Oh Ei Sun of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs said numerous explicit and implicit rules have been built into Malaysia’s socio-political system to ensure “absolute Malay dominance”.
He said non-Malay parties are, to a certain extent, in a better position to champion more equal treatment for their community while in the opposition.
However, once these parties form part of the ruling government, they would have to buy into the “unquestionable dominance” of Malay or Malay-majority parties.
“This includes (compromising on) issues pertaining to the interests of the non-Malays, which would more often irk their supporters who may drift away to find another championing party,” he told FMT.
Oh said non-Malay parties could voice their concerns when their dominant coalition partners become “too Malay-centric”, but ultimately the “MCA dilemma” would hound them given the existing socio-political setup.
On Monday, former DAP member Ronnie Liu said certain DAP leaders seemed to have forgotten the party’s core values and were at risk of turning into figures like those in MCA.
“They may not know it (but) they are starting to say (things like), ‘we have to compromise’, ‘we have to look at the bigger picture’, ‘we’ll try to deal with the problem internally’,” Liu said, adding that MCA had done the same thing previously.
He also claimed that some DAP leaders had started to lose sight of the party’s ideals as the “3Ps” – power, position, and perks – had overwhelmed them.
Azmi Hassan of Akademi Nusantara disagreed with Liu, saying his analysis was “way off the mark” given DAP’s dominance in Anwar Ibrahim’s administration.
“I don’t think so, because DAP is more dominant than Umno in the unity government,” Azmi said.
According to him, it was Umno’s overwhelming dominance in BN that saw MCA “reduced to a weak party”.
However, he said, despite DAP’s dominance, Umno continues to retain its relevance especially in the upcoming state elections where DAP supporters would need to set aside their dislike for Umno and throw their support behind the party’s candidates.
“They need to support the Umno candidate because the alternative is PAS,” he said.
On the other hand, he said, if a candidate from DAP was fielded, that would give Umno grassroots the “very attractive alternative” of throwing their support for Perikatan Nasional.