DAP will hold its party election this weekend. The large number of DAP parliamentarians compared to past decades and access to government positions has inevitably heightened competition.
Media reports have featured the personalities and political ambitions of leaders. The polls have been couched as a test of dynastic politics, a long-standing frame of understanding leadership contestation in DAP from the first major split in 1978.
While important, the lens of personalities misses the bigger picture. Perhaps more than any party polls in recent DAP history, the election is about the soul of the party - what it stands for and for whom.
The results will not just be about who wins positions but how the leadership will position DAP in a context where the party’s national standing for promoting reform, good governance, and inclusion has lost ground. Working with its long-standing political opponent Umno in the Madani government has made an imprint on the DAP ground and among its supporters.
The current intensive competition for party positions reflects differences about the DAP’s direction and place in national politics.
Legitimacy differences: Founders, builders, and apprentices
Some project the electoral dynamic as a leadership generation change. It is actually more of a legitimacy shift.
The 55 people who are competing for positions on the central executive committee derive legitimacy from different sources. There are the founders of the party, those who went to jail and have faced the most political attacks and allegations, maintaining the DAP even in the most difficult times, and developing the foundation of the party. Lim Guan Eng is among this group, entering politics in 1986. These individuals entered politics before 1999.
A second group - which includes Anthony Loke, Liew Chin Tong, Nga Kor Ming, Chong Chieng Jen, among others, can be seen to be party builders who helped expand the electoral presence of the party in different states. Many of these leaders hold positions due to their strategic leadership at the state level and expansion of the DAP in places such as Negeri Sembilan, Johor, Perak, and Sarawak.
Then there the apprentices, those who have risen to power through the support of a party patron and have been given opportunities to hold positions and in doing so gain their own supporters. Their power comes from the benefits of being in power and their performance in office.
While there are a few non-founder leaders who have been targeted in nasty political attacks ranging from arson and police reports, to social media character assassinations, the majority of leaders who rose to prominence after 2008 have gained legitimacy from holding positions in government.
The question for the delegates is whether they will accommodate these different bases of legitimacy among their leaders.
The issue of style: Mode of representation
Some argue that the party needs to change to adjust to a new context, to become less vocal and more submissive publicly, while working behind the scenes. Others disagree. Yet others suggest that a change in style encourages views of appeasement and even abandonment of the core values of the party.
This move from being a fiery opposition to being in government has introduced a difficult balance between defending principles and accommodating the realities of power. It has been made harder under Anwar Ibrahim’s Madani government as the party with the most numbers in his coalition is not supposed to overshadow or challenge him.
Pakatan Harapan has moved away from being a coalition of equals among the three parties. Some are concerned that the senior partner in terms of seat numbers has become a junior one and the party that has been elevated in the current government is DAP’s long-time political foe Umno.
The party polls, in part, will set the tone of how the party will engage: with more open concerns or behind closed doors, with more defense of reform and inclusion or greater emphasis on deliverables, with more prominence or more of a supporting, gate-keeper role.
Central in this, how many red lines on governance and reform will not only be crossed but fade away.
Matter of representation
Closely connected is the question of who the party represents. As idealism has made way for realism, many ask what does the DAP stand for now?
DAP has been long labelled a Chinese chauvinist party, often for good reason in its rhetoric, political mobilisation, and the composition of its voter support. The end result is that DAP has been seen to be a voice for the Chinese community, especially since 2008 when support for MCA plummeted.
Questions surround how well they are doing this. Many ask what are the concrete deliverables for the Chinese community - from judicial appointments and religious guidelines, to education and tax policies.
Questions are also asked whether the greater ethnic diversity among DAP parliamentarians, the fielding of Malay candidates, for example, has strengthened the support of the party electorally. Malay electoral support for the party remains low, bringing to the fore the challenge of balancing the goals of multiracialism/inclusion with electoral realities. In Malaysia’s ethnic zero-sum politics, DAP faces a difficult tradeoff between its core Chinese support and Malay outreach.
Generally, DAP has also been traditionally seen as a voice for other ethnic and religious minorities beyond the Chinese community. Here too, questions are being asked about the effectiveness of doing this as the support of these communities is often taken for granted, especially the support of the Indian community.
The party polls will showcase how representative the leadership is and the effectiveness of different leaders in speaking out on issues for minority communities.
Some believe DAP politics should leave ethnic and minority politics behind. Yet at the same time, the main narratives electorally focus on these themes. DAP’s key message in the 2023 state elections was that a vote for DAP was to prevent PAS, a narrative that speaks to the persistence of these issues in DAP campaigns. It also indicates that the electoral pull of the party is weaker as it focuses on a push to keep the Islamist power out of government.
Finally, a parallel tension around representation involves ideology, those who would like DAP to focus on its social democratic roots, while others are more centred on a pro-business, neo-liberal approach to policy. These differences emerge when new legislation is presented, such as the Urban Renewal Bill, but percolate in a party that now has evolved into something quite different ideologically than before it was in government. These tensions point to a changing of the ground on which communities DAP represents.
The battle
Ultimately, the outcome of the DAP polls will be determined by the circulated lists, the state warlords with the most delegates, the heated campaigning in recent weeks, and deals behind closed doors.
The outcome, however, will go well beyond the individual winners and losers. The party faces a serious challenge of defining its identity in the current political environment.
The result will set how the party will move ahead - the base of its legitimacy, its style of political engagement, connection with its traditional political base, and relations/positions within the Madani government.
As such, this battle is not just for control of the party; it is a battle for the party itself. - Mkini
BRIDGET WELSH is an honorary research associate of the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute, a senior research associate at Hu Fu Center for East Asia Democratic Studies, and a senior associate fellow at The Habibie Centre. Her writings can be found at bridgetwelsh.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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