Learn About Malaysia: Politics

Malaysian Government

Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy. Here are the detaila according to the CIA Factbook-

"nominally headed by paramount ruler (commonly referred to as the King) and a bicameral Parliament consisting of a nonelected upper house and an elected lower house. All Peninsular Malaysian states have hereditary rulers (commonly referred to as sultans) except Melaka and Pulau Pinang (Penang); those two states along with Sabah and Sarawak in East Malaysia have governors appointed by government. Powers of state governments are limited by federal constitution. Inder terms of federation, Sabah and Sarawak retain certain constitutional prerogatives (e.g., right to maintain their own immigration controls)."

So although, there is a King (here called "the Agong"), effective political power lies with the Prime Minister. Unlike the in the US where we vote for our President, citizens in Malaysia do not vote for their Prime Minister. Instead Malaysians vote for their local representatives (their members of parliament) and the leader of the political party with the most members of parliament becomes the Prime Minister.

Malaysian Politics

Because Malays make up slightly more than 50% of the population, a unified voting block of Malays could never be defeated. However, it is unreasonable to think that one group of people will all think alike, so the Malay vote has been spread across a number of different political parties.

The government of Malaysia is, and always had been, led by a coalition of three race-focused parties United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), and Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) known as the Barisan National (BN). BN has won nevery election since the initial formation of Malaysia.

There are several opposition parties the PKR (mostly Malay), the DAP (mostly Chinese) and PAS (the Pan Islamic Party) but the only thing that these parties appear to me to hold in common is opposition to the current government. The opposition parties were more successful than ever before in the 2008 elections, so the BN is working hard to regain voters so that it can remain in power. There is an awful lot going on in Malaysian politics right now!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Malaysia

Some Things I Think Are Interesting

1) There are race-based political parties. Race-based parties would be hard for us to imagine in the US (any party known as the United White Guy National Organization in the US would scare me). I will try to discuss why there are race-based political parties later on.

2) There is a lot of information about politics in the local newspapers (much more than in papers in the US I think). One of the reasons that there is so much political coverage in the local papers is that many of the local papers are owned by the political parties!! Maybe the Republicans would like to try this- oh wait, they already have Fox News.

3) Malaysian politicians seemed to be very thinned skinned (I hope that I don't get into trouble for saying that). Politicians are constantly making reports to the police if they think that they have been maligned by their opponents.

4) Most people that I talk to, especially younger people, appear to have no interest in politics. I think that the reasons for this are also interesting and I will try to explore them later on.