Page 60 - Towards_a_New_Malaysia_The_2018_Election_and_Its_6146371_(z-lib.org)

Elite Fragmentation and Party Splits 45

in Paraguay in 2008, argues that elite fragmentation and splits within the
party led to institutional changes that fostered yet more fragmentation and
weakened its hegemony.
Some other research utilizes the actor-network theory, which enables
researchers to bring together functionalist- and genetic-school approaches
that have heretofore been mostly analysed as pertaining to separate entities
in the study of democratization (Ajagbe 2016). is theory makes clearer the
importance of the emergence of ‘societal forces as a necessary condition for
understanding the outcome of social decision[s], such as democratization in a
polity’ (Ajagbe 2016: 83). In this chapter, I take the position of researchers like
Zubizaretta (2013), who claim that elites’ fragmentation leads to institutional
changes that ultimately a ect the dominant party’s hold on power. In the
following section, I will show that the split in UMNO prior to GE14 led
to signi cant institutional changes, particularly related to the election that
produced the historic 2018 results.

Past UMNO Splits
UMNO is the largest and oldest Malay party in Malaysia. Since its formation
in 1946, UMNO has staunchly fought for Malay rights and interests, as this
community is regarded as the Bumiputera (literally translated ‘sons of the soil’)
or the indigenous people of the country. By championing Malay nationalism,
UMNO had successfully dominated elections over a period of six decades,
particularly in Malay-majority seats (see Su an and Lee’s chapter). As the
backbone of the BN, the Malay party was key in ensuring the coalition’s
continued grip on federal power. However, UMNO’s and the BN’s electoral
dominance nally came to a halt in 2018 when they were surprisingly defeated
by the opposition. is chapter argues that the fall of UMNO and BN was
due to elite fragmentation within UMNO that led to defections, creation of
new alliances, and changes to institutions, particularly related to elections.
Having said that, UMNO is no stranger to internal schisms. What made the
pre-GE14 splits di erent and more destructive, to the extent of a ecting the
Malay party’s grip on power? is section looks at the history of UMNO splits
1
and what distinguished those in the runup to GE14.
UMNO su ered its rst split in 1951. Party founder Onn Jaafar had
persuaded his party to change its slogan of Hidup Melayu (Long live the
Malays) to Merdeka (Independence) in June 1951 ( e Star 2007). When he
subsequently pushed UMNO to open its membership to non-Malays, most
party members rejected the move. As a result, Onn left UMNO and formed

This content downloaded from 139.80.253.0 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 04:21:53 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms