Decline and Fall of Malaysia’s Dominant-party System

Malaysia’s 15th general election in November 2022 decisively ended the country’s dominant-party system. What might take its place, however, remains hazy—how competitive, how polarized, how politically liberal, and how stable an order might emerge will take some time to become clear. The opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope), having secured a plurality of seats, but with a sharply pronounced ethnic skew, formed a coalition government with the previously dominant, incumbent Barisan Nasional (National Front) and smaller, regional coalitions. This settlement resolved an immediate impasse, but relied upon obfuscation of real programmatic, ideological, and identity differences, raising questions of longer-term durability or results. Examining this uncertainty, we broach three broad queries, with resonance well beyond Malaysia. First, we examine the fragmentation and reconsolidation of Malaysian party politics to explore how party dominance transforms or collapses. Second, we explore the extent to which its dominant party defined or confirmed Malaysia as electoral-authoritarian, and whether we should still consider it so. Third, we ask what possibilities Malaysia’s apparent party-system deinstitutionalization opens up for structural reform beyond parties. Does the deterioration of that system—more than simply the previous dominant party’s electoral loss—clear the way for more far-reaching liberalization? All told, we find that Malaysia’s incremental dismantling of its dominant-party system does not also spell the end of electoral authoritarianism. Party and party-system deinstitutionalization leave the system in flux, but illiberal reconsolidation is as plausible as progressive structural reform.

马来西亚主导政党制的衰落和消亡

关键词：主导政党制度，选举威权主义，混合政体，马来西亚，选举，政党体系制度化，政党制度化。

马来西亚于 2022 年 11 月举行的第15届大选决定性地终结了该国的主导政党制度。然而，取代它的会是什么却仍然是雾里看花——新兴秩序的竞争性有多强，两级分化程度如何，政治自由程度多高，以及稳定性如何都需要假以时日才会变得清晰。确保了多数席位，但是却明显打上了族群倾向的印记，反对派Pakatan Harapan（希望联盟）与此前主导并当政的政党Barisan Nasional（国民阵线）以及更小的地区性的联盟组成了联合政府。这个方案解决了当下的僵局，但是因其依赖于对真正政纲上、意识形态的和身份上差异的混淆，也引发了对其长期持久性和结果的疑问。通过对这种不确定性的考察，我们开启了对在马来西亚以外也有共鸣的三个广泛问题的探究。首先，我们检视了马来西亚政党政治的分裂和重新巩固，以探讨政党主宰地位如何转化或消亡。其次，我们考察了其主导政党在何种程度上定义或确认了马来西亚的选举威权主义，以及我们是否仍应继续认定这一点。第三，我们询问马来西亚政党体制明显的去制度化为政党之外的结构性改革开创了哪些可能性。该体系的恶化——不仅是此前主导性政党的选举失利——是否为更深远的自由化清理了道路？总之，我们发现马来西亚主导政党制的逐渐瓦解并未宣示选举威权主义的终结。政党和政党制度的去制度化导致系统处于流变之中，但是非自由主义的重新巩固和进步性的结构改革貌似都同样可能发生。

Translated by Li Guo