TAJUK: DOWN--BUT NOT OUT
BY: T. G. Mc Gee
MALAYSIA: On the face of it, the results
of the recent West Malaysia election should not have provided a catalyst for
the communal riots which followed, says T. G. McGee, a well-known authority on
urban problems in Asia with a specialised knowledge of Kuala Lumpur and
Malaysian politics. In this article he provides a detailed
analysis of the West Malaysia Parliamentary Election results -- the backdrop to
the disorder which followed.
THE current disastrous sequence of events in West Malaysia -- communal rioting,
the imposition of Emergency Regulations, the postponement of scheduled
elections in East Malaysia, and the apparent inability of the Alliance
Government to hold together the divided ethnic elements of Malaysia's society
-- have forced a realistic analysis of the 1969 Parliamentary Election results
into the background.
An analysis of this Parliamentary election when compared with the electoral
patterns of Alliance and Opposition support in the 1959 and 1964 elections
provides considerable insight into the unresolved tensions and problems of West
Malaysia. Such tensions also exist in the territories of East Malaysia, but
there has not been as much time to undertake remedial policies.
To understand these conflicts as they emerge in the electoral patterns, it is
necessary to briefly sketch the demographic, social and economic features of
West Malaysia. West Malaysia (and Malaysia as a whole) is unique among
Southeast Asian nations in that immigrant groups form almost 50% of its total
population. In 1966 the Malays made up 50% of West
Malaysia's population, while the remainder was composed of Chinese (37%),
Indians (11%) and other racial groups (2%). This almost equal balance between
the indigenous and alien communities has been the most important deterrent to
extreme measures being taken by the indigenous populations against the minority
groups as have occurred in other Southeast Asian countries, notably against the
Indians in Burma and the Chinese in Indonesia. Malaysia's unique multi-racial situation
has been complicated by the fact that the Malays, traditionally located in
rural areas, are poorer and less educated than the predominantly urban Chinese
(63%) who are economically better-off.
In an effort to prevent a polarisation between the "have" and
"have nots" of the Malaysian society in the form of a communal war,
the British were careful to ensure that their political power of the colonial
period devolved effectively to the Malays. Thus the formation of the Alliance
Party -- comprising the predominant UMNO (United Malay National Organisation)
but including also the MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) and the MIC
(Malaysian Indian Congress), which won the 1955 election and every election
thereafter -- was looked upon with favour.
Secondly, the distribution and allocation of constituencies ensured a dominance
of Malay rural constituencies at the expense of the more heavily-populated
Chinese urban constituencies. Since this original constituency demarcation,
there have been several changes in parliamentary constituencies boundaries but
this basic inequality has not been corrected. For example the urban electorate
of Bungsar won by the DAP (Democratic Action Party) in this year's election had
a valid vote of 46,698 compared with the Hiler Perak constituency which had a
valid vote of 12,221 won by the Alliance.
Since the Independence of Malaya in 1957 several trends have emerged to
complicate earlier hopes of maintaining some kind of balance between the Malay
indigenous political power and the immigrant economic power. First the growth
of towns which had accelerated between 1947 and 1957 has continued.
In particular Kuala Lumpur, the capital, has experienced very rapid growth. In
1967 the Municipal Health Officer for Kuala Lumpur estimated that the city
would reach a population of 750,000 by 1968; almost a 100% increase in 10
years. More relevant to current events is the fact that many of those moving to
the city have been rural Malays who have not always found employment
opportunities. In addition lack of adequate housing has forced them into
squatter settlements and the overcrowded Kampong Bahru has been the foci of
recent communal clashes.
This Malay movement has not been so marked in other parts of the Malayan
Peninsula but the same problems of unemployment exist elsewhere for the
Chinese; particularly in George Town (Penang), Malacca, Ipoh (Perak) and
Seremban (Negri Sembilan), important centres of Chinese disaffection with the
Alliance Government.
To remedy these situations, the Alliance Party has attempted to follow a policy
of government investment in the rural sector to uplift the standard of living
of the Malay population while providing incentives for private enterprise to
invest in the industrial expansion of the cities. It has also attempted to ease
Malays into the urban sector by providing government positions and industrial
jobs.
Despite considerable success in solving
their complex dilemma, the pace has evidently not been sufficient to create
sufficient labour opportunities for either the Malays or Chinese, and indeed a
growing dissatisfaction in both communities has become apparent.
Among the Chinese, the Alliance Party's policy seems to excessively favour
Malays. Among the Malays, the Alliance Party's policies are regarded as not
getting results fast enough. In the face of this situation, the PMIP (Pan
Malayan Islamic Party), drawing its support largely from the most backward,
rural Malay communities through a dual appeal to Malay chauvinism on the basis
of their Islamic religion and their inherent rights, has been growing in power.
In the urban areas of the western states several parties, the Democratic Action
Party, the Gerakan Ra'ayat Malaysia and the People's Progressive Party, all of
them multi-racial in membership but drawing support largely from the Chinese with
their promises to improve the community's conditions, have similarly increased
their political strength. It is against this background of growing communal
polarisations that the results of the 1969 election must be analysed.
The most striking fact emerging from the 1969 Parliamentary election is not the
substantial loss in the number of Alliance Party parliamentary seats and in its
percentage of the total vote compared to 1964 but that the pattern of Alliance
and Opposition support is strikingly reminiscent of the 1959 elections. Looked
at in the context of the three elections, the substantial Alliance victory of
1964 could in retrospect be viewed as reflecting the threat of Konfrontasi
which encouraged the voters (particularly the Chinese) to put aside their
concern for local issues of economic development and social welfare when
casting their votes.
In 1959 the Alliance Party was already clearly entrenched in its regional areas
of support -- Johore, Pahang, Kedah and the dominantly Malay constituencies of
the West Coast states of Penang, Perak, Selangor and Negri Sembilan. The Pan
Malayan Islamic Party controlled the states of Kelantan and Trengganu. The
Socialist Front and the People's Progressive Party were dominant among a
mixture of opposition parties in the urban areas of the West Coast states.
Ten years later, the Alliance Party had gained Trengganu at the expense of the
Pan Malayan Islamic Party. The latter party had made substantial gains in
Kedah, a dominantly Malay Alliance stronghold. Despite these changes, the
pattern of electorate support for these two parties was not radically
different. The DAP and the Gerakan had inherited the
Socialist Front and other miscellaneous parties' strength in the mixed and
dominantly Chinese urban constituencies of Penang, Negri Sembilan and Selangor.
The PPP (People's Progressive Party) still retained its position in its urban
stronghold of Ipoh and the surrounding areas.
The implications of this regional pattern of electoral support at the
parliamentary level can be more fully explored by the investigation of the
patterns of communal support and rural-urban support for the principal parties.
Earlier elections have revealed strikingly the influence of the communal
structure of Malaysian society. The principal Malaysian political parties with
the exception of the PMIP have always recognised this fact despite their avowed
adherence to a policy of anti-communalism.
For instance the Alliance Party has usually followed a policy of nominating
from its threefold party alliance a candidate whose race is that of the
dominant race in each constituency. This is one of the principal reasons for
the easy recognition of the MCA's bad showing in the 1969 polls since their
candidates failed to win many seats in the Chinese constituencies. There have
been exceptions -- for instance, V. Manickavasagam in Klang constituency and
Tan Siew Sin in Malacca Central -- but these are few, certainly the exceptions
rather than the rule.
It should be made clear that the present distribution of the races --
predominantly Malays in rural areas and Chinese in urban areas -- creates a
situation in which the Malay vote is more important than its size in the
population might lead one to believe because of the heavy concentration in the
over-represented rural constituencies. The pattern of communal support in the
elections of 1959, 1964 and 1969 indicates that the Alliance has not markedly
lost the support of the dominantly Malay constituencies. However, this
conclusion must be seen in relation to the pattern of the contested electorates
since the PMIP contested far fewer seats than the Alliance.
The PMIP drew practically all its support from the Malay constituencies but
also increased its votes in mixed constituencies principally among the Malays
in the West Coast states of Selangor and Perak. The growing appeal of the
Socialist Front Party in the mixed and Chinese constituencies has been
inherited by the DAP and the Gerakan. The other parties appear to have declined
in Chinese areas despite the fact that the PPP, the principal party of this
group, won four seats in the 1969 election.
In the 1964 election, the PPP, the DAP and the Labour Party were also included
in this category. Certainly there has been a decline in the Alliance support in
Chinese areas, but it is scarcely as bad as the election results appear to
indicate viewed in terms of the total vote of these constituencies. Overall the
pattern seems to be very much back to the 1959 pattern of communal support.
While the division into rural and urban constituencies is necessarily crude,
the emergent trend resembles that which existed in 1959. This is particularly
true of the Alliance Party. The most marked change has occurred in the urban
constituencies where the combined vote of the PAP and the Gerakan has taken
almost 50% of the vote. If the PPP is added to this, then over two-thirds of
the urban vote went to the opposition parties. The other marked change is in
the considerable increase in PMIP's share of the rural vote. Thus the ethnic division
between rural and urban populations is amply supported by these data.
The implications of this analysis of regional, communal and rural-urban suport
for the various parties point to a growing polarisation which indicates that
the policies of the Alliance Party have not succeeded in convincing the
majority of the West Malaysian population of the need for continuing to support
the ruling party's policies.
On the face of it, the results of the 1969 election should not have provided a
catalyst for the communal rioting which ensued. True, the MCA has lost the
support of the majority of Chinese. True the UMNO has lost some support among
the Malays. But these trends should serve as indicators to the Alliance Party
of the inadequacy of its policies for building a multi-racial society. They
need not be interpreted as an irrevocable disenchantment with the Alliance
Party or the successful manoeuvring of another party or parties to overthrow
the existing Government.
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