Page 76 - Towards_a_New_Malaysia_The_2018_Election_and_Its_6146371_(z-lib.org)

4

Cross-ethnic Vote-pooling in

West Malaysia: The Malaysian Chinese

Association and Democratic Action

Party Compared

Helen Ting Mu Hung

e formation of ethnicity-based parties is natural in a society with deep
ethnic divisions. An ethnic party is one whose membership and electoral
support base rest principally on a single ethnic group (Horowitz 1985). e
three founding members of the Alliance, Malaysia’s governing coalition since
the independence of Malaya in 1957, namely the United Malays National
1
Organisation (UMNO), Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), and Malayan
Indian Congress (MIC), all profess to be ethnic parties. However, by
2
presenting a single slate of candidates under the Alliance coalition (enlarged
to form the Barisan Nasional, National Front or BN, in the early 1970s), the
three parties managed to cooperate and function electorally as a multiethnic
coalition while retaining their identity as ethnic parties and defending the
interests of their respective ethnic groups.
Horowitz (1985, 299) de nes a party or coalition as multiethnic only if
its support base ‘spans the major groups in con ict’, regardless what the party
professes. In order to meet that standard, component parties representing
opposing ethnic groups in a multiethnic coalition are generally obliged to
compromise on con icting demands and expectations. ose political parties
that derive their support base from only one side among ethnic ‘groups-in-
con ict’ are regarded as ethnic parties or ‘ ank parties’. It is important to

61

This content downloaded from 139.80.253.0 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 04:21:59 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms