8 - Whither Malaysia?

Summary

During the years after independence when ethnic conflict was perceived as the main threat to regime stability in Malaysia, inter-ethnic élite cooperation was the most crucial element in the maintenance of the dominant Malay ruling élite's power. Accordingly, the UMNO-led Malay ruling élite opted for political compromise with other communal leaders in coalition government to maintain its legitimate influence over the political process. Although the Malaysian political system did not fully conform to all features of consociationalism mentioned by Lijphart, it nonetheless involved the articulation of the key ones for the first twelve years of independence (1957–69). In particular, the presence of interethnic élite co-operation in the Alliance government and sufficient rankand-file support made Malaysian politics consociational during the earlier period of independence. Given the intense ethnic and societal cleavages in Malaysia, much writing on consociationalism has been oriented towards exploring how the various ethnic leaders were able to reach some measure of consensus to preserve their political legitimacy.

Towards the end of the 1960s, the Alliance-type of consociational compromise, however, became increasingly unfeasible for maintaining regime stability as Malaysian ethnic society became more and more politicized. In particular, the Alliance's disastrous outcome in the 1969 general election which triggered the subsequent May 13 racial riots demonstrated that consociational inter-ethnic compromises were less effective for the Malay ruling élite as a means of maintaining its own political power. This was one of the most crucial reasons for the Malay ruling élite seeking an alternative mode of regime maintenance and shifting towards more hegemonic control, which led to the unambiguous UMNO-led Malay dominance of the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, changes took place in almost every field of Malaysian society, the political, social, economic, legal, and even ideological spheres.