialideology.Inthatsense,PKRismultiracial.

How about Pakatan Rakyat considered as a whole? Unlike its counterpart Barisan Nasional, Pakatan

Rakyat is actually an informal coalition it is not officially registered with the Registrar of Society (RoS).

For whatever reason, Pakatan Rakyats institution is loose. They lack the organizational and 29

institutionalized framework that Barisan Nasional possesses. Thus it is far from being a single entity at

the moment just three parties working together under a roof to challenge a common enemy. On the

same token, however, does the lack of institutionalized framework means that it would be easier for

Pakatan Rakyat to become a single entity than Barisan Nasional? We do not know for certain. The pact

has achieved groundbreaking success compared to its predecessors in the opposition bench and its

adaptiveandstayingpowercannotbeunderestimated.

DemocracyandStructuralIncentives

I have argued that democracy and structural incentives are important factors to the success of multiracial

parties. To keep this brief, we would examine one case study for each. Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia

(popularly known as Gerakan), a component party in Barisan Nasional, epitomizes the case for

structural incentives. Gerakan was founded in 1968 as a political party committed to a nonracial

29"ROSyettoapprovePakatanRakyat'sregistration|theSundaily."ROSyettoapprovePakatanRakyat'sregistration|theSundaily.http://www.thesundaily.my/news/961070.

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ideology and progressive, somewhat leftist agenda. Though the majority of its members were Chinese, 30

Gerakan has Dr Syed Hussein Alatas, a Malay academician, as its first President. Its first Central 31

Committee comprised of six Malays, six Chinese and three Indians. Gerakan was way ahead of the 32

other major political parties at the time in term of racial physicality. In the first General Election that it

participated, Gerakan actually won the state of Penang as a multiracial opposition party (It was not

affiliated with the Alliance, the predecessor of Barisan Nasional) a historic achievement in

postindependent Malaysia. What happened to Gerakan since then? Today Gerakan is a pale shadow

of its former glory it was wiped out in Penang during the last two elections, it has only a single seat in

the Parliament and it even lost its standing as a multiracial political party. In principle, Gerakan still

commits to a nonracial ideology but it no longer boasts of racial physicality. The party is predominantly

Chineseat80%,theChinesemakesupabiggerpercentageinGerakanthaninDAP. 33

A plausible theory is that Gerakans problems started when they went from being an opposition party to

a cofounder of the ruling coalition. Following the May 13 riots in 1969, Parliament was suspended and

political uncertainty clouded the nation. In 1973, the then Prime Minister Abdul Razak extended an

invitation to major political parties to join the Alliance to form a new coalition to be known as Barisan

Nasional. Recall the consensus approach in the structure of Barisan Nasional politics. UMNO caters

30PartyConstitution.PartiGerakanRakyatMalaysia.http://www.gerakan.org.my/aboutus/partyconstitution#.U1igKhXuZ31"SdrProfessorSyedHusseinAlatas(Presidentfrom19681971)."PartiGerakanRakyatMalaysia.http://www.gerakan.org.my/aboutus/formerpresidents/item/3864sdrprofessorsyedhusseinalataspresidentfrom19681971.32"ThechangingfaceofGerakan|theSundaily."ThechangingfaceofGerakan|theSundaily.http://www.thesundaily.my/node/170697.33Ibid.Thoughnoofficialdocumenteddataisavailable,thenumbershouldbeaccurateasitcorrespondswithanotherreport."It'sTimeGerakanGroomsNonChineseLeaders."TheMalaysianTImes.http://www.themalaysiantimes.com.my/itstimegerakangroomsnonchineseleaders

19

to the Malays, MCA the Chinese, MIC the Indians and so on and eventually they come to the table

representing each racial group. The problem with this structure is that it renders a multiracial party like

Gerakan almost useless. In party politics, a party must stand for something. In the consensus structure,

since the task to appeal to the people has been split according to racial lines, Gerakan found itself

standing on void platform. There is no space for its multiracial appeal in the Barisan Nasional

consensus structure. The party chose to swim with the current and gradually work with MCA to

appeal to the Chinese (and a minority of Indian) voters. That is Gerakans base in the Barisan Nasional

structure. Ergo, structural incentives matter. A multiracial political party, and I dare say coalitions,

cannotsurviveinasystemwhichencouragesandrewardsracialideology/partieswithracialideology.

We will need to travel to the past to establish a case for democracy. This is not because the present

does not have any example to pick from (therere plenty) but I just want to pay a visit to the past.

Multiracial political parties need democracy if they want to succeed, so I argued. In July 1947, 10 years

before Independence, two political organizations proposed the Peoples Constitutions. For the first

time ever in the history of Malaya, the Malays, represented by Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (PUTERA) and

the nonMalays, represented by the AllMalaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA), were able to sit

together, negotiate political settlements, and set up a blueprint for a united, independent and democratic

Malaya. This is the first significant multiracial political coalition in the country. But what happened? The 34

British ruled that these political organizations were radical and threatening unrest. Thus many of

AMCJAPUTERA leaders were arrested and the political organizations banned under the pretext of the

34HajiIsmail,AbdulRahman."Bumiputera,MalaysandIslam:AHistoricalOverview."KajianMalaysia.Vol.21:2003.

20

Emergency. Ergo, any challenge to the status quo needs democracy. A multiracial political party is 35

firstly a political party and secondly multiracial. In order to succeed, democracy is needed. Otherwise,

the challenge will be crushed. This is even more visible during postIndependence era in which critics of

the doctrine of Malay Supremacy, let alone affirmative action, are silenced either by law (Sedition Act,

which can be used to charge someone in court for attempts to cause disharmony and unrest, but at least

it allows courtroom trial) or by force (Internal Security Act, which can be used to arbitrarily arrest

anyone, equals to detention without trial). Unsurprisingly many politicians in the Opposition bench have

served a couple of terms under the Sedition Act and Internal Security Act. I do not use modernday

example because some may dispute the veracity of certain claims mainly because one is influenced by

political leanings. I hope the case from the past, as neutral as it can be, can prove that a political party

challenging the status quo needs democracy to survive and succeed. In Malaysia, the status quo was

andisracialideology.

GeographyandNationwideAppealsforaBroadWinningCoalition

We will spend the least time here because much has been proven about this point. This relates to the

first point that racial physicality is a necessary criteria for a multiracial party and because the population

35TheEmergencyissupposedlyacrackdownontheMalayanCommunistPartybutarrestsincludeotherpartiesdeemedasradical.Referto:YeoKimWah(1973).TheAntiFederationMovementinMalaya,194648.JournalofSoutheastAsianStudies,4,pp3151.doi:10.1017/S0022463400016404.Seealso:Reza,Fahmi."FirstAllRacePoliticalActionandthePeople'sConstitution."TheMalaysianBar.http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/echoes_of_the_past/first_all_race_political_action_and_the_peoples_constitution.htmllandSaili,Suzy,andKhairulnizamMatKarim."RevisitingtheLifeandThoughtofDr.BurhanuddinalHelmy."InternationalJournalofIslamicThought.Vol.3:2013.Onlinelink:http://www.ukm.my/ijit/IJIT%20Vol%203%202013/8%20Suzy%20Aziziyana%20Saili%20IJIT%20Vol%203%202013.pdf

21

in Malaysia is geographically distributed along racial lines (racial concentration in certain areas), this

means that the party needs to be present in a good variety of areas. A few observations can easily be

quoted. Gerakan for instance failed to expand its base to other states for reasons already explained. It

became complacent and stuck in Penang, a state with many Chinesemajority and mix constituencies.

Even in Penang, Gerakan outsourced its job to win the Malay votes to UMNO by letting UMNO stand

in Malaymajority seats. Racial physicality means you have to reach out to various communities, not

conducting some outsourcing and specialization of labor in racial terms. DAP too is guilty of being

complacent with their base and stuck in Penang, Perak, Malacca and Selangor. DAP leaders know they

can win Chinesemajority and mixed constituencies, but less so in Malaymajority and east Malaysia

seats. In the latter area however, DAP is actively courting east Malaysian voters by engaging in various

volunteering and community projects in both urban and rural Sabah and Sarawak. Finally, the DAP is

working with racial physicality instead of against racial physicality. Other examples follow the same

trend. PAS is traditionally strong in Kelantan (in fact the Deputy President of PAS once said without the

Pakatan Rakyat coalition, their base starts and ends in Kelantan), UMNO in Johor and almost all

constituencies with significant Malay voters, PBB in Sarawak. Again, parties with racial ideology can

afford to sit back and appeal only to their racial groups concentrated at some constituencies. A

multiracial party needs to appeal across racial groups and ergo, across geography. In this sense, PKR

offers the most appropriate examples of failures and success. When it was first started, the party was

strong in Greater Kuala Lumpur areas, extending perhaps to Selangor. KL was the site of protests and

mass demonstrations. People in other states couldnt care less. They did not reach out to other states

and confined their base to KLSelangor. As a result, they won only five out of fiftynine seats that they

22

contested. It was even worse in the 2004 General Election in which the partys singular seat comes 36

from Permatang Pauh, the bastion of Anwar Ibrahim. What happened next, due to a series of events, 37

is remarkable. From 2004 to 2014, PKR transforms from a party with one seat into the only party that

can claim to have State Assemblymen (ADUN) or Member of Parliament (MP) in all fourteen states in

Malaysia. It contested 99 federal seats and 172 state seats. Though the party is relatively young and 38

fragile, its geographical presence across all states pave the way for a broad winning coalition and

effectively makes PKR less reliant on racial politics (as its base spanned across racial groups and

geography).

Conclusion

Malaysian politics outwardly resemble a twoparty system. But within the two giant coalitions, each

political party has its agenda some with racial ideology. The coalitions desiring to be multiracial would

have to address problems stated in this study. But a coalition is not the same as a single entity political

party. The whole (coalition) cannot trumpet nonracial ideology if its parts (political parties in the

coalition) are made of racial ideology. Therefore we have to focus on the political parties first, then

36LinJuoyu,AStructuralAnalysisofthe1999MalaysianGeneralElection:ChangingVotingPreferenceofEthnicChineseandMalayGroupsandParty,Taipei:TamkangJournalofInternationalAffairs,Vol.VI,No.III,Spring2002.37Mokhtar,TunkuMohar."TheTwelfthGeneralElectionsinMalaysia."IntellectualDiscourse16,no.1(2008).38"StatisticsfortheHouseofRepresentatives."TheOfficialPortalofTheParliamentofMalaysia.http://www.parlimen.gov.my/ahlidewan.html?uweb=dr&lang=en.SeealsoStatistikKeputusanKerusiParlimenYangDimenangi.SuruhanjayaPilihanRaya.http://resultpru13.spr.gov.my/module/keputusan/paparan/5_KerusiDR.php.Forconvenientuse,seethechartthatshowsthepartyaffiliationofallstateassembliesfoundonMalaysianStateAssemblyRepresentativesentryonWikipedia.DatacanbeverifiedwiththeotherlinksorwiththeElectionCommissionofMalaysia.

23

examine if they could pull off a multiracial coalition or combine into a single multiracial entity. If a

multiracial political party cannot coexist with racial ideology, then we need to abandon the latter and

focus to build the former. Racebased political parties are fast becoming relics of the past, but they will

be fierce and fighting to the end. Adapt or perish, Malaysias political parties have to make a choice. I

have shown the three factors significant for the success of multiracial political parties: nonracial ideology

and racial physicality, democracy and structural incentives, and a broad winning coalition with

nationwide appeal and wide geographical presence. In order to achieve such multiracial feat, political

parties must recognize these factors and the potential challenges to achieve them. I hope this paper can

spur more research concerning multiracial political parties in Malaysia. There are many areas to be

researched, such as testing the correlation and causality of each of these theories, the adaptive

preferencesofsomemultiracialparties,andthepotentialchallengestothesefactors.

24

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