On 23 February, 2020, what used to be internal tremors in the Pakatan Harapan – loosely translated as Pact of Hope, a coalition party comprised of four political movements in Malaysia – erupted to the surface, shook the alliance to its core, and left it in pieces.
When the Pact claimed their historical electoral victory in 2018 against political juggernaut Barisan Nasional, they counted Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed, former Prime Minister, among their ranks. Tun’s place in the party had risen more than a few eyebrows, especially since he had been such an ardent opposition to the reform agenda, one of Pakatan’s core platforms.
But nevertheless, carrying the Pact’s banner, Tun again took the Prime Ministerial seat in 2018. But this position came with a clause: Come 2020, he was supposed to relinquish his power to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who, at the time, was in jail. (He was to be given royal pardon after Pakatan rose to power).
But then the anointed time came, and then it went. Tun Mahathir stayed in power, and Anwar Ibrahim, now free, grew impatient. The tension revealed cracks in the coalition, and before long, the situation had devolved into somewhat of a free-for-all for power: groups splintered away from Pakatan, and former and present members sought to undermine each other.
For the next couple of days, Malaysia bore witness to a whirlwind of politicking that would eventually be known as the Sheraton Move. After the dust settled, what emerged was a completely new government and a Pact left in shambles.
Many have dismissed the Pakatan Harapan government as a huge disappointment, nothing more than the lesser of two evils when pitted against Barisan. Their failure to deliver on campaign promises grew too frustrating, and eventually, this was what led to their demise.
But if one were to dig deeper, this political coup was really just a manifestation of a much more complex and intertwined clash of interests between the elites and warlords of Malay politics, riding on the never-ending conservative agenda, fueled by a heavily corrupted political system.
The problem with the New Malaysia project was the idea of New Malaysia itself. It runs diametrically against the deeply rooted racism both within the systems of governance in the country, and within the people as a whole. The New Malaysia project failed to understand that its opponent was not Barisan Nasional, but the unanswered questions of Malaysia’s identity.
Committed to promoting racial equality in the country, Pakatan Harapan appointed two non-ethnic Malays to high government posts: Lim Guan Eng, of Chinese descent, as Finance Minister, and Tommy Thomas (pictured above), Indian in ethnicity, as Attorney General. The latter, in particular, caused turbulent waves among Malaysia’s conservatives, who saw Thomas as a sign that courts would cater to minorities and be stacked against Malays.
Rewriting racial lines
Racial lines have always been drawn across the Malaysian political sphere. For decades, political parties have weaponized and leveraged race as a means to claw their way up to power. For instance, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the main component party of Barisan Nasional and traditionally the party of the Prime Ministers, has always been known as the proponent of Malay Supremacy’s ideology, but has hidden behind the multiracial banner of Barisan to stay in power.
The core narrative running through all racial politicking in the country is always nasty: The Chinese have been running Malaysia’s economy since the British colonial period, so the argument goes; we can’t allow them to do the same to our politics. For way too many times, this single talking point has saved UNMO and Barisan Nasional from being unseated.
In fact, race is such a potent political tool that before the General Election in 2008, the only time UMNO was in serious danger of being removed from power was way back in 1969. And even then, their hardcore supporters rallied so ardently to their support, triggering brutal racial clashes in Kuala Lumpur. The entire episode would come to be known as the May 13 tragedy, which took the lives of hundreds of people. Until today, it serves as a warning of what could happen when Malay supremacy is challenged.
But fortunately – due in no small part to several affirmative actions like the New Economic Policy, Green and Red Book, the Reformasi movement, and the Internet explosion – racial tensions in the country have eased. Younger generations, with a broader worldview and better socioeconomic understanding, are now more moderate and measured in their approach to race.
Pakatan Harapan knew all of this. They knew that a campaign based on addressing racial frustrations would be strategic and would sway younger voters over to their camp. And they were right: minority voters did carry them to their historic 2018 win over Barisan, but only barely so. While 95 percent of their voters were ethnic Chinese, the Pact still only managed to capture less than 30 percent of Malay votes. The race problem, it was clear, was far from being solved.
Though their time in power may have been short, and dotted with unfulfilled promises, Pakatan Harapan nevertheless proved to be aggressive against the systemic racism they inherited from Barisan Nasional. From a traditionally Malay-dominated cabinet, the Pact introduced the country to a set of leaders that was colorful and diverse, with strong representation of different ethnic groups.
In particular, the appointment of Lim Guan Eng as the Finance Minister, the second most powerful position on the cabinet, painted a clear picture of where the New Malaysia was headed to after 2018. The portfolio had always been headed by Malay ministers since 1974, a sign of guarantee that the rights of Malays would always be preserved. Guan Eng, in contrast, is of Chinese descent, a bold symbol that New Malaysia would be different.
In late 2018, the Pakatan Harapan-led Malaysian government ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). It was met with such a powerful popular protest that choked major thoroughfares in Kuala Lumpur. More critically, the anti-ICERD movement forged a stronger union among opposition parties, which would ultimately lead to the downfall of the Pact.
This caused alarm among the more conservative Malaysians and triggered a highly racialized smear campaign against Lim Guan Eng. But because he was highly capable – he was one of the top leaders of Pakatan and the former Chief Minister of economically successful Penang State – the attacks against him failed to gain much traction.
But later, when Pakatan appointed Tommy Thomas as the new Attorney General of Malaysia, conservatives saw another chance to pounce – and they were determined not to let this one go.
Tommy Thomas is a prominent lawyer and is of Indian descent, making him the first non-Malay since 1963 to occupy such a powerful seat in the government. Unlike most other officials, an Attorney General is appointed into the position, not elected. Tommy Thomas was seen no differently: The people didn’t choose him; rather, he was put in place in order to represent the interests of the government.
Conservative groups took advantage of the ambivalence that this might have caused among the general public. Almost immediately, Tommy Thomas came under fire from Malay-Muslim groups. The opposition made him out to be a bogeyman, a symbol of the definitive triumph over non-Malays of Malays, a threat to the interest of the maligned majority.
A non-Malay Attorney General, so the allegations go, can only mean that the court of law would be stacked against Malays. Before long, this seed of thought took root and grew, bursting into thorny vines of doubt that quickly eroded the already-tenuous support the Pact had among Malays. Their time at the top was almost over.
Crisis of confidence
Amid this crisis of confidence, in October 2018, the Malaysian government, then still led by the Pakatan Harapan, decided to finally ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
It was met with overwhelming contempt. On December 2018, organized by the conservative opposition, a massive anti-ICERD protest descended on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The rallies were successful on two main fronts: such a strong showing by the Malays forced the government to backpedal on the ratification, and it also served as the launching pad for the merging of old rivals, UMNO and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party or PAS, two of the biggest Malay Muslim-based political parties in the country.
A year later, both the nationalist and Islamist parties formally tied the knot and formed the Muafakat Nasional, or the National Concord. This marked the start of a conservative uprising in Malaysia that would come to threaten the already-unpopular multiracial politics of Pakatan.
Ultimately, Pakatan wasn’t able to withstand all the assaults – the conservative uprising, their disappointing performance while in power, the racial divide in the country, the Sheraton Move, and all the internal conflicts driven by greed and politicking.
Tun Mahathir, who had been touted as the Pact’s bridge to the conservative Malay voters, had been reduce to nothing more than a puppet of non-Malay interests. What was once a great Malay champion had fallen from grace, and has now become an anti-Malay crusader. For most Malays, the Pact was well beyond redemption.
After the Sheraton Move, the government underwent a series of carefully engineered, painstakingly designed political realignments. Not leaving anything to chance, and eager to save themselves from the sinking ship, many Pakatan leaders forged ties with the UMNO, the very same group that worked to see the Pact’s demise.
Born from this new allegiance, and rising to fill the power void left by Pakatan, was Perikatan Nasional, or the National Alliances. The coup, and the ascent of the Perikatan, was very ill-timed. Not long after, the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the country, almost immediately laying bare the gross incapacity of the new government to deal with crises.
As officials commit blunder after blunder, people started missing the New Malaysia project, and launched a widespread campaign against the current government.
Today, with the Perikatan Nasional in office, abuse of power, corruption, incompetency, injustice, and discrimination have made their way back onto headlines. In a desperate attempt to stay in power, and amid mounting public dissatisfaction, Perikatan put the country under a state of emergency and suspended parliament.
Such a bold, undemocratic move was meant to bury the project of New Malaysia farther beneath the ground, stifling political dissent into oblivion. But sheer force has never been enough to stamp out the flames of a movement. Will the New Malaysia project rise from its ashes? Only time will tell. ●
Adam Adli is a Malaysia-based (former) political agitator. He is currently the chairperson of the People’s Democratic League, a youth-centric political organization with no physical office.
