Beyond Electoral Coordination: The Evolutionary Challenge for Malaysia’s Opposition
Dr Lee Hock Guan, ISEAS Senior Fellow, introducing speaker, Dr Wong Chin Huat, to the audience (Source: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute)
Friday, 9 September 2016 – Dr Wong Chin Huat, Fellow and Head of Political and Social Analysis at Penang Institute, Malaysia gave a seminar on “Beyond Electoral Coordination: The Evolutionary Challenge for Malaysia’s Opposition”.
Dr Wong argued that while there are factors preventing Malaysia’s opposition from successfully defeating the ruling coalition National Front (BN) such as gerrymandering and malapportionment, patronage and ethnic loyalties, and opposition disunity, the opposition’s fundamental problem, he insisted, is more a structural one. Even if a straight fight deal is attained eventually between Pakatan Harapan, PAS and Mahathir’s new party Bersatu, the opposition may not be able to inspire voters to turn out to vote in the next polls as long as they continue to adopt a strategic ambiguity on two salient but divisive issues – Islamisation and Bumiputeraism – to remain united.
Dr Wong sharing that the opposition’s fundamental problem is more of a structural issue (Source: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute)
BN, UMNO in particular, would easily manipulate the two issues to divide the opposition such that the latter’s unity would come across as hypocritical and invoked voter distrust and cynicism. Instead of adopting a strategic ambiguity before elections, it might be more effective if the opposition were to seek some reconciliation on Islamisation and Bumiputeraism as well as persuade voters to accept a more fluid model of post-election coalition.
Close to 40 participants attended the 1.5-hour seminar.
Participants at the seminar (Source: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute)