Moving forward: Political maturity will be key to meeting future policy challenges

As Malaysia heads towards six decades of independence from Britain, its economy has never been stronger, with per capita income at an all-time high of $10,548, according to the IMF. Likewise, GDP rose to RM984.45bn ($307.25bn) in 2013, as per data from the Department of Statistics. In many ways, Malaysia has benefitted from its diverse ethnic and religious composition, as well as its geo-strategic location, spread across two parts of the South China Sea and a coastline on the Indian Ocean, too. The country also has a long history of good relations with the West, as well as important links to China and other emerging Asian nations, particularly Indonesia. The country today is thus a nation that welcomes investors, encourages trade and is a lead mover in the drive towards the ASEAN Economic Community.

Early History

While only founded as a modern state in 1965, the peoples that make up Malaysia have a long and ancient history. In Peninsular Malaysia, a series of states, primarily sultanates, have long existed, many of which form the basis for current federal states. In Eastern Malaysia, the tribes of Borneo have long operated under a local form of governance, sometimes under the tutelage of neighbouring sultanates, such as Brunei Darussalam, and sometimes as independent entities.

Contact with Indian kingdoms goes back to the early first millennia, while Indian Muslim and Arab traders and missionaries brought Islam to many of the Malay states as early as the seventh century CE. Sultan Mudzafer Shah I of Kedah, the first recorded sultan, lived in the 12th century CE. In medieval times too, Chinese settlers and traders began to make the peninsula their home, beginning with concessions granted by the Malaccan Empire in the 15th century CE.

Recent Past

More recently, however, the European colonial powers, particularly Britain, began to exercise a major influence. While the Portuguese had occupied Malacca in the 16th century CE – subsequently losing the port to the Dutch in the 17th – it was the arrival of Captain Francis Light with British East India Company forces in the 18th century CE that began a long period of British colonial rule. Starting from Penang, the British expanded trading posts down the coast, founding Singapore in the early 19th century. The following decades saw British control extend over the Malay peninsula, while in Eastern Malaysia, Sarawak became the independent fiefdom of the “White Rajahs” – an English dynasty. Sabah, meanwhile, became the territory of the British North Borneo Company.

The Second World War brought Japanese invasion, resistance and the return of British rule. Yet the wave of decolonisation had begun, along with violent conflict in “The Emergency” – a guerrilla war launched by the Malayan Communist Party in the late 1940s.

Independence for the peninsula finally came on August 31, 1957, with the day still celebrated as ‘Merdeka’, or Independence Day. Tunku Abdul Rahman was chosen as the first prime minister. Singapore, Sabah (then still known as North Borneo) and Sarawak remained under British control however, with the latter two having come under direct British rule following the war. This all changed on September 16, 1963, though, when Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak joined with Peninsular Malaya to form Malaysia. This move was resisted by Indonesia, which began armed incursions into Sabah and Sarawak, which became known as the Konfrontasi. These continued until 1965 with the overthrow of Indonesia’s government under President Sukarno and recognition of Malaysian territorial integrity. Tension between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, however, resulted in the latter separating from Malaysia in 1965. Thus the borders of the federal state were drawn.

Diverse

According to the 2010 national census, the most recent figures available, some 67.4% of the population are Bumiputera – a term that includes ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups, such as the Orang Asli – the tribal peoples of the peninsula. Some 63.1% of the peninsula’s inhabitants are ethnic Malays, who are also all classified as Muslim. The ethnic Chinese population constituted 24.6% of the total population, with these following Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Christianity, while Indians – who are mainly Hindu Tamils – constituted roughly 7.3%. In Eastern Malaysia, the ethnic and religious balance is quite different, however. Ibans, who are mainly Christian, made up 30.3% of Sarawak’s population in 2010, while Kadazan/Dusun, also mainly Christian, form 24.5% in Sabah. Muslim Malays are a minority in both states, while ethnic Chinese are particularly highly represented in urban centres, such as Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.

Since the New Economic Policy began to be implemented in 1970, partly in response to race riots in 1969, positive discrimination policies have been extended to the Bumiputera population. These have, at times, been controversial, although continue to be advocated by the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN), also known as the National Front, coalition government.

A Unique Monarchy

Malaysia’s head of state is the king, known as the Yang-di Pertuan Agong, currently Tuanku Abdul Halim, the Sultan of Kedah. The country has a unique system among monarchies, as the king is elected for a five-year term by the Conference of Rulers (CoR). This body consists of the monarchical rulers of nine Malay states – the other four have governors as heads of state. In practice, a rotational system for deciding on the king has been employed, albeit with minors disqualified and an initial principal of seniority also occasionally overlooked. The king is also commander-in-chief of the Malaysian Armed Forces, as well as the Head of Islam in the four, non-monarchical states (including his own) and in the three federal territories. He also appoints the prime minister, on the advice of parliament, the deputy prime minister and chief secretary to the government, on the advice of the prime minister. He also has considerable powers of appointment to committees and to the judiciary, albeit also on the advice of the government and the CoR.

Laws passed by parliament also go to the monarch for final approval. The king is able to reject such laws, but this acts as a postponement. If parliament continues to support them, after 30 days, they become law.

Westminster System

The political system thus closely resembles the UK’s. Executive power resides with the prime minister and the government, with the prime minister commonly the leader of the group able to command a majority in the lower house of the bicameral legislature – the house of representatives, also known as Dewan Rakyat. The prime minister appoints a Cabinet, consisting of the heads of ministries and other leading government figures. The Prime Minister’s Department, also known as the Prime Minister’s Office or the PMO, currently has considerable administrative powers, with a variety of lead agencies in government programmes reporting directly to this.

The Dewan Rakyat, the main legislative body, is supplemented by an upper house, the senate, or Dewan Negara. The lower house consists of 222 members, elected from single member constituencies for five-year terms. The most recent general election, held on May 5, 2013, saw the parties of the BN take 133 seats, while the opposition Pakatan Rakiyat (PR), or the People’s Alliance, took 89. Thus, the BN formed the new government, giving a second term to Prime Minister Najib Razak, the son of Malaysia’s second prime minister and nephew of its third. This achievement means the country has effectively been run by the same party since independence – a result achieved despite PR gaining the majority of votes in 2013, with 50.87% to the BN’s 47.38%. The first-past-the-post electoral system was largely responsible for this discrepancy, which continues to cause some controversy.

Both the BN and PR are coalitions, with the BN’s largest grouping the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). In addition, a dozen other parties are part of the coalition. In previous years, the ethnic Chinese Malay Chinese Association and the Malay Indian Congress were the two largest of these, but recent elections have seen both lose ground. In 2013 the Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), or the United Traditional Bumiputera Party, emerged as the second largest group. The PBB is a Sarawak-based party, with mainly ethnic Malay and other Bumiputera support. Indeed, while 2013 saw BN lose ground in Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak continued to return a solid cohort of BN deputies to parliament, proportionately increasing its influence in the federal government. The PR, meanwhile, has three main components – the mainly ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party, the Islamist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party and the People’s Justice Party.

The Dewan Rakyat debates laws proposed by the government, and, if they are passed, sends them to the upper house. The Dewan Negara is composed of 70 senators, with each of the 13 states electing two members, while the remainder are appointed by the king, on the advice of the prime minister. These appointees must include four from the federal territories – two from Kuala Lumpur and one each from Labuan and Putrajaya. Senators serve three-year terms, with the Dewan Negara having the power to send proposed legislation back to the lower house if it disagrees with it. However, this is only a power of postponement, with such legislation passing into law automatically after one year.

A Federal State

Each of the 13 states has its own unicameral state assembly, with elections for all of these (except that of Sarawak) being held simultaneously with parliamentary elections. The state government is led by a chief minister, who appoints a Cabinet in much the same way as the prime minister. In the states with monarchs, the monarch is the head of state, while in others, a governor fulfils the same role. In the 2013 elections, of the 12 states that held votes (Sarawak had returned a BN state assembly in 2010), the BN came first in nine and the PR in the other three.

The powers of the state governments vary, although in general, the state government has key powers in land and resources, matters of religion and local culture and customary law. Under the state assembly too come the local government units, known as majlis (councils). These have the power to create by-laws and collect assessment taxes, while being headed by an appointed civil servant, known as a president in rural areas and a mayor in urban areas. There have been calls for elections at the local government level too, supported by the PR, although these have not been instituted.

Judicial System

Malaysia has a dual legal system, with the main, federal system based on English Common Law, in addition to a system of Islamic Law. The sharia courts’ jurisdiction, however, applies only to Muslims and mainly concerns civil matters. The Federal Court, which is the highest court in Malaysia, may hear final civil and criminal appeals. The head of this is the chief justice, appointed by the king on the advice of the prime minister and the CoR. Beneath this court lies the Court of Appeal, to which the high courts are subordinate. There are two of these, one each for Eastern and Peninsular Malaysia. Under the high courts come the magistrate’s courts and sessions courts, which hear cases according to the level of seriousness and whether they are civil or criminal matters. There are also Native Courts in Sabah and Sarawak, while Penghulu, or Village Head, courts may also hear cases involving amounts up to RM50 ($15.61).

Going Forward 

The 2013 election reconfirmed the BN in power for another five years, with the opposition (PR) failing to make the historic breakthrough it had sought – although the BN did lose seats and votes. The election also confirmed a previous trend of increasing ethnic division in voting patterns, with the majority of Malays backing the BN, while the ethnic Chinese and Indian voters largely backed the opposition. Since then too, the main opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has been handed a five-year jail term.

Malaysia is likely to face a period of policy continuity, albeit taking place within a context where consensus across communities is more challenging. The BN also faces a challenge in moving forward, specifically to maintain the momentum of the prime minister’s first term and to move the country toward high-income status, all the while at a time when conservative views in UMNO in particular have become more entrenched.