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90 Johan Saravanamuttu

toxic regime. Events just before the eve of GE14 saw the temporary suspension
of Bersatu, which led to PH’s highly important decision to use as its common
logo that of PKR.
As can be seen from the foregoing account, the backdrop to GE14 was
a fractious struggle in UMNO, causing the formation of Bersatu, which
ultimately led to the strengthening of the PH coalition after PAS’s damaging
departure. UMNO feuding also led to the formation of Warisan in Sabah,
mainly by Sha e, which in the aftermath of GE14, contributed to the severe
collapse of BN coalition politics in the Borneo states. PH’s triumph can be
seen as continuing on the path of the two preceding elections, itself blazed by
the Reformasi moment, which was a critical juncture in Malaysian politics.
e reconstituted PH remained basically faithful to its reform agenda of
combating corruption, symbolised by its making the 1MDB scandal the central
plank of its campaign. PH largely maintained ideological and institutional
continuity in the sense of retaining agendas of reform politics and institutional
change, basically as advocated since the Reformasi movement. Control of state
governments was crucial, particularly in Selangor and Penang. e two state
governments had demonstrated ‘increasing returns’ to governance by posting
annual surplus budgets, managing state corporations well, and introducing
bene cial socioeconomic programmes, and thereby contributed to voters’
con dence regarding PR’s governance capability. It should be noted that
neither state government escaped criticism from civil-society groups, such as
for policies favouring housing developers (Penang) or poor water-management
(Selangor). I would argue, nonetheless, that PR performance in these state
governments on the whole ensured continuity on a path of reform politics and
contributed a model of reformism that PH explicitly adopted in 2018. e
adoption of a common logo was highly symbolic of the continuity of such
reform politics.

Explanations of BN’s defeat—Continuity in Change

Without a doubt, the entry of Bersatu into PH allowed this alliance to have a
strong claim to mediated communalism, underpinning a basic path-dependent
premise of multiethnic power-sharing heading into GE14. With the departure
of PAS, the opposition coalition needed to buttress its Malay base. Interestingly,
Mahathir’s later years at the helm of BN politics had seen some progressive
developments, away from Malay dominance to the notion of ‘Bangsa Malaysia’
(a Malaysian nation) in his Vision 2020 agenda. e Reformasi movement,
with its agenda of more radical reform, overshadowed this broad multiethnic

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