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Opposition Parties’ Electoral Strategies and the Defeat of Dominant Parties

Ya-Wen Yu
2021 / 05
Volume 28, No.1

pp.149-190
10.6612/tjes.202105_28(1).0004
Paper

Abstract

Since Malaysia’s independence in 1957, the United Malay National Organization (UMNO)-led Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition government governed Malaysia for 61 years, maintaining a competitive authoritarian system. However, Malaysia experienced its first-ever party turnover in May 2018. To understand the reason why Malaysia’s competitive authoritarian system collapsed, the existing literature suggests two key explanations for BN’s electoral defeat: increasing urbanization, and Mahathir causing a split among the governing elites. Combining the theoretical perspectives of party politics and ethnic voting, this paper argues that Parti Islam Se-Malaysia’s (Malaysian Islamic Party, PAS) change of policy objective also was a factor in explaining BN’s electoral defeat. Specifically, the PAS changed its goal from “office-seeking” to “policy seeking.” In order to promote Islam, the PAS cut ties with the opposition coalition that it had joined for the past 20 years, because the Democratic Action Party (DAP) conflicted with the PAS with respect to its Islamization policy. The PAS established a new party coalition and focused on promoting Islam, which helped the PAS gain support from the Malay Muslim voters who had not voted for PAS because of its previous alliance with the DAP. Accordingly, this study * Assistant Professor, Department of Diplomacy and International Relations, Tamkang University.

Keywords

Malaysia

Parti Islam Se-Malaysia

Democratic Transition

Competitive Authoritarian Regime

Barisan Nasional