THE CICAK.com

Part 1, Analyzing Malaysian Parties: Gerakan’s infighting, demise and future

Photo by Dan Law
By KEITH LEONG

The general elections of 8 March 2008 has dramatically and permanently changed the face of Malaysia’s political landscape. Our nation is irrevocably moving towards a two-party system, so all the eyes will be on the existing parties; on how they negotiate the new realities as well as challenges.

This will be the first of a series of personal analyses on the standings and possible directions of the major political parties in Malaysia, starting with Gerakan. I do not claim that my assertions are gospel truth or infallible, but what I have written here and in the future are the honest observations of a relative layperson on the Malaysian political system, which has gotten so much more interesting as of late.

The Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (or just ‘Gerakan’) has been rocked by party stalwart Lee Kah Choon’s decision to quit the party in order to accept several positions in the new Pakatan Rakyat Government of Penang state.

The news is the latest in a series of blows towards the beleaguered BN component party, which was probably the biggest loser in the last general elections. There is a real chance of a split within the party as disaffected members search for a scapegoat for the tsunami that engulfed it on March 8.

What led Gerakan, arguably Malaysia’s third-oldest multi-racial political party still in existence (after the non-PKR remnants of the PRM and the DAP) from the bright promise of it’s beginnings to the morass that it is in now?

To be fair to the party, it has to be said that multi-racial parties rarely do well in Malaysia, or rather, within the confines of the Barisan Nasional. Multi-racial BN entities like Berjaya, Akar, the PPP and SNAP gradually became irrelevant or were torn to shreds by infighting, which more often than not was ethnically-inspired.

It is significant to note that in the case of first two examples, the Malay wings of those parties were eventually folded into UMNO- although Akar was able to get its Chinese members admitted as well. One must suppose that UMNO’s desire to remain the pre-eminent “Malay party” within the nation makes the presence of members from that community in the other BN parties something rather untenable in the long run.

This certainly could have been the case for Gerakan, whose founding fathers included Malay luminaries like the great Syed Hussein Al-Attas and the first Central Committee of which had 6 Malays out of 15 members. Slowly but surely however, its Malay membership faded from prominence, until it remained a predominantly Chinese and Indian party.

Competition with the DAP and MCA for the Chinese vote however led to even more ethnocentrism within the party, so much so that Gerakan did not even field a single Indian candidate in the last election. It did not help that former President Lim Keng Yaik did not seem to favour any of Gerakan’s Indian leaders in his succession plans. The repeated talks of the party merging with the MCA was also likely in contributing the feeling that Gerakan was a “cold house” for its Indian supporters.

What else precipitated Gerakan’s decline?

One could point out several strategic errors on the party of its leadership: for instance, its over-emphasis on maintaining Penang as its political jewel in the crown. Is it completely unrealistic to claim that by staking so much on Penang, Gerakan weakened its electoral campaign in other parts of the Peninsula and having lost the island-state, rendered itself irrelevant?

There was also the internal feuding that always featured in party history but became more pronounced after Lim Chong Eu’s defeat by Lim Kit Siang in the 1990 elections. One gets the impression that the Gerakan rank-and-file were never truly comfortable with Chong Eu’s successors, Lim Keng Yaik and Koh Tsu Koon. This was demonstrated (especially in Koh’s case) by the repeated challenges against their authority during their time in office. All of this constant infighting, as well as Koh’s indecisiveness over his move to federal politics and his successor as Penang Chief Minister was hardly the way to inspire confidence amongst voters.

We can also of course point to its failure, along with the other non-Malay BN component parties like the MCA and MIC to effectively stand up to UMNO when the latter’s leaders made racially inflammatory statements. This, coupled with Malaysia’s changing demographics whereby voters are becoming younger and who are less absolutely reliant on bread-and-butter-issues when making their choices spelled doom for Gerakan, which seemed to be failing in its quest to the conscience of Barisan.

The party allowed itself to be sucked into the destructive ethos of BN, into the arrogance and incompetence that cost the coalition dearly. It simply forgot its activist roots and alienated many of its diehard supporters.

But then again, none of this is news to readers and party watchers, or is it?

One can write reams about what caused the downfall of Gerakan and the other BN parties, but the crunch, so to speak is what they can do to recover, and whether they have it in them to do so or not. All the signs point to an uphill battle.

Gerakan’s political representation has now been reduced to two seats in the Federal Parliament and a single state seat in Pahang. It did not request any seats in the Cabinet, but two of its members have been made deputy ministers, one of whom (ironically enough) is an Indian - Senator A. Kohilan Pillay.

Speculation is rife that there may be en masse defections to the Pakatan Rakyat, and Lee Kah Choon’s decision to take up seats in the Penang Development Corporation as well as InvestPenang is probably reflective of deep discontent with party leadership amongst its members at large. Acting President Koh Tsu Koon will almost certainly be challenged at party elections later this year, which will unleash yet another round of destructive infighting.

Members and pressure groups within the party have talked of ‘making a fresh start’ and the need to ‘reform Gerakan’. Those amongst them genuinely committed to doing so will do well to look to the past for inspiration as to where the party should go.

The party history section of Gerakan’s official website speaks of three distinct groups emerging within the party during the 1980s. One was a faction of MCA reformists, the second was a group aligned with the Chinese education movement and the other a coterie of former trade unionists. These groups, along with the multiracial intellectuals and civil society leaders who originally formed the party is the testament to the wide and diverse membership that Gerakan was able to attract throughout it’s history, a competence it has sadly, utterly lost.

Gerakan must regain its multiracial origins.

Its modus operandi and ideology needs to be recalibrated if the party wants to represent Malaysia in the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.

The party must forget the false niceties of the old political system if it is to survive. Whether it chooses to stay in BN or leave, whether it remains united or fragmented, Gerakan needs to make radical changes in order if the experiment it embarked on 40 years ago is to not end in failure.

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KEITH LEONG is a contributing writer for theCICAK.

Keith was born in Melaka and grew up in Damansara Jaya. He has a BA in English and Sociology as well as Masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of New South Wales. Keith enjoys baroque music, grand epic movies and long walks. The views expressed here are his own.