Few political parties have succeeded in
their original intentions as much as Malaysia's
United Malays National Organization (UMNO). Since
its founding in 1946, it has overwhelmed its
opponents to such an extent that its main
challenge today is to keep itself sound without
external orientation.
UMNO started out as
a major reaction among Malays against the British
initiative to create a single polity throughout
the peninsula - inhabitants independent of ethnic
background, and in accordance with the jus
soli principle, would enjoy equal citizenship
rights. This hasty move proved overly insensitive
to the feelings of
Malays, and was perceived by
them as the decisive step in the usurpation of
Malay sovereignty.
Under the leadership of
Datuk Onn Jaafar of Johor, Malays managed to
reject what they saw as a major threat to their
natural rights. When Onn Jaafar later changed his
mind and proclaimed a vision of a polity that was
not race-based, meaning in effect that UMNO was to
represent all races, he was allowed to resign.
The lesson was not lost on his successor,
Tunku Abdul Rahman, who realized that the very
rationale for UMNO's existence - the proclaiming
of the notion of special Malay rights - could not
be openly abandoned if its leader was to survive.
Since this ambition necessarily involved
independence from the colonial masters, the goal
of national freedom became the party's expressed
goal.
With this aim clearly identified, it
then became possible for UMNO leadership to work
out strategies for wresting control over British
Malaya from the British. The armed struggle
between the British and the Malayan communists
that started in 1948 was partly inspired by world
events such as the success of Mao Zedong in China,
by the rise of nationalism throughout the world
and by the success of the British in curbing
communist-inspired union activities in Singapore
and Malaya. This made it all the more necessary
for the British to deal with nationalist parties
such as UMNO and to encourage the founding of
others such as the Malayan Chinese Association.
The weakened British Empire had recently lost its
Indian dominion and was in no position to oppose
Malayan independence for too long. The concern for
the colonialists - given the stark danger posed by
global communism - was to cut losses and to make
certain colonies that were about to be lost would
remain allies and profitable. This played into the
hands of UMNO and its allies, whose leaders
possessed sufficient knowledge about the
limitations of the British at that time to enable
them to develop strategies for a peaceful handover
of power.
With the forming of the Alliance
in 1955 - whereby each of the three main races
within the British Malay territories was
represented by its own party, and whereby these
parties would later jointly govern the new nation
- a compromise was forged that promised sufficient
security for the British to grant independence.
And so this came about on August 31, 1957.
Between then and 1969, the Alliance
government survived many trials, including the
formation of Malaysia, the confrontation with
Indonesia (or Konfrontasi, a small
undeclared war between 1962 and 1966, in which
Indonesian president Sukarno tried to destroy the
newly created nation of Malaysia), and the
separation of Singapore.
However, it did
not survive the reforms effected after the race
riots of May 1969. By 1974, UMNO had persuaded the
opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and the
Gerakan (Rakyat Malaysia Party or PGRM) to
participate in a larger coalition called the
National Front (Barisan Nasional). With that,
Malaysian governance entered a new phase. The neat
Alliance solution may have worked well in
achieving independence, but the realities of the
country's post-colonial socioeconomics soon
demanded another form of power-sharing for
stability to be at all possible.
UMNO rose
to that challenge, and with the introduction of
the wide-ranging New Economic Policy to fight
poverty and to end the association of race with
economic function, and with the sewing together of
a new system of inter-party cooperation, it
restructured Malaysian politics forever. In the
process, it gained further hegemonic power.
Since then, with some exceptions,
political confrontations have largely been within
the Malay community. A major split occurred within
UMNO in 1987, but the party nevertheless continued
to rule. Another challenge to the secular UMNO was
the transition it was called upon to make to
contain the growing "Muslimness" of the Malays.
This it also managed to do, and strategies it
adopted included the recruitment into its ranks of
vocal Muslim leaders such as Anwar Ibrahim.
The next big challenge it faced was the
groundswell of discontent that followed the
sacking of deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim
(over allegations of sexual impropriety) in
September 1998, the forming of the
reformasi movement and the founding of the
Keadilan party. This peaked with the success of
the Islamist party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS),
in the 1999 elections when PAS took two states and
strongly challenged the government's control over
the other northern states.
But again, UMNO
rose to the occasion, and under a new leader -
Abdullah Badawi - and with the Muslim slogan
Islam Hadhari, it decisively repulsed the
PAS challenge in the 2004 general elections.
The question that now needs to be asked is
how UMNO's ability to remain in power has affected
its very nature. Apparently, major side effects of
UMNO's success include the absence of healthy
pressure from outside the party, the rise of
intra-party corruption and the lack of control
over wealth distribution.
The new
challenge now lies within the triumphant UMNO
itself. It lacks crucial external help in
self-orientation. Indeed, if non-Malay Malaysians
were to look the political truth in the eye, they
could be excused for wondering whether their best
bet for gaining greater political influence is to
seek membership in UMNO. UMNO, in turn, would need
to negotiate its own transition from being the
champion of Malay rights to being the guarantor of
Malaysian rights. Open membership would prod other
race-based parties to follow suit and allow all
Malaysians, independent on ethnic affiliation, to
be members as well. That would indeed bring about
an even greater change in Malaysian governance.
Ooi Kee Beng is a Fellow at the
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This is a
personal comment.
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