The 15th General Election in Malaysia: Pakatan Harapan Resurgence amidst Democratic Backsliding

Pilihan Raya Umum ke 15 di Malaysia: Kebangkitan Semula Pakatan Harapan di Tengah-Tengah Kemerosotan Demokrasi

Abstract

Despite a growing alarm on the spread of authoritarianism, albeit, in many forms, Malaysia appears to be stable and unscathed. Decades of authoritarianism have matured the opposition forces in Malaysia. This study traces the development of events leading up to the 15th general elections (GE15) in Malaysia and will argue that the adverse effect of democratic backsliding in the November 2022 general election in Malaysia warranted undesirable outcomes. Politically engineered form of an internal sabotage was unpredictable and yet inevitable that ousted the elected government of Pakatan Harapan (PH) and replaced with a new form of authoritarian successor parties (ASPs) known as Perikatan Nasional (PN). Growing political instability met its fate when Barisan Nasional (BN) was back in the game through the royal mandate. Eventually BN’s internal struggle paved way for the GE15 despite of UMNO’s miscalculation that it could win under the pretext of people’s mandate. Thus, GE15 witnessed a direct competitive election between the three main contenders, PN, BN, and PH. This study is based on an extensive fieldwork and author’s direct observation. An informal and unstructured interview with the voters and party members are also conducted for the purpose of obtaining a deep insight on the electoral events.