DAP's challenge 2: How to escape 'bonsainisation'?

Regardless of the DAP party election outcome, there will be no splinter party or migration to another party, as what used to happen between MCA and Gerakan from the 1970s to the 1990s.

However, DAP is set to face two challenges, the first is well-known, discussed yesterday, is how not to be MCA 2.0.

Besides avoiding “MCAnisation”, DAP’s second challenge is to avoid “bonsainisation”, a situation where it can at best win a maximum number of seats but may lose some in worse situations. In the 16th general election, the ceiling is likely to be 40.

In GE15, DAP contested 51 seats and won 40, losing four seats to BN, three seats to Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and one seat each to Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), Warisan, Perikatan Nasional and Independent.

Of the 42 seats it won in GE14, two changed hands - Sarikei (Sarawak) to GPS-Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) and Tenom (Sabah) to an Independent.

Unless Pakatan Harapan decides to take on BN, GPS and GRS in GE16, DAP has no chance of winning the eight seats it lost to them in GE15.

The government candidate would come from Umno, not DAP, for Jerai in Kedah (where DAP lost to PN-PAS) and Lahad Datu (Sabah) if Warisan goes solo.

Finally, if the independent MP from Tenom decides to join GRS, BN or Warisan (if it stays with Madani), DAP also cannot reclaim the inland seat.

Bonsainisation and downward spiral

Then, in the best scenario, DAP can only retain all its current 40 seats in GE16. In the worst scenarios, DAP would win less than 40. If DAP does not have enough bargaining power with 40 seats, could it possibly do better with less?

If a student is told that B+ is the best she can get even if she answers every question correctly, but she can do worse if she does not study hard, would the student be motivated to study?

So, DAP may face a downward spiral after GE16 if it fails to retain all 40 seats. The next DAP national congress may be filled with discontent and pessimism that DAP is in decline. If enough seats are lost, infighting over safe seats may be triggered. Again, like “MCAnisation”, the problem is not caused by leadership, but by the political structure.

(It is cognitively hard for many Malaysians to think their enemy is some abstract structure and not some concrete individuals they can hate and blame. I know. I apologise for denying people the opportunity to feel good from self-righteousness.)

Some would demand the government expand the Parliament so that every component party can contest more seats. BN did that in four cycles from 1974 to 2005, increasing the total of parliamentary seats from 144 to 222, an accumulative increase of 50 percent.

Does this solve the problem? No, but it can create an illusion that DAP is temporarily out of the wood. DAP’s 40 is 18 percent of the total, 222. If 40 seats are added, can DAP get to contest in proportionally seven more seats (17.5 percent of 40)?

Even if it can, once it does so well to win all 47 seats allocated for contestation, DAP will again become a high-achieving bonsai.

What cause ‘bonsainisation’?

Now that the concrete challenge of “bonsainisation” DAP is illustrated, let’s formally examine the concept, causes and implications of “bonsainisation”.

A plant will realise it is a bonsai only when it grows so well to reach the ceiling. In an uninhibited system, a party will only reach the ceiling when it wins all seats. That is not “bonsainisation” we meant.

“Bonsainisation” in Malaysia happens because of three elements: (a) permanent coalitions which prohibit allies from contesting against each other in actual elections; (b) the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system which requires the permanent coalitions to pre-allocate seats for their component parties; (c) the absence of inter-ally primaries.

Simply put, when some allies cannot get rewarded for performing well, “bonsainisation” happens. It can also happen if some allies are allocated to a small number of seats because of their previous underperformance.

When govt controls most seats

“Bonsainisation” is most apparent when the government bloc controls most seats, which can in turn happen in two situations.

In the first situation, the government bloc won almost all winnable seats, as in 2004 when BN under then-prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi swept all but 21 seats (12 won by DAP, seven by PAS, one each by PKR and an independent) out of the total 219.

That happened just after the 2003 round of seat increase in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah, so there was no room for more seats to ease the “bonsainisation” pressure. Every BN party, including Umno and MCA, was at their peak.

When there was effectively no more winnable mixed seat for BN, Umno politicians competed to rise up in their party by playing tough on the minorities. Hence, the then mild-mannered Umno Youth chief Hishamuddin Hussein raised keris for three consecutive years. And, Umno, MCA and Gerakan paid the price in the 2008 political tsunami.

In the second situation, best illustrated by the Madani bloc now if it persists in GE16, competing coalitions and parties form a mega coalition. Every party in the new pact gets to keep the seats they won.

This means the allocable parliamentary seats for the 18 parties in the Madani government might be only 75 (74 from PN and one from Muda) or even 68 (if former Bersatu six would join one of the parties and Muda rejoins Madani).

As they were won by PAS or Bersatu, the bulk of these seats would go to Umno and PKR. Most components would be bonsaied if a deal is reached to avoid mutual contests in the federal or state elections.

The regionally-powerful GPS and one-seat parties - Sarawak-based Parti Bangsa Malaysia and Sabah’s Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM) - might be happy.

While Umno perhaps has the most additional parliamentary seats to contest, it would be confined to state elections in Selangor and Penang, where it only won two seats each.

Contrary to DAP which gets bonsaied for doing too well, Umno is bonsaied in Selangor and Penang for doing too poorly, which may result in a different kind of downward spiral - its nationalist base may continue to shift to PN because it has no chance of making a come-back.

DAP’s way-out?

Unlike “MCAnisation” which is a special trap to the largest non-Malay-based party, “bonsainisation” can hurt many parties in various situations - Umno, MCA, Gerakan in 2008 when there was no more winnable mixed seat; DAP in GE16 when rivals become allies; and, Umno in Selangor and Penang when their past poor performance denies them a future.

This makes it easier to find cross-party consensus for “bonsainisation” than “MCAnisation”, but “bonsainisation” is more nuanced and less well-known for many politicians to even realise its existence or implications.

“Bonsainisation” is ultimately the suppression of inter-ally competition, preventing a coalition member from being rewarded for scoring full marks, or having a chance to do better than its immediate past record, and the entire bloc to gain from its overall competitiveness.

This can be addressed by allowing a limited number of friendly matches or having primaries, which would be complicated not impossible.

Alternatively, party-list seats can be introduced alongside FPTP seats for allies to campaign together in FPTP seats but have separate party lists to attract each other’s hardcore. A mixed system may likely solve the problem of transferability Harapan-BN faced in the 2023 state election.

Both “MCAnisation” discussed yesterday and “bonsainisation” discussed today are structural constraints on DAP which has resulted or would result in frustration. However, their impacts are often overly attributed to leadership style or approaches, overestimating the ability of politicians to create miracles without changing the structures.

Both constraints are of course tied to the salience of ethno-religious politics. What can DAP’s minority and liberal base do to shake up if not break free from this ultimate trap? I shall discuss this tomorrow. - FMT

---

WONG CHIN HUAT is a political scientist at Sunway University and a member of Project Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Projek Sama). He believes that politicians can be men’s and women’s best friends given the right House training.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.