Singapore: NUS Press, 2020. xiii, 283 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures, maps, B&W photos.) US$34.00, paper. ISBN 978-981-3251-13-7.
Malaysia before 2018 is a classic case of electoral authoritarianism and inter-party coalition politics. This edited volume, Towards a New Malaysia? The 2018 Election and Its Aftermath, analyzes the fall of Barisan Nasional (BN), a dominant government coalition that ruled Malaysia for more than 60 years, and the associated victory of the opposition coalition known as Pakatan Harapan (PH). Twelve well-studied cases are presented carefully to the readers, each of which examines the particular underlying causes of the fall of BN and the victory of PH in the Malaysian 14th General Election (GE14) in 2018.
Overall, the editors of the volume must be commended for offering a clear structure through which the chapters are logically connected. The volume begins with an exploration of voting patterns across different ethnicities and varying socioeconomic status in contemporary Malaysia (chapters 1 through 5). The editors appropriately allocate Saravanamuttu’s chapter as the transition from part I to part II, as it provides an overall understanding of Malaysian political institutions and its associated changes before the volume moves into election issues and campaigning tactics (chapters 6 through 10). The volume ends with an important discussion in the last two chapters focusing on post-election matters and the challenges ahead for the new coalition government. Most importantly, the concluding chapters prompt readers to consider where Malaysia fits in the spectrum of regime types.
A key novelty of this volume is its analysis of electoral outcomes through studying the numerous interesting developments in the governing and opposition coalitions. One of the contributors, Faisal S. Hazis, argues that elite fragmentation is a key factor contributing to BN’s downfall. He analyzes splits within the United Malays National Organization (UMNO, the dominant party within BN) since the 1950s and the subsequent effect of the defectors’ splinter parties. As he observes, “The fall of a dominant hegemonic party like UMNO was the result of a process of intra-elite fragmentation and divisions, furthered by institutional elements that sapped its hegemonic dominance and finally brought the party to its epic fall” (58). Adopting a path-dependent approach, in chapter 5, Johan Saravanamuttu contends that key political elites’ feuds and defections induced institutional changes, exposing the flaws of the incumbent government, which in turn provoked mass dissatisfaction and a desire to reform society. Haris Zuan emphasizes the shift in youth voting preferences as an aftermath of the intra-elite feud, stating that “[s]ince Reformasi in 1998, a few youth and student groups have been seen as pro-opposition and critical of the government” (132). These accounts reflect how political elites’ decisions can result in institutional changes and the new formation of political coalitions, which in turn provide voters with more electoral alternatives.
Another compelling feature of this volume is its examination of new dimensions to Malaysia’s politics beyond ethnic politics. Contributors highlight heterogeneity among presumed homogenous groups, particularly the Malays or Muslims. The chapters on political Islam by Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, Che Hamdan Che Mohd Razali, Hew Wai Weng, and David Kloos are particularly interesting in that they show how members of a presumed homogenous group (the Muslims) have different preferences across regions, and how political parties manoeuvred themselves to appeal to these varied interests. Hew argues that the different coalitions understood the heterogeneity of voters’ preferences across constituencies and dispatched relevant groups to appeal to voters via targeted campaign strategies. His chapter explicitly describes PH’s strategy of sending its Islamic component party AMANAH to persuade urban Muslim voters to vote for them via inclusive Islamic messages, thereby denying PAS, the conservative Malaysian Islamic Party, of support. Similarly, Kloos reveals how female Muslim leaders adjusted their images in specific Muslim constituencies according to voters’ interests. Furthermore, chapters by Ibrahim Suffian and Lee Tai De, Saravanamuttu, and Hazis repeatedly emphasize that the ethnic categorization of Malaysian voters is insufficient to explain current voting patterns in the country. Hazis astutely highlights how Malay voters’ preferences have changed in terms of culture, economic status, and worldview over the years, resulting in varied interests within the ethnic group. All these narratives suggest cross-cutting and complex developments within Malaysian society, and future studies should consider these new variables in studying Malaysian politics.
Moving forward, one new variable that the authors could potentially further analyze is economic voting. Economic grievances, including corruption and the goods and sales tax (GST), were key matters played up by all political parties during the election. Indeed, several contributors hint at these dynamics. Meredith Weiss notes that “[t]he unpopular goods and services tax (GST), enacted in 2015, only heightened many Malaysians’ sense of disadvantage” (252), while Saravanamuttu in his chapter states, “[b]y the time of GE14, an unpopular GST of 6 percent introduced in April 2015 had already blunted the impact of Najib’s welfare and cash-payout schemes. The rising cost of living proved to be a crucial factor in BN’s collapse” (96). Hence, future, more sophisticated studies regarding economic voting would be helpful in analyzing its impact on societal grievances and consequent voting patterns.
Lastly, the edited volume could also benefit from analyses of personalities and populism. Personality politics have been prominent during the election for both the government and the opposition. For instance, the uniqueness of the opposition coalition in GE14 is the puzzling cooperation between opposition leaders with personal political grudges, given that most of the PH leaders were victims of former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s authoritarian regime. Hamid and Razali mention that different Malaysians have different images of the Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, with some perceiving him as a guarantor for Islam and Malay rights within the PH coalition, while others still perceive him as an autocratic dictator (153). Analyzing societal perceptions of controversial leaders such as Mahathir is crucial because it has an impact on contemporary political preferences and mass voting patterns.
Overall, the contributors to this volume provide a thoroughly comprehensive examination of Malaysia’s historic 2018 general elections. This volume advances important analyses not just of Malaysian politics, but also studies of coalition politics in electoral authoritarianism in developing countries. Readers will also appreciate it for motivating numerous pathways for future research.
Chan Xin Ying
National University of Singapore, Singapore