The politics behind Malaysia's eleventh general election

Asian Survey

Volumn 45, Issue 6, 2005, Pages 907-930

  Liow, Joseph ^a  

^a NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY   (Singapore)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELECTION; POLITICS;

ASIA; EURASIA; MALAYSIA; SOUTHEAST ASIA;

EID: 32144445224     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2005.45.6.907     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. The author reached this conclusion after several interviews conducted with officials from both UMNO and PAS in Kuala Lumpur and Kedah, prior to the election.
2. See Steven Gan, "BN Will Win, Here's Why," March 8, 2004, , accessed March 12, 2004.
3. The clearest example is the case of Syed Moktar Al-Bukhary, whose Malaysian Mining Corporation was granted the contracts for the southern port of Tanjung Pelepas and the Senai air cargo hub, as well as the more controversial Bakun Hydro electric dam and the U.S. $3.8 billion double tracking rail project.
4. See "PAS Minta Biar UMNO Dan PAS Selesaikan Soal Islam" [PAS asks for an UMNO-PAS debate to settle the question of Islam], Harakah (Movement) (Kuala Lumpur), December 5, 2002.
5. NEP was introduced in 1970 and featured two prongs, namely "poverty eradication regardless of race" and "restructuring society to eliminate the identification of race with economic function." While it was supposed to create the conditions for national unity by reducing interethnic resentment because of socioeconomic disparities, in practice the policies of the NEP were driven by the principle of affirmative action, hence viewed as benefiting the Malay community more than others.
6. "Islamic Leader Urges Malaysians to Copy Spanish Voters," Harakah, March 17, 2004, , accessed November 14, 2005.
7. Abdullah Badawi, it will be recalled, had thrown his lot behind the Tengku Razaleigh-Musa Hitam challenge against Mahathir Mohamad and Ghafar Baba in 1987, and as a consequence spent three years in the political wilderness before returning in 1991 as foreign minister. He also lost his vice-presidency in the 1993 party election to the Anwar Wawasan (Vision) team, only to win it back three years later.
8. See "Puteri UMNO: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing New," Aliran [Currents] (Penang), 22:8, 2002.
9. "UMNO Youth Starting to Listen to Its Young Critics," Straits Times (Singapore), January 25, 2000.
10. See Maznah Mohamad, "The UMNO Malaise," Aliran, 20:2 (2000);
11. see also Khoo Boo Teik, Beyond Mahathir: Malaysian Politics and Its Discontents (London: Zed Books, 2003), pp. 130-31.
12. See Yang Razali Kassim, "Malaysian GE 2004: Impacts and Implications," IDSS (Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies) Commentaries (Singapore), April 5, 2004, p. 2.
13. For a thorough discussion of these changing tides in UMNO's fortunes, see William Case, Elites and Regimes in Malaysia: Revisiting a Consociational Democracy (Victoria, Australia: Monash Asia Institute, 1996).
14. K. J. Ratnam, "Religion and Politics in Malaysia," in Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia, eds. Ahmad Ibrahim, Sharon Siddique, and Yasmin Hussain (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985), p. 145.
15. Together with then party president Yusof Rawa, Abdul Hadi was at the forefront of the aggressive PAS offensive against UMNO's Islamic credentials. This more radical approach was widely seen to have alienated most of Malaysia's Muslim electorate, and resulted in a resounding defeat for the Islamic party. See Kamarulnizam Abdullah, The Politics of Islam in Contemporary Malaysia (Bangi, Malaysia: Pernerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2002), pp. 141-42.
16. The document is available at .
17. See Harun Din, "Negara Islam: Antara Penolakan dan Penerimaan" [The Islamic state: Between rejection and acceptance], n.d., , accessed March 24, 2004.
18. Author interview with PAS CWC official, Kuala Lumpur, March 8, 2004.
19. See Arfa'eza A Aziz, "Islamic State Proposal - Damage Control Sets In," , November 19, 2003, and , accessed March 24, 2004.
20. See Joseph Liow, "The 49th PAS Congress: Politics behind the Rhetoric," IDSS Commentaries, September 2003, p. 2.
21. See "Allies Express Fear over PAS' Dokumen Negara Islam [Islamic State Document]," New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur), November 13, 2003.
22. Ibid.
23. See John Funston, "Malaysia's Tenth Elections: Status Quo, Reformasi or Islamization?" Contemporary Southeast Asia, 22:1, April 2000, p. 38.
24. See Joseph Chinyong Liow, "Exigency or Expediency? Contextualizing Political Islam and the PAS Challenge in Malaysian Politics," Third World Quarterly, 25:2, March 2004, pp. 359-72.
25. Indeed, the opposition has already initiated yet another round of "Islamization" by warning of the "wrath of Allah" for those who voted for the BN. See "Malaysia's Islamic Opposition Warns Detractors of Allah's Wrath," Agence France Presse, April 10, 2004.
26. Farish Noor, "Blood, Sweat, and Jihad: The Radicalization of the Political Discourse of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party from 1982 Onwards," Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25:2 (August 2003), pp. 205-06.
27. For details of specific policies, see Joseph Chinyong Liow, "Political Islam in Malaysia: Problematizing Discourse and Practice in the UMNO-PAS Islamization Race," Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 42:2 (July 2004), pp. 194-97.
28. Syed Ahmad Hussein, "Muslim Politics and the Discourse on Democracy," in Democracy in Asia: Discourse and Practices, eds. Khoo Boo Teik and Francis Loh Kok Wah (Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 2002), pp. 74-107;
29. Joseph Chinyong Liow, Deconstructing Political Islam in Malaysia: UMNO's Response to PAS' Religio-Political Dialectic, IDSS Working Paper, no. 45 (Singapore: Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, 2002), pp. 5-6.
30. In 1995, DAP, had won nine parliamentary and six state seats in 1995 and 10 parliamentary and 11 state seats in 1999.
31. See Khoo Boo Teik, "Unfinished Crises: Malaysian Politics in 1999," Southeast Asian Affairs (2000), p. 171.
32. William Case, "Thorns in the Flesh: Civil Society as Democratizing Agent in Malaysia," in Civil Society in Asia, eds. David C. Schak and Wayne Hudson (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), p. 53.
33. See also chapter by Meredith Weiss, "Civil Society and Political Reform in Malaysia," ibid., pp. 59-72.
34. Some of these included Pemantau Pilihanraya Rakyat Malaysia (Malaysian Citizen's Election Watch) and its successor the People's Manifesto Initiative; Gagasan Demokrasi Rakyat (Coalition for People's Democracy, which had already begun to play a major role in opposition politics after the 1987-88 UMNO crisis); and Gerak (Majlis Gerakan Keadilan Rakyat Malaysia, or the Malaysian People's Movement for Justice).
35. It should nevertheless be noted, however, that three of their five seats in Parliament came from Kelantan, where the party in fact leveraged itself on PAS support and election machinery.
36. Consider the presentations of Bridget Welsh, Karim Raslan, and M. Bakri Musa in "Passing the Mantle: A New Leadership for Malaysia," Asia Program Special Report, no. 116, Woodrow Wilson Center Asia Program, September 2003, pp. 1-19.
37. A scheduled visit to Terengganu was tellingly canceled at the last minute.
38. "Uneasy Currents," Hindu (Madras, India), December 17, 2000.
39. See "Abdullah's Winds of Change," New Straits Times, April 8, 2004.
40. Author interview with an UMNO party official, Kuala Lumpur, March 10, 2004.
41. Takfir refers to the polemical exchange between UMNO and PAS, where each attempts to raise doubts about the other's Islamic credentials by labeling it infidel.
42. See "Keadilan Leader Blames PAS for Disastrous Outing," Star (Kuala Lumpur), March 25, 2004.
43. "Setback for the Opposition, So What Next?" Sun (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), March 25, 2004.