3 reasons why DAP is alive and kicking despite the odds

 

From Lim Teck Ghee

Three factors have made the DAP’s fight to gain a larger political following and recognition of its multi-racial credentials – despite its primarily Chinese leadership – more daunting.

The first is the widespread perception among many in the Malay electorate that it is indeed a Chinese chauvinist party. Ever since its formation, it has been tarred by Umno leaders as well as Umno supporters manning the Malay mass media and other organs of Malay influence with the accusation that it is an enemy of the Malay race.

The DAP until today is regularly vilified in the Malay world as the mastermind behind any controversy that is construed as undermining the dignity of the Malay race, Islamic religion as well as disrespectful of king and country.

The second is the failure of the country’s opposition parties and their leaders to stay the course of resistance against the Umno-led Barisan Nasional (BN) political juggernaut during the past four decades. In reshaping the country’s politics after the May 1969 episode and to make more palatable the reality of a Malay-dominant national polity, second prime minister Razak Hussein was able to induce several former opposition parties including Gerakan, PPP, PAS, and several former opposition parties in East Malaysia to join the enlarged Alliance, which was renamed Barisan Nasional (BN).

In the aftermath of the 1974 election, it was initially the DAP and the Sarawak Nasional Party (SNAP) in East Malaysia which kept alive the flame of political opposition in Parliament. Dr Tan Chee Koon, from the newly set up Parti Keadilan Masyarakat Malaysia or Pekemas, was the sole other opposition member elected to the 1974 Parliament, which saw BN winning a more than two thirds parliamentary majority – 135 of the 154 seats contested.

This majority enabled the governing party to introduce more amendments to the constitution on several occasions thereby strengthening the executive powers of Umno and BN governing parties, and further diluting the democratic spirit of the original constitutional document.

Tan, dubbed “Mr Opposition” for his outspoken and fiery denunciation of the Alliance government and its policies, served as the parliamentary opposition leader during his three parliamentary terms from 1964. He, however, retired from politics in August 1977 on account of ill health; and also because of the failure of Pekemas to garner much support.

With the demise of Pekemas and the co-option of SNAP into the BN fold in 1976, it was left to the DAP to act as the main (and often sole) political watchdog monitoring the institutions and processes necessary to nurture the country’s fledgling democratic roots as well as serve as the custodian of minority rights and freedoms.

The third is the use of repressive legislation, principally the Internal Security Act, against key members and supporters of the political opposition, and the opportunist shifting of the goal posts – whether legal, electoral, judicial or constitutional – to maintain the BN in power.

Conjointly with the bait of lucrative high position and the promise of sharing of the political pie which induced key opposition leaders such as Dr Lim Chong Eu, Mohd Asri Muda, Joseph Pairin Kitingan, Donald (later Fuad) Stephens and many other less prominent ones to “come to their senses” and cross over to the BN side, successive prime ministers from Razak onwards have used the mailed fist to reinforce Umno’s and the BN’s stranglehold on power.

In the process we have seen a steady erosion of the country’s basic rights and freedoms, the strengthening of the executive arm of government, and collateral damage to the judiciary, mass media and other vital institutions necessary to exercise control over a dominant and vindictive executive.

That the DAP has been able to stand firm and to resist co-option into BN, or not disintegrate and fragment in disarray in the face of a sustained campaign by an authoritarian and in some ways a “stop-at-nothing” government is quite remarkable. The use of draconian and underhand tactics and a host of border-line political manoeuvres which go well beyond the acceptable boundaries of political incumbency in democratic systems in fact is one of the major factors explaining the Alliance-BN’s monopoly of power since independence.

A mix of reasons explains why the DAP has commanded – and continues to command – public respect and electoral support. Although severely disadvantaged by the electoral gerrymandering in favour of the BN that has accompanied every general election, and lacking in the considerable financial and human resources required to take on the multi-party BN in the rural and semi-urban constituencies that comprise the majority of parliamentary seats, the DAP – except during the 1999 GE in which PAS had 27 of its candidates returned compared with the DAP’s 10 successful candidates – has been the leading opposition party in the country during the past 10 GEs.

It is indisputable that the DAP’s base of voter support in the past has come mainly from the Chinese and to some extent Indian and other non-Malay communities. This is due to the pervasive sense among non-Malays that they have been unfairly discriminated against by Umno’s dominance in the BN and the pro-Malay policies of the government.

However, especially since the GE of 2004, growing public objection to the corruption and abuse of power engaged in by the ruling party, including its handling of the sodomy case against Anwar Ibrahim; concerns over ineffective government policies in education and economy; and disapproval of, if not antipathy towards, the more extremist racial and religious positions adopted by Umno in various national controversies has widened the pool of Malay and other non-Chinese support for the DAP. This has made the party the largest opposition grouping following the GE of 2013.

TO BE CONTINUED

 - FMT

Lim Teck Ghee is a public policy analyst.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.