Politik, Pengundi dan Faktor Melayu/Bumiputera: Analisis Terhadap Kegagalan Barisan Nasional dalam PRU 2018 (Politics, Electorates and The Malay/Bumiputera’s Factor: An Analysis On The Failure of Barisan Nasional In The 2018 General Election)

Abstract

This article analyses the significance of Malay politics and electorates and its relation to the political survival of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and Barisan Nasional (BN) in Malaysia. Previously, the UMNO/BN hegemony in the Malay majority and rural constituencies had been a major roadblock en route the Malaysian opposition’s path to federal power. Therefore, in the 2018 General Election (GE), a new opposition pact known as the Alliance of Hope (PH) forged a strategic co-operation with Mahathir and former leaders of UMNO to establish and strengthen two new Malay-based parties; the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (Bersatu) and Sabah Heritage Party (Warisan). This article argues that the ability of PH in forming a stronger, more representative and credible alliance of opposition, particularly in allowing the entrance and co-operation of the Malay-based political parties in the alliance; is a major factor in subverting BN’s dominance in Malaysia. Nevertheless, this article also identifies several other main factors that led to the BN regime’s failure in the election, namely: elite rupture; the presence of hot-button issues; advancement of Internet and Communication Technology (ICT); and the formation of digital/information-based society in Malaysia. These arguments, therefore, strive to explain why the former BN regime had failed to maintain federal power despite with the pervasive use of electoral manipulations by the regime and the problem of split opposition due to the withdrawal of the influential Islamic-based party (PAS) from the opposition coalition. We use the concept of competitive authoritarianism as a theoretical framework to explain the relatively competitive electoral contest within an authoritarian system, in which the ruling regime resorts to political manipulation in order to win elections.