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How to Transform Malaysia’s Regime 249

big-data approaches to campaign-targeting and predictions, as Ross Tapsell’s
chapter explores, the average Malaysian could readily access information from
across a range of political perspectives—however much social media encourage
siloization. Crucially, voters could more easily nd evidence that they were not
alone in having doubts about the BN.
e second of our ve elements of long-term change is the continuing
incremental broadening and deepening of civil society, generating not just
ideas and social capital, but also ranks of new leaders. Civil society and
political parties have developed concomitantly over the decades in Malaysia,
on tracks less parallel than intersecting and overlapping in personnel, ideas, and
strategies. It was that extra-party backdrop—the space civil society a orded
for political thought and action, the alliances non-party groups built around
issues, and the people politicized through social activism—that facilitated the
formation of electoral coalitions from the 1990s on (Weiss 2006). at pattern
has persisted, fostering ideas, social capital, and organisational infrastructure.
Impossible to generate quickly, these resources proved essential in 2018’s
electoral upset, particularly in helping parties to frame the BN’s redistricting,
midweek election date, and other decisions as unfair and anti-democratic, then
getting voters to turn out on 9 May. e youth-training initiatives Haris Zuan
examines are thus part of a larger pattern, albeit a particularly important niche.
Furthermore, civil society at least as much as parties can be seen to lie
behind the youth e ects Haris identi es as having an impact in this election.
Much of the in ux of new contenders was that of young candidates with
activist inclinations or backgrounds. In part, given ongoing sociopolitical
mobilization, talking and doing politics have become less verboten,
supplemented by amendment of the Universities and University Colleges Act
in 2012 to allow undergraduates to take part in formal politics. Moreover, as
Pakatan’s Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR,
People’s Justice Party) developed a clearer policy focus, some of their younger,
newer legislators in particular found ways to rope NGOs into governance.
Such collaborations already in train include, for example, e orts to implement
participatory budgeting initiatives in Penang.
In other words, the long-term development of civil society has fostered
autonomous structures that may both stimulate political participation and
feed into opposition-party strengthening. Maintaining independence and the
ability to serve as a check may be di cult, particularly if parties resist what
usurps their prerogatives. We can see this dilemma in the fact that Pakatan
parties rank restoring local-government elections much lower a priority than
do NGOs (Rodan 2014). But taking seriously the role of players like Bersih in

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