The End of Ooi Kok Hin

Graduate School of Political

Ethno-Centric Elite Rule Science, Waseda University

in Malaysia 16 January 2019

• Consociationalism as we know it is over in Malaysia. In this essay, I
revisit this once seemingly irreplaceable “cornerstone” of Malaysian
society.
• What happened to consociationalism, how did it emerge and become
the dominant power-sharing arrangement in Malaysia, and why did it
collapse?
Political scientist Arend Lijphart described consociational democracy as
“government by elite cartel designed to turn a democracy with a
fragmented political culture into a stable democracy”

Four devices of consociational democracy: government by grand

coalition, mutual veto, proportionality, and segmental autonomy
• Barisan Nasional (BN) embodied consociationalism. It was a
grand coalition formed chiefly of three parties – the United
Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Malaysian Chinese
Association (MCA), and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) –
and it ruled the country with few serious threats to its
hegemony. For the most part, each component political party in
BN appealed to a specific electorate by ethnicity. For a long time,
the grand coalition appeared to work. BN was the world’s longest
continuously elected government (63 years from 1955 to 2018, if
we include its predecessor, the Alliance, and the first pre-
Independence General Election), until the General Election of the
9 May 2018, known as GE14.
• In GE14, BN lost all but two state
governments (Pahang, smack in the middle
of the Peninsular, and tiny Perlis). UMNO
lost power, and its coalition partners were
annihilated from Parliament. The collapse
didn’t stop at electoral setback: political
parties gave up on the sinking ship, leaving
the once 13-strong coalition with only
three members.
• Call for coalition to disband, leaders of
remaining component parties admitted
that the coalition “is as good as dead”,
“needs rebranding”
 The emergence of
consociationalism:
Triumph of the elites
• -The role and consequence of the Japanese
Occupation in terms of ethnic relations in
post-war Malaya/Malaysia
• Having survived the challenge from multiracialism in the 1950s,
consociationalism had to contend with intense “outbidding” on
ethnic issues in the late 1960s
• The legitimacy of the elites’ claims to community leadership was
seriously eroded by their performance. The Chinese party
commanded only 13.5% of the total votes and 13 out of 33 contested
seats.[11]UMNO too suffered;[12]the Alliance received only 54.2% of
the Malay votes, down from 67.2% in 1964. This does not suggest less
popularity among Malays than non-Malays, but the fact that the vote
swing occurred within both communities indicated
that Consociationalism was in crisis.
• The second Prime Minister, Abdul Razak Hussein, diffused the
crisis through carrots and sticks. He doubled down on the Alliance
consociational coalition by co-opting several opposition parties,
and also ethnic parties from Sabah and Sarawak, into a new
coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN). His administration also passed a
slew of legislation criminalising any act, speech or publication on
fundamental issues such as Bumiputera special rights, non-Malay
citizenship, the position of Islam and Malay as the sole national
language, and affirmative action. By doing so, Razak curtailed the
democratic rights of citizens and their elected representatives to
debate and question government policies and legislation on these
important political issues. Yet he was able to cement the ethnic
elites’ loosening grip on their political leadership over their
community. His actions also shielded his radical affirmative action
plan, the New Economic Plan (NEP), from critics.
• The balance of power in BN’s consociationalism after 1969 was tilted
to UMNO as the dominant component party, in contrast to the
Alliance’s consociationalism where power was more evenly
distributed.
• The “mutual veto” device identified by Lijphart was greatly eroded.
The grand coalition, however, survived and expanded.
Consociationalism continued a largely uninterrupted domination over
Malaysian politics until 2008.
Cracks in the wall: 2008,
2013 and 2018
• UMNO’s dominance in BN had reached an
unchecked level, allowing the party to get
away with overt racism, their non-Malay
allies notwithstanding. BN’s
consociationalism functioned less as equal
power-sharing than as “an electoral one-
party state”
• Nothing captured the folly of this arrogance
more than the UMNO General Assembly in
2005. In the midst of fiery speeches by
UMNO delegates defending “the Malay
agenda”, then BN and UMNO Youth Chief,
Hishammuddin Hussein Onn, waved
the kerisdagger (a symbol of Malay
heritage) – an act captured by television
and the infant blogosphere. Deeply
affected non-Malay turn away from BN
• The 2004 General Election had given UMNO a feeling of invincibility.
There, the party had won 110 seats (out of 219), enough to form a
government by itself.[15] This dominance and aggression amplified the
contradiction within the model of consociationalism. As the ethnic
Malay party appealed to its base, it threatened the base of its non-
Malay allies.
• Thus, in 2008, the non-Malay electorate punished an aggressive
UMNO by rejecting its non-Malay allies: MCA, Gerakan, and MIC
 • UMNO saw the continuous rejection of their
non-Malay allies as an ungrateful
abandonment by non-Malay voters who,
despite receiving government concessions
and goodies from the UMNO-led
government, tried to vote them out of
power in droves. This sentiment was further
amplified by Najib Razak’s failed overture to
court the non-Malay votes from 2009 to
2013.
• To help MCA court Chinese voters, Najib
visited Chinese radio stations and appeared
in Chinese New Year videos. He briefly toyed
with the idea of reviewing pro-Malay
affirmative action and liberalising the
Bumiputera quota. But these gestures
ended on the night of the 13thGeneral
Election in 2013.
• After the result was announced, a visibly
disappointed Najib told the media that it
was a “Chinese tsunami”.[16]The next day,
the UMNO-owned Utusan daily charged on

Dominant party blamed ethnic the front page: “Apa lagi Cina mahu?”
(“What More Could The Chinese Want?”)

minority for election result

 • Stung by what they perceived
Dominant party, failing to court
minorities’ votes, courted
Islamist bloc’s voters
as a harsh rejection, UMNO
changed tack. Najib no longer
tried as hard to court non-
Malay votes. Instead, he went
to the conservative Malays,
even dangling RUU 355 in
front of the Islamist party PAS
– this bill, if passed, would
have allowed the Kelantan
state government to
implement hudud law,
jeopardising Najib’s non-
Malay allies. He enacted a
slew of pro-Bumiputera
programmes, including a new
dedicated unit to oversee a
pro-Bumiputera agenda
Downward spiral and
captive community
• How can these events be understood in terms of the model of consociational
democracy? This model emphasises the role of social (ethnic) elites. The events
surrounding the 2008 election demonstrate what happened when one or more of
the elites lost their legitimacy as representatives of their ethnic group.
• First came a downward spiral of destruction from within. It started with the
leadership of the dominant party failing to restrain the more militant and
extremist elements in their party from overtly aggressive behaviours that
alienated the bases of their allies. This caused the non-Malay parties in BN to lose
electorally. Their resulting weakened representation and lack of legitimacy
further reduced their bargaining power within the BN coalition – which in turn
increased the perception of their inertia and meekness in the eyes of the non-
Malay electorate. Finally, the dominant party ignored the fate of their minority
allies, pursuing risky political behaviours that jeopardised the interests of their
allies
• Second, the elites held their communities captive, subjecting them to
threats of punitive material deprivation by the government. The
historical May 13 riot was brandished as a warning of the potential
consequences of destabilised consociationalism. The MCA under the
leadership of Chua Soi Lek also threatened to refuse government
appointments if the party did not win enough seats.[18] After MCA’s
dismal performance in the 2013 election, Chua followed up on this by
refusing to take up any cabinet posts. For the first time, no ethnic
Chinese from MCA was a member of the cabinet.
• This demonstrated how, in consociationalism, an ethnic group is held
captive by tying their fate with that of the elite’s. Should they vote for
any candidate other than the ethnic elites ‘assigned’ to represent
them in the ruling coalition, they risk being left out of – and penalised
by – that ruling coalition in government. Rather than treating
elections as a performance evaluation for the rulers and an
expression of popular will, consociationalism can penalise the
community which shows its dissatisfaction with the elite rule.
After consociationalism: deliberative
democracy and new power-sharing
• The new Pakatan Harapan (PH) government is made up of four parties
– Bersatu, PKR, DAP, and Amanah – with an ally in Warisan in Sabah.
But does PH represent a new form of power-sharing – hopefully,
through deliberative democracy[20] – or merely a new form of
consociationalism?
• PH cannot be said to be consociationalist in the sense of power-
sharing between elites from each major ethnic group.
• Unlike BN, the four parties do not strictly split their electorate appeals
according to an ethnic division of labour. They are not free from
ethnic politics and elitism – identity politics still feature, and many of
the leaders are elites splintered from the previous establishment.
However, PH retains some elements of consociational democracy,
such as a grand coalition
• But the significant breakthrough is that political representation in PH
is not defined and allocated through ethnic elites.
 Opposition
regrouping and
Malay-Muslim
nationalism
• Malay politics: On opposition side, a convergence of two strands of
nationalism as championed by PAS (Muslim nationalism) and UMNO
(Malay nationalism). E.g. nativist “Ketuanan Melayu” taking on a
religious spin
• If so, identity politics will dominate for the next five years.
• On government side, overcrowding and sharing of spoils, succession
plan, intra-party/inter-party rivalry.
• Complacency and denial
• “Focus on the economy”
• Captured the area and nature of political contestation: the two biggest threats to
the incumbent government are now both to its right side of the spectrum. This is
where Malay-Muslim nationalism provides an explanatory power to the kind of
politics that we are witnessing today and for some time to come. We use it to
describe an important area of contestation between incumbent and opposition.
• It also captures the nature of the contestation as clearly seen today, with regard
to Malay anxiety over socio-economic privileges and sanctity of Islam being
tapped into by the opposition (e.g. anti-Icerd mobilisation) and forcing the
incumbent government to respond (it cancels the ratification of Icerd and
postpones human rights convention). What makes the politics on the right side of
the spectrum different from previously is that the two biggest parties in the
opposition are not multiracial and do not have incentives to consider minority
interests.
• Carelessly dismissing the people who attended the anti-Icerd rally as
party members or for being paid is a dangerous attitude. It shows the
lack of awareness of why a large group of Malays feel as anxious as
they are and how interested parties successfully mobilised them into
action. This complacency and denial is a recipe for defeat. Harapan’s
victory is a fragile one. Rais so confidently asserting his view that
“majority of Malaysians voted overwhelmingly to reject Umno-BN”
and that “82 percent of Malaysian voters who turned up on May 9,
2018, was concerned with issues like good governance, future
financial meltdown and the debt of Malaysia, and of course the grand
larceny of 1MDB.
Understanding the Malay anxiety?
• Many politicians and analysts either unwilling to or incapable of
“climbing the empathy wall” to make a serious attempt to understand
why some people feel and act the way they do. Instead, we prefer to
retreat into making assumptions that comfort ourselves and blame
others for not being as enlightened.
• We need people who can help us understand more about the
sociology of emotions, social theory, group identities and the intimate
relationship between identity and the formation of an ethnoreligious
nationalist movement
Understanding the Malay anxiety?
• As things stand, political entrepreneurs on the right side of the
spectrum are deftly tapping into something – Malay anxiety – and it is
neither useful nor helpful for the incumbent to be dismissive of this
something. According to Thomas Scheff, professor of sociology at the
University of California, pride and anger are intense emotions that
guard social bonds.
• There is no hope in changing the minds of two-thirds of the Malay
voters in GE14 and the thousands who were mobilised to attend the
anti-Icerd rally by continuously dismissing their anxiety and shaming
them as racists. This shaming will only increase their anger and lead
to more fervent ethnoreligious nationalists.
Understanding the Malay anxiety?
• Recognising the convergence between ethno-nationalism and
religious nationalism does not necessarily mean the government and
society have to cave in. But to deny the phenomena of Malay-Muslim
nationalism is to not perceive the seriousness of the ethnoreligious
challenge, the depth of Malay anxiety that is real and tapped into by
political entrepreneurs and the fragility of victory.
• How we deal with this phenomena as a society, and how political
actors respond to and negotiate this convergence is probably the
nature of contentious politics for the time being.
The non-Malay status quo
In contrast to the overcrowding of political parties competing for Malay
electorate, there is little viable challenge to DAP (and to a certain degree,
PKR) for the non-Malay electorate. This unhealthy lack of competition may
replicate the non-Malay dilemma under BN’s consociationalism. This
segment of the electorate may be unsatisfied with the government of the
day, but find that any alternative party is aligned to the even more
unattractive MMN.
The return of local elections, promised by PH, is a welcome step to usher a
healthy level of competition in a functioning democracy,[23] so that new
political parties can emerge at the local level. The present barrier of entry is
too high and smaller (local or regional) parties, like Parti Sosialis Malaysia
(PSM), find it hard to survive and have any meaningful impact under the
FPTP system.
• The story of consociationalism is a story of Malaysia, a plural society forging paths
ahead while dealing with ethnic differences. Consociationalism stabilised a plural
society to render it governable and – with some exceptions – contained ethnic
conflict from escalating into violent outbreak. But it is also closely tied to anti-
democratic practices and consequences.
• The demise of Barisan Nasional’s ethnic-elite consociationalism may be
celebrated as an end to elite-based ethnic politics, but history and events
elsewhere counsel caution in approaching the vacuum that has been created. The
heralding of racial progress in America and Indonesia following the first African
American president and the first ethnic Chinese governor of Jakarta respectively
proved to be premature.
• Malaysia may have brought down the rule of an ethno-elite cartel, but the people
of Malaysia must be vigilant to guard its democratic progress against potential
backlash, and understanding where the backlash is coming from.
Present and future research?
• Present: Nationwide survey on Malay-Muslim voters (N = 2,600); analysis ongoing
• Future: Qualitative focus group discussions, snowball sampling, to observe how ethnic
and religious nationalism interact, reinforce or compete with each other, to understand
the anxiety, anger and sentiment of the right-wing groups (Example of model
work/literature: Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American
Right by Arlie Hochschild)
• Or: Discourse analysis/Qualitative research on how different ethnic groups perceive and
face inequalities and what “fairness” means to them. Especially given how much of the
current “heat” is centered on the subject of political and/or economic equality and
discrimination. Yet to figure how to operationalize this but feel the interaction between
equality/inequality, emotions, and identity is an important topic that has not been
studied on a comparative emotive basis. Important to achieve understanding, empathy,
uncovering political phenomena/behavior.
• Toyota Grant for survey? Fieldwork? Cross-department study? Best option if resources
allow is survey + focus group discussions + follow up
End