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Politics of Reform and the Triumph of Pakatan Harapan 105

communalism, a political stratagem that required broad-based multiethnic
coalitions occupying the middle ground for ethnic vote-pooling. BN had lost
most of this middle ground by the time of GE14. It has been shown that this
loss was comprehensive across regions—in the west-coast peninsular states and
also in the Borneo state of Sabah. In the east-coast states, UMNO’s Muslim
ground was greatly eroded. National politics have always called for a ‘minimal
winning coalition’ (Riker 1962) that is needed to garner support across
regions. e fact that the Islamic party PAS has emerged as the major force
in Terengganu and Kelantan because of their heavily Muslim demographic
con rms its regional rather than national base of support. Exclusive ethnically
based parties in Malaysia can only be regional in character and can only attain
limited electoral success if they are not in power-sharing arrangements with
other parties with a broad national base. State-based parties continue to be
signi cant in East Malaysian politics, but still require nationally endorsed
coalitions to win power and to be e ective in governance.
With the conclusion of GE14, the coalition with the broadest multiethnic
base is the PH, replacing the BN, which had held this base arguably for the
past six decades, albeit with progressive erosion since 2008. Already evident
is the tendency toward a national two-coalition electoral system in Malaysia
since 2008. e changed character of the BN coalition in the aftermath of
GE14 (with the departure of Gerakan and Sabah- and Sarawak-based parties)
serves as the new backdrop to the puzzle of whether two-coalition politics will
persist beyond the 2018 election. Essentially the answer to this question will
depend on how and whether UMNO can reinvent itself as a force for ethnic
power-sharing.

Notes
1 Work on path dependence cast in terms of historical sociology is found in Mahoney
2002.
2 I draw on classic early work on Malaysian politics in using the term ‘communalism’
(Ratnam 1965), adding the adjective ‘mediated’ to depict my notion of the concept.
3 See the work of Putnam (2000) on the US and Varshney (2002) on India.
4 I base this hypothesis on a simple calculation made of the outcome of the Bangi
parliamentary constituency, the country’s largest, with 178,790 registered voters. PH’s
Ong Kian Ming won this seat with total of 102,557 votes. e ethnic distribution in
Bangi rounds up to roughly 50 per cent Malay, 40 per cent Chinese, and 10 per cent
Indian. Analyses suggest that Ong’s victory drew support from 40 per cent of Malay,
95 per cent of Chinese, and 70 per cent of Indian voters. Other permutations are, of
course, possible, but given our knowledge of the overall electoral outcome and eld
conversations with candidates, this hypothesis is highly plausible. Faisal Hazis (2018:

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