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How to Transform Malaysia’s Regime 259

on the (outdated) assumption of ethnic-Chinese domination of urban areas
(Augustin 2017; Ong 2015), and government o cials have o ered con icting
statements on plans and timing (Nuradzimmah et al. 2019), it appears that
Pakatan may move toward local elections within this term of government
(Mering 2018).

Political Economy

Economic restructuring will need to feature within the process of democratic
consolidation, given the extent to which the Malaysian state intervenes
in the economy and economic control cements political authority. Beyond
obvious questions of the need for greater transparency and accountability in
distributing government contracts and managing state resources—and the
crowd-pleasing promise, promptly ful lled, of eliminating the GST—broader,
more di cult shifts might help to deepen popular commitment to a new
system. Pakatan’s initial plans focus on the former changes, including a range
of steps ‘to enhance scal equity, transparency and accountability, and support
accelerated productive investments and economic growth’: better procedures
for tender and accounting, improvements in managing the treasury and
markets, revenue-sharing across tiers of government, review of public projects
and expenditures, and so forth (Pakatan Harapan 2018b). ese e orts extend
beyond government nances per se, to the wide range of government-linked
corporations and investment companies. As Jayant Menon (2018) notes, that
push needs to start with an assessment of what role the new government wants
these bodies to play in a revamped economy, recognising a role for government
in business, but also its limitations in that guise.
e deeper changes needed are less concrete, broached in Pakatan’s goal
of ‘ scal conduct that is more sustainable, inclusive and growth enhancing’
(Pakatan Harapan 2018b). One aspect of this revisioning is to focus less on
top-line economic expansion than on distribution. Welfare gains aside, and in
light of the persistent majority of voters who name costs of living as their chief
political priority, such a reframing might make voters less willing to settle for
short-term payo s in the form of electoral patronage, including over-the-top
6
promises of development projects and other ‘incentives’ before each election.
Part of this e ort, too, might entail substantive deliberation on what sort of
foreign investment is bene cial and for whom, bearing in mind, for instance,
the resonance of campaign-trail critiques of Chinese investment that does not
create jobs, retail opportunities, or other bene ts for Malaysians. is e ort
could consider options, too, for party nance beyond the BN mode of political

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