Malaysia’s Dominant Party and Global Comparisons: WILL THIS NEVER END?!
The remains of a paper comparing the defeat of BN/UMNO to the fall of the Mexican PRI and Taiwanese KMT in 2000, and their subsequent return. In 2021, Japan now appears to be a better comparison.
Foreword
In the middle of 2019, I started compiling material that would compare Malaysia’s experience of toppling a dominant party with other countries that had experienced similar conditions, tentatively titled ‘Dominant Party Defeat and Return: Global Comparisons to GE14’. The planned paper was inspired by stumbling on an article in the Washington Post that made allusions to the similarity of the GE14 moment to Taiwan and Mexico’s dominant party defeat back in 2019. It would investigate the loose correlation between the fall of a dominant party (in all three countries for more than 60 years) and the reign of a long-time opposition for two terms before the return of the dominant party. I was working on this until September of 2019 but was unable to return to it. Then, of course, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government fell and the initial thesis of this paper also fell apart. This short reflection lays out the case for the correlation and reconsiders the initial hypothesis.
*Note: If anyone wants to straight-up steal this research idea (if it is worth stealing at all) and work on it, please go for it. Send me your paper after it’s done! Would love to read it.
Background and Paper Outline
GE14 was lauded the world over as an exemplar of peaceful democratic change, marking our nation’s transition from a semi-authoritarian regime into a democracy proper. The pattern lines up with country cases like Taiwan and Mexico. One might predict that the change of government in said countries also would complete the transition from a form of authoritarianism into democracy. This has not been the case and these predictions had, at best, mixed results at the time. The two countries were chosen because of the similarities that other academics had already picked up on. (See Solinger 2001 and Nelson 2014 in sections below)
The paper sought to examine Malaysia’s 14th General Election and the fall of Barisan Nasional (BN) -- and UMNO by extension -- in light of other dominant party defeats, namely Taiwan and Mexico. The first section would make a case for the comparison by highlighting their similarities and creating the boundaries for it by unpacking their differences. The second section could look into the aftermath of the dominant party defeat, how the opposition in power governed and what conditions allowed for the return of the dominant parties. The parties’ own responses and evolution since its defeat are analysed in the third section. An assessment of the state of BN and UMNO today is made to draw parallels (if any) and contrasts to the Taiwan and Mexico cases in the fourth section. The paper was to conclude with an assessment of BN’s prospects given its current circumstances and what this might mean for Malaysian democracy.
This reflection will just give you the highlights and interesting bits.
The Initial Hypothesis: Dominant Party Falls, Opposition Rules for A Time (Two Terms?), Then Dominant Party Returns
In Mexico, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which ruled from 1929 to 2000 lost to the National Action Party (PAN). In Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT), in power since 1948, would lose to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), also in the year 2000. Both countries would see their opposition-in-power rule for two terms and witness the return of the KMT and PRI, in 2008 and 2012 respectively. Yet, these dominant parties would then be defeated once more, in Taiwan by the same DPP (2016) and in Mexico by the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) (2018). If (really big IF) the pattern held for Malaysia, PH might have seen two terms, nominally because people were supposedly so sick of BN and half a century of corruption such that PH would have an extended honeymoon period. Considering this very cursory pattern, PH would then be embroiled in its own corruption scandal by being embedded within the state and later get taken down by BN, like in the two other countries.
Convergences
For the three-country comparison, I intended to use Solinger’s (2001) list of six factors (with one addition) that led to dominant party defeats in Mexico, Taiwan and South Korea.
Decades of elections
Opposition Parties and Coalitions
Electoral Reform
Fraud and Corruption
Split(s) from the Dominant Party - PKR, Bersatu, Semangat 46
Charismatic Opposition Leader - Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir Mohamad
(My addition) Democracy movements - Bersih and The Movimiento Ciudadano por la Democracia (MCD – Citizens’ Movement for Democracy) in Mexico
Divergences
One key difference in Malaysia is that we have the Westminster-style parliamentary system where the leader of a majority coalition in the legislature controls the executive. Mexico has a presidential system in which citizens directly elect the head of the executive with a simple majority for one six-year term that is not renewable. Similarly, the president of Taiwan is elected by a plurality voting direct election for a term of four years with a maximum of two terms. These seemingly elementary differences are rather crucial in understanding dominant party defeat. Kharis Templeman has done statistical work that shows the difference of outcomes in parliamentary and presidential systems under dominant party rule in a number of countries. (This lecture series on Taiwan is a good start, he compares the presidential system to a tournament (think UEFA Cup, single-elimination contest) and parliamentary system to a multi-game series (Premier League) by way of outcome probabilities in this one.)
Another difference is the reality that Pakatan Harapan is coming to power with a majority in the legislature, allowing it to pass laws as it sees fit. Though the current prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Muhammad, consistently bemoans the lack of a two-thirds majority to amend the constitutions needed to enact electoral reforms, even a simple majority was denied to the DPP and PAN in Taiwan and Mexico respectively.
A key paper by Nelson (2014), titled ‘Will Malaysia Follow the Path of Taiwan and Mexico?’ lays out three factors that differentiate Malaysia from the other two countries.
Lack of international pressure
Reformist factions within the Dominant Parties - Khairy MIGHT have been the UMNO reformer if he won the leadership contest?
Ethnic and religious cleavages
Aftermath and Return of Dominant Parties (Mexico and Taiwan)
How did Opposition-in-Power Fare
Both came to power without the control of the legislature and would remain the case for both terms these parties were in office. Political gridlock and mismanagement characterised their administrations. Attempted reforms were thwarted by the dominant parties in both countries. *The DPP reformed the electoral system in 2005 with KMT just to lose the election in 2008.
These parties were navigating the halls of power for the first time, the formerly dominant parties still remained relevant, even prominent to some extent (still controlled regional and local offices).
Inability to undo or reform the political economy of patronage that characterised dominant party rule.
Economic mismanagement and failure/inability to deliver promised reforms led to nostalgia for the return of the dominant party.
Analysis of KMT and PRI Out of Power (My own list)
Evolution and Adaptation of Former Dominant Parties
Reforms to the Party
Alliances
Changes in Ideology
Party Resources
Speculation about BN/UMNO’s Potential for Change and the Future of Democratic Consolidation
Both KMT and PRI cleaned up their image and were able to attack the corruption of the DPP and PAN to get back into power. However, there was the second round of defeats for the KMT and PRI, marked by outright majorities for the DPP and MORENA. MORENA and its allies had a two-thirds majority in the Chamber of Deputies when they won in 2018. The DPP returned to power with a majority in the Legislative Yuan in 2016 and retained it in 2020.
Something similar might have happened to Malaysia. BN/UMNO in whatever coalition comes back and then loses once more. Some of the factors of their return I considered:
Restructuring/Reforms of UMNO Governance and Culture
Nature of the UMNO-PAS Alliance
New Dominant Parties - PKR vs Bersatu
Privatisation and Changes to the Economy under PH
Electoral Reform, Political Financing and Decentralisation under PH
A lot of the political science literature on this looks at putting countries into discrete categories or defining any hybrid categories. Has Malaysia made the transition from authoritarianism to democracy? Based on Przeworski’s dictum that “democracy is a system in which parties lose elections”, yes. If we take the “Huntington test for established democracies — that is, having two successful, consecutive changes of government through a free and peaceful electoral process”, then likely no (in our case there hasn’t been another election before the change of government, who know if they will be free or peaceful).
Epilogue: The Japanese Comparison?
Now, with the (apparent) return of UMNO after less than a full five-year term, our political situation may be more comparable to the experience of post-WW2 Japan. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been in power since 1955, and out of power for brief periods (1993 - 1994 and 2009 - 2012). It is also a big-tent party that espoused a conservation nationalist ideology, not unlike BN/UMNO. It too has a (longer) list of splinter parties and networks of patronage. However, this requires further investigation into the specifics similarities and differences between the two parties and national political economies to be sure that there is a good comparison to be made.
The link to my working file of this paper for any interested researcher. WARNING: IT’S A MESS.