On May 6, Malaysia re-elected its ruling coalition
government, the National Front, to another five-year term after
vociferous campaigning and debate on the issue of corruption. This
three-part series looks at whether the election’s attention on
corruption will produce results. The first part illustrates the economic impact of corruption. The second part
describes the discussion of corruption during the election. The final
installment, below, analyzes the election results and the likelihood of
any major impact on the patterns of corruption in Malaysia.
Barisan Nasional (BN) headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak won Malaysia’s 13th general election. Eighty-five percent of the country’s 13.3 million
voters came out to participate. Although the party won the election by
gaining 133 out of 222 seats in parliament, BN managed to win only 47
percent of the popular vote. This was the worst result ever for BN,
which has ruled since independence from Britain in 1957. BN’s leadership
undoubtedly took note of this weak showing.Despite opposition gains, the elections were criticized by many as unfair and illegally manipulated. Just days after the election, a rally was held in Kuala Lumpur, where opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim took the stand in leading the party’s supporters. A staggering 40,000 people turned out to support Ibrahim and opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat (PR). At the rally, Ibrahim criticized BN and the corrupt government. More importantly, he demonstrated that PR will remain a dominant force in Malaysian politics despite its electoral loss.
Transparency
The most positive result of this election was the rising use of social media, which allowed for easy dispersion of information. Many reporters started calling this election a “social media election.” For instance, the number of people tweeting about politics in Malaysia has grown from 2,400 people in 2010 to 450,000 users three years later. We personally noticed that many Malaysian friends took to Facebook to voice their opinions about the election, share YouTube parodies, etc.
This is an exciting development for Malaysia. Social media expedites awareness of problems that require a government fix (especially if the problem originates with the government itself) and mobilizes groups that want to take action. The force of social media to propel grassroots activism and pester unresponsive governments is well-appreciated from its impact in places like China and the Arab world. Hopefully, this force will encourage transparency in Malaysia, making corruption more difficult for public officials.
No political parties should be allowed to own or influence media outlets
To move further in the direction of transparency, the government should consider taking away party ownership of selective media enterprises. Although media coverage of corruption scandals has increased over the years, the government maintains influence on the content of public TV and radio outlets as well as through links to some of Malaysia’s largest privately held media groups, such as Media Prima. This influence has not benefited the quality of reporting. Malaysia’s Press Freedom Index ranking fell dramatically last year to 145 out of 189, with the index publishers, Reporters without Borders, citing “access to information … becoming more and more limited.”
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