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62 Helen Ting Mu Hung

note that, based on this de nition, a party or coalition with a multiethnic
front of leaders and members that receives electoral support principally from a
single ethnic group would still be considered a monoethnic party/coalition. Its
pronounced Malay bias notwithstanding, the Alliance/BN may be regarded as
a multiethnic coalition in terms of its electoral support base, as it has been able
to maintain varying degrees of support from all ethnic groups. is ability to
draw votes from major ethnic groups, across social cleavages, has been termed
‘cross-ethnic vote-pooling’. Scholars have recognised the electoral advantage
the BN, as a multiethnic coalition, has enjoyed over other ethnic opposition
parties in cross-ethnic vote-pooling during general elections in Malaysia
(Ratnam and Milne 1967, 1970; Horowitz 1989).
In a society with a high saliency of ethnic cleavage, Horowitz suggests, only
one multiethnic party or alliance can thrive: ‘After one such party establishes
itself, all the electoral opportunities are located on the ethnic anks’ (1985:
410). In other words, the intended rival multiethnic party or alliance would
be ‘strongly susceptible to centrifugal stresses’ (301), and would end up
being supported by one or another of the ethnic groups in con ict. is has
e ectively been the dynamic that has characterised Malaysian politics since
independence. For decades, the main competitors to the Alliance/BN in
peninsular Malaysia were monoethnic or ‘ ank’ parties such as the Chinese-
based Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS),
which has maintained strong support mainly in the Malay heartland in the
northern and eastern parts of peninsular Malaysia.
It was only during the 1990s, when several opposition ank parties were able
to come together to form multiethnic coalitions, that the possibility of defeating
BN at the federal level became a realistic one and scholars began to consider
the possible scenario of a two-coalition system. Since then, opposition parties
have experimented with di erent con gurations for multiethnic coalitions.
First, in 1990, a splinter group from UMNO, Semangat ’46, managed to form
two separate opposition coalitions, one with Malay-based parties (including
PAS) known as the Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah (APU, Muslim Unity Front)
and another, multiethnic one (including DAP) known as Gagasan Rakyat
(People’s Might). In 1999, Parti Keadilan Nasional (known as Keadilan), led
3
by Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the wife of deposed Deputy Prime Minister
Anwar Ibrahim, was established. Keadilan brought together PAS and DAP to
form a coalition known as Barisan Alternatif (BA) in 1999. It broke up within
three years. In 2008, Keadilan, PAS, and DAP formed Pakatan Rakyat (PR)
to form state governments following electoral victories in several states. PR,
too, only lasted until 2015, when an estrangement between PAS and DAP

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