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230 Wong Chin Huat

of party-reduction, Cox illustrates that disproportional electoral outcomes—
whether through an executive presidency or parliamentary government with
FPTP—necessitate strategic voting and drive political forces to amalgamate
into two groups. In contrast, a parliamentary polity with a less demanding
electoral system that yields proportional electoral outcomes reduces the need
for strategic voting, thus sustaining many parties, representing diverse interests.
In this light, disproportionality that marginalises small, often radical parties is
an evil necessary to produce a two-party system.
Modelled on the British two-party system, a two-coalition system has been
11
Malaysian democratisers’ main objective since 1990. Beyond allowing party
alternation, the British party system is well-known for two advantages: rst,
centripetal competition, as the two main parties pursue the median voter;
and second, ‘responsible government’, as voters can easily hold single-party
governments accountable. By unleashing hope that power could peacefully
change hands between the BN and a second multiethnic coalition, much
like it does between the Conservatives and Labour in the UK, that narrative
provided legitimacy and motivated the repressed opposition.
However, in adopting the FPTP electoral system in 1955, Malaysian
democrats hoped to emulate the British party system without much debate on
its feasibility or suitability for the local context. Can FPTP produce a hoped-
for two-coalition system on Malaysian soil? If it does, will the two main parties
compete centripetally? Are ethnoreligious communities rewarded or penalised
for multiparty competition? Will the coalitions be stable internally? Lastly,
two-coalition system or not, can a fair number of women be elected and issues
be represented e ectively? ese questions of potential mismatch are long
overdue for debate but had been little considered before the BN’s fall. It is
time to seek answers.

Consequence of Mismatch 1: No Two-coalition System
An alternative multiethnic coalition has succeeded in ending the BN’s rule in
its fourth attempt, but it still has yet to establish a sustainable two-coalition
system. With its Chinese and Indian votes depleted nationwide, BN was
practically reduced to UMNO and its Borneo-based allies. However, within
a week of the BN’s defeat, all its Sabah allies ditched UMNO, followed
barely a month after by the entire Sarawak BN, which rebranded itself as
the independent Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) with 19 parliamentarians.
Worse, UMNO has since lost 17 of its parliamentarians to defection and
exodus, with its Sabah chapter virtually gone by the end of 2018. As of

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