Opposing Power Over Time: Learning to Build Opposition Coalitions in Electoral Autocracies
Elvin Ong University of British Columbia National University of Singapore
This version: 29 November 2018 quote
Prepared for SEAREG-in-Asia 2018 at Yale-NUS not
PLEASE DO NOTE CITE OR QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSIONDo |
Abstract
Opposition parties competing against electoral autocrats are oftentimes divided by ideological differences in terms of their orientation towards ethnicity,citation religion, geography, and the economy. Why, how, and when do ideologically disparate opposition parties cooperate to form pre- electoral coalitions to challenge dominant incumbents?for This paper proposes that opposition parties learn to build alliances over time to solve two distinct coordination problems. Iterated elections provide information and opportunities for opposition party leaders to learn the expected utility of coordination, and learn to findNot effective ways to mitigate the transaction and substantive costs to coordination. The| objective is to develop agreements to reduce the number of opposition candidates to avoid vote splitting, and to forge joint electoral campaigns as focal points to coordinate anti-regime voters. A comparative historical analysis of two most similar electoral autocracies – Singaporecopy and Malaysia – reveal that opposition party leaders encounter varying pressures and incentives to learn over time.
Key words: Electoral authoritarianism, opposition coalition, time, cooperation theory, Singapore, Malaysia Reading
Word count: 11,935 (including all footnotes, tables, figures, and references)
1 1. Introduction Autocrats fear opposition collective action. When opposition parties contesting in
autocratic elections cooperate with each other to build pre-electoral coalitions1, they have almost an even chance of defeating the incumbent regime.2 In contrast, opposition parties competing on
their own only have a one in ten chance of prevailing against the autocrat. A united opposition
can also raise the costs of repression and force the autocrat to concede liberalizing reforms, even if the opposition fails to win.3 Consequently, autocrats frequently deploy their coercivequote and
4 institutional powers to divide the opposition and to forestall collective action.not Elect oral rules are manipulated. Media freedoms are curtailed. Selective groups of opposition elites are co-opted, Do even as other opposition elites bear the brunt of repression. | Moving beyond the autocrat’s attempts at divide-and-rule, moreover, opposition parties themselves are oftentimes divided by ideological5 differences in terms of their respective orientations towards ethnicity, religion, geography, citationand the economy. In Mexico, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) andfor the social democratic Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) occupied opposing ends of an ideological spectrum against the centrist, Not dominant Institutional Revolutionary| Party (PRI).6 In the Middle East and North Africa, secular opposition parties opposed Islamic opposition parties, even as they both compete against the same dominant autocraticcopy incumbent. 7 Similarly, ethnic-based opposition parties in sub-saharan Africa hemmed in within their core support areas at the periphery of their countries struggle to
compete against well-resourced, nationalized dominant ruling parties.8 These ideological
Reading 1 Throughout this article, I use the terms “opposition coalition” and “opposition alliance” interchangeably. 2 Donno 2013; Bunce and Wolchik 2009; Bunce and Wolchik 2011; Wahman 2013; Ziegfeld and Tudor 2017; Teorell and Wahman 2018 3 Eisenstadt 2000; Eisenstadt 2004; Schedler 2002; Howard and Roessler 2006; Magaloni 2010; Lindberg 2006; Lindberg 2009; Tucker 2007; E. Ong 2018; Teorell and Wahman 2018 4 Lust 2004; Lust 2005; Buttorff 2015; Acemoglu, Verdier, and Robinson 2004; Shen-Bayh 2018 5 Throughout this article, I use an inclusive understanding of the term “ideological” to imply variation in policy preferences across a range of issues, rather than a narrow definition that denotes variation along an economic left-right spectrum. 6 Greene 2002; Greene 2007; Magaloni 2006 7 Kraetzschmar 2013; Shehata 2010; Haugbølle and Cavatorta 2011; Wegner and Pellicer 2011; Albrecht 2010; Albrecht 2013 8 van de Walle 2003; Rakner and van de Walle 2009; Wahman 2017
2 differences among opposition parties has been postulated as the primary reason why they fail to
cooperate, and why authoritarianism persists.9
Yet, the empirical record frequently tells a different story. It suggests that ideological differences is not destiny. Across multiple countries, the puzzling phenomena of opposition coalitions with strange ideological bedfellows regularly emerges. In Kenya, for instance, Mwai
Kibaki, backed by a multiethnic Rainbow opposition coalition, defeated the incumbent regime’s
Uhuru Kenyatta in 2002, ending nearly 40 years of dominant party rule.10 Similar multi-ethnicquote opposition coalitions are also commonly found in Uganda.11 Secular and Islamicnot opposition alliances materialized repeatedly in Egypt in 1984, 1987, and 2005, in Yemen in 2002 and 2005, Do in Morocco in 2009, and in Turkey in 2018.12 In Venezuela, the amalgamation| of left-right opposition forces into a single coalition in late 2015 was credited for the opposition winning a majority of seats in the legislature.13 Why, how, and when can such ideologically divergent opposition parties cooperate to develop pre-electoralcitation alliances to compete against a dominant autocratic incumbent? for This article proposes a novel theory of opposition coalition formation under electoral Not authoritarianism. I argue that opposition| parties build pre-electoral alliances by learning over time. Cooperation between ideologically different opposition parties entail significant transaction and substantive costs, suchcopy as information about their relative popularities and the threat of internal party revolt from upset part members. Opposition party leaders need time to learn to mitigate these costs. Iterated elections under authoritarianism provides information and opportunitiesReading for opposition party leaders to (a) learn the expected utility of cooperation, (b) learn the efficacies of rules to reduce the transaction costs of cooperation, and (c) learn the
9 Riker 1976; Golder 2006; Rakner and van de Walle 2009; Wahman 2011; Ziegfeld and Tudor 2017 10 Arriola 2013a; Arriola 2013b 11 Beardsworth 2016 12 Shehata 2010, 83–115; Browers 2007; Durac 2011; Wegner and Pellicer 2011; Shaheen 2018 13 Morales 2017; Carey 2015
3 effectiveness of different methods to reduce the substantive costs of cooperating with their
ideological rivals.
The goal of building pre-electoral coalitions is to solve the coordination problems that
opposition parties encounter in autocratic elections. Opposition coalitions are two-tiered
solutions to two distinct coordination problems. First, opposition parties must develop an
agreement to coordinate candidate selection or to allocate electoral districts. By reducing the number of opposition candidates through these agreements, opposition parties minimizequote vote splitting, thereby maximizing their vote share and their chances of winning.14not Second, opposition parties must also engage in joint electoral campaigns. Joint campaigns through opposition Do coalitions help opposition parties signal their anti-regime unity, which| is a focal point to mobilize and coordinate anti-regime voters.15 Any evaluation about the origins and substantive effects of opposition coalitions must disaggregate inter-party cooperation to these twin components. citation To be sure, learning among obstinate foropposition elites does not always occur. Opposition leaders are particularly motivated to learn to change their electoral strategies typically when they Not obtain exceptionally disastrous or |surprisingly poor electoral results. Every cycle of autocratic elections, even if unfree and unfair, produces a best-available if imperfect measure of the popularity of the incumbentcopy and the corresponding approval of the opposition.16 When opposition
parties perform worse than their already-low expectations, party leaders are forced to reconsider
their existing strategies and experiment with new strategies to maximize their vote and seat sharesReading in the next electoral cycle. Failure to improve risks intra-party challenges to their own leadership positions and perpetual irrelevance among the electorate. Conversely, when the
14 Cox 1997, 151–78; Duverger 1954 15 Gandhi and Ong 2018 16 Schedler 2006; Schedler 2013; Levitsky and Way 2010; Miller 2015; Pop-Eleches and Robertson 2015
4 opposition parties perform in line with or better than expected, other considerations, such as
preserving internal party unity and support, take priority.
This theory of opposition coalition building via learning makes at least three key
contributions to the literature on democratization by elections and opposition coalition formation
under authoritarianism. First, illuminating how opposition parties learn to cooperate over time
illustrates one key pathway along which democratization through elections can occur.17 Although many researchers stress the importance of opposition collective action in challengingquote the autocratic regime, they oftentimes stay silent on how opposition parties actuallynot go about engaging in cooperation and to exactly what ends. Unpacking the content of opposition Do coalitions provides a firmer theoretical foundation for future research.| Relatedly, recent analyses of opposition coalition formation assume that opposition supporters will follow in lockstep behind their party leaders when their leaders choose to coordinate.18 Relaxing this assumption
highlights the importance of developing joint coalitioncitation campaigns to persuade and convince voters to stay within the opposition’s fold. Thisfor explains why opposition parties invest heavily in joint campaigns even when their efforts may appear to have marginal returns at best. Finally, by Not theorizing the potential for learning| over extended time horizons, this article departs significantly from existing analyses which typically views pre-electoral alliance formation as observationally
equivalent, independentcopy one-shot games. Extending the analytical time scope sensitizes
researchers to more carefully theorize how past instances of (non)-cooperation affect future
strategic action.19 This perspective is especially important because electoral autocracies are generallyReading the most stable type of authoritarian regime.20 Long time horizons under electoral authoritarianism are not just empirically more realistic, but also theoretically more accurate.
17 Schedler 2002; Lindberg 2006; Lindberg 2009; Edgell et al. 2018; Morgenbesser and Pepinsky 2018; Teorell and Wahman 2018 18 Golder 2006; van de Walle 2006; Arriola 2013a; Arriola 2013b; Greene 2007; Magaloni 2006 19 Pierson 2004; Grzymala-Busse 2011 20 Geddes 1999; Brownlee 2007; Magaloni 2006; Reuter 2017
5 I demonstrate these arguments through a controlled comparison of two electoral
autocracies – Singapore and Malaysia.21 This comparison is appropriate not just because they
have the same historical backgrounds of British colonialism, burgeoning middle classes, strong
linkages to Western democracies, and similar majoritarian plurality parliamentary systems – all
factors which are hypothesized to influence their trajectories of democratization and opposition
coalition formation – but also because they exhibit deeply puzzling variation that is the exact
opposite of what existing theories predict.22 In Singapore, where opposition parties arequote ideologically similar, one would expect frequent alliances among like-mindednot opposition leaders. Yet, the converse is true. Singapore has never seen the development of a comprehensive Do coalition among all its opposition parties since the dominant People’s| Action Party (PAP) ushered the country into independence in 1965. In contrast, opposition parties are deeply polarized in Malaysia in terms of their ideological orientations towards religious and ethnic policies. Surprisingly, these ideologically divergentcitation opposition parties have formed pre-electoral coalitions four times in the last 30 years. Thefor latest iteration, the Pakatan Harapan (PH / Alliance of Hope) alliance, successfully defeated the Barisan Nasional ruling coalition in May 2018 after Not more than half a century of dominant| party rule. The rest of the article proceeds as follows: I first specify the exact coordination problems that opposition parties encounter,copy and the two-tiered solutions that opposition coalitions are meant to contain. Second, I elaborate on how and when opposition party leaders learn to build these institutional solutions with each other over time. I then explain and justify my empirical strategyReading before detailing the divergence in opposition politics in Singapore and Malaysia since their separation in 1965. A short conclusion summarizes this article’s most salient insights.
21 As Slater 2012, 19 remarks, “Malaysia and Singapore have long had authoritarian regimes that looked like no others in the world - except for each other.” 22 Przeworski and Limongi 1997; Cox 1997; Levitsky and Way 2010; Golder 2006; Wahman 2011
6 2. The Objectives of Opposition Coalition Formation Opposition parties contesting in autocratic elections have to confront a variety of
challenges. Not only do they need to defy a dominant incumbent bent on repression, they also
have to scavenge for scarce resources.23 In addition, they also encounter distinct coordination problems within an electoral landscape of multiple opposition parties. Opposition parties must solve these coordination problems to maximize their vote share and their corresponding chances of winning. quote The first coordination problem is the problem of reducing the number of opposition not candidates competing against a dominant autocratic incumbent.24 When there are too many Do opposition candidates, the incumbent can secure victory with less than| a majority of votes. In South Korea’s 1987 presidential elections, there were three opposition candidates. The military-
backed Roh Tae Woo prevailed with only a 36.6 percent vote share. Because the opposition leaders did not coordinate to select a single candidate,citation all of them were worse off than if they had coordinated. In parliamentary autocracies, candidatefor coordination entails an agreement to distribute electoral districts among opposition parties. The aim is to allocate only one opposition
Not25 party to contest in each electoral district.| In both presidential and parliamentary autocracies, selected candidates or allocated districts minimize vote splitting, maximize vote share, and maximize their probabilitycopy of winning. In pursuing candidate coordination or an electoral district allocation, opposition parties
bargain with each other. Some parties will misrepresent their electoral strength and makes claims
26 to contestReading in a larger number of districts than they deserve. An indivisible good like the presidency motivates party leaders to bargain harder with each other, especially when there is
23 Greene 2007; Magaloni 2006; Arriola 2013b 24 Also known as the strategic entry problem. See Duverger 1954; Cox 1997 25 In the rest of this paper, I simplify and assume parliamentary autocracies as having majoritarian plurality electoral systems. A proportional representation electoral system would entail coordination on joint lists of candidates. 26 E. Ong 2016
7 high uncertainty over the popularity of different party leaders.27 As a result, opposition parties
have to craft innovate rules to alleviate the various tensions and uncertainties in the process of
bargaining. Opposition parties in Venezuela held internal elections within the coalition to select a
single candidate to compete against the incumbent Nicolas Maduro.28 The aim was to find out which leader commanded the most support among opposition supporters. Similarly, in Uganda, a committee ranked contenders across some categories, and then made recommendations to a summit of opposition leaders during which one final candidate would be chosen by consensus.quote29 And as we shall see, opposition parties in both Singapore and Malaysia learntnot to devise formal and informal rules to solve their coordination problem of allocating districts. Do Notice that this first coordination problem does not involve |ideology. Parties are always going to be bargaining with each other over candidate or district coordination regardless of ideological position. Once we inject ideology into the analytical framework, however, a second coordination problem emerges – how to persuade thecitation supporters of ideologically disparate opposition parties to vote for all candidates fromfor the opposition alliance regardless of their party affiliation. Devotees of ideologically niche opposition parties are often reluctant to vote for a Not candidate from another opposition| party, even if both parties may be in the same coalition competing against the autocrat.30 This problem is especially acute if opposition party supporters
can vote for alternativescopy outside of the coalition, such as a third party or the incumbent.31
To induce cross-party voting among their own supporters, therefore, opposition parties need to forge joint electoral campaigns. That is, the supporters of an opposition party A must be persuadedReading to vote for candidates from opposition party B. Common policy platforms,32 cross-
27 Gandhi 2014; Fearon 1995 28 Morales 2017 29 Beardsworth 2016, 755–57 30 Greene 2007; Magaloni 2006 31 Gandhi and Ong 2018 32 E. Ong 2017
8 party endorsements,33 nomination of a prospective prime minister,34 a single coalition logo and
slogan, or the pre-electoral announcement of a future post-election cabinet are a few examples of
joint campaigns. They all serve as focal points to signal anti-regime unity and encourage cross-
party voting.
Certainly, the problems of candidate and voter coordination may arise in democratic
elections as well. But experience with electoral turnover means that voters in democracies are
more likely to believe that a coalition’s pre-electoral policy promises will manifest inquote a stable post-electoral coalition government. In electoral autocracies, by definition, oppositionnot parties have completely no experience with national governance. Independent or moderately pro-regime Do voters who are sympathetic to the opposition are more likely to doubt| the credibility of a coalition’s pre-electoral promises. Heightened skepticism that ideologically distant parties can
form a stable, operational post-electoral government depresses voter support.35 Uncertainty about
the policies of a newly-elected government with ideologicallycitation disparate parties also turns off ideologically moderate voters. From this perspective,for an opposition alliance with strange ideological bedfellows will find that their joint campaigns to signal anti-regime unity and post- Not election stability are more crucial |than ever. The more cohesive and clear the joint campaigns, the lower the uncertainty over the policies of a post-election government, and the greater the
confidence in that government’scopy functional stability.
The corollary is that in countries where opposition parties are ideologically similar to
each other, this second coordination problem of coordinating voters diminishes significantly. OppositionReading voters will likely treat ideologically similar parties as substitutes for each other. They will have less qualms about voting for whichever opposition candidate is selected to contest.
33 Arriola 2013b, 27–46 34 Gandhi and Ong 2018 35 E. Ong and Tim 2014; Oliver and Ostwald 2018
9 Independent or moderately pro-regime supporters will also be less skeptical about the functional
stability of a post-election government with ideologically similar opposition parties. This logic
suggests, paradoxically, that while ideologically similar opposition parties may coordinate to
reduce the number of candidates between them, they have less incentives to deepen their
cooperation to coalitions with joint electoral campaigns. A negligible problem beckons weak
efforts to resolve it. This counterintuitive proposition explains, in part, why coalitions are never formed among ideologically similar opposition parties in Singapore, but frequently foundquote among Malaysia’s ideologically distant opposition parties. not
Do 3. Learning to Build Coalitions Over Time | 3.1 Learning what?
Modeling opposition alliances as solutions to coordination problems provides us with insights about the equilibrium outcomes that eventuallycitation emerge. But the exercise tells us little about how opposition parties reach those outcomes.for Understanding the process through which opposition parties build alliances can generate new knowledge about what kind of solutions Not emerge over others, why solutions| sometimes never emerge, and why coordination does not necessarily persist over time.36 In this regard, three obstacles appear to most seriously impede the coalition building process.copy They are (a) the uncertainty about coordination’s expected utility, (b) coordination’s significant transaction costs, and (c) coordination’s substantive costs.
At the onset of electoral autocracy, opposition parties typically do not know nor have consensusReading about their own expected utility of cooperation. This is driven by significant uncertainty over how the costs and benefits of coordination will be distributed among all the parties. For example, in a parliamentary system, should party A or party B contest in an equal or
36 Axelrod 1984; Fudenberg and Levine 2009; Fudenberg and Levine 2016; Dal Bó and Fréchette 2018; Bennett and Howlett 1992; Dunlop 2017
10 uneven number of electoral districts against the autocrat? Alternatively, how many extra votes will parties A and B actually gain if they made some ideological compromises in a common manifesto? This uncertainty over the expected utility of coordination is, in part, influenced by a lack of information about the relative popularities of the various parties in an information-scarce autocratic environment. This induces party leaders to misrepresent their relative competitiveness.
Party leaders will claim that their parties are more popular than they actually are. Misrepresenting parties aim to reap a greater share of coordination’s benefits while shiftingquote the costs of coordination to other parties.37 We should expect opposition coalitionnot formation to be relatively rare during the first few elections held under authoritarianism. Do After repeated elections, however, parties learn about their relative| popularities from the electoral results, even if the results may be noisy.38 Clearer information about the parties’ relative popularities mean that opposition leaders have less incentive to misrepresent their relative competitiveness, as well as more realistic calculationscitation about the distribution of the expected utility from coordination. For instance, a clearlyfor weaker party should concede to contesting in less electoral districts than a stronger opposition party. Therefore, we should expect that the Not longer opposition parties participate| in autocratic elections, the more likely they will agree to coordinate in opposition alliances.
Another factor impedingcopy early coalition formation is the transaction costs involved in the messy process of bargaining. These ruinous transaction costs involve finding the appropriate people, time and venues to engage in the inter-party bargaining process, as well as developing an acceptableReading procedure and timeline for inter-party bargaining. A lack of information about opposition parties’ relative strengths is also a significant transaction cost, beyond its immediate impact as a variable inducing misrepresentation. When party leaders do not know which
37 Fearon 1995; Reiter 2003; E. Ong 2016 38 Miller 2015; Pop-Eleches and Robertson 2015; Teorell and Wahman 2018
11 geographical areas their parties are more popular in, they disagree on how to even begin allocating electoral districts.
To avoid the ruinous transaction costs of bargaining, therefore, party leaders experiment with and adopt different rules over time to structure the bargaining process.39 These rules, either formal or informal, help to circumscribe the parameters through which the different parties can more efficiently reach mutually acceptable agreements, rather than having to reinvent the wheel every time they approach the next cycle of elections. A classic rule of thumb is to usequote the agreement for inter-party coordination established in the previous electoral cyclenot as the baseline for negotiations for upcoming elections. Such a rule may appear simple, but is, in fact, highly Do consequential. It sets the expectations about what degree of coordination| is “normal”, and how much parties are willing to deviate from the “norms” of previous agreements. In other words, it restricts the range of an infinite number of possible coordination outcomes.40 Yet, one can only learn about the efficacy of such rules by experimentingcitation with them and learning about their effectiveness over time. for Lastly, beyond transaction costs, early coalition building also involves substantive costs Not to the coalition’s respective party leaders.| Consider the issue of campaigning using joint manifestoes, for example. While potentially useful in coordinating voters and increasing vote share, campaigning usingcopy these manifestoes may involve costly ideological compromises that party leaders find difficult to bear. Intra-party devotees recoiling at ideological compromises may mount internal challenges to the leader’s position in order to preserve ideological purity.41 In anotherReading scenario of allocating electoral districts, some party members may resist withdrawing their candidacy in a specific district in favor of candidates from other opposition parties.
39 North 1990 40 Riker 1980 41 Greene 2007
12 Withdrawing party members may sabotage the coalition’s candidate out of spite by contesting as
an independent candidate.
The exact solution for reducing the substantive costs of coordination depends on the
exact compromise required. Intra-party enforcement of coalition agreements for allocated
electoral districts is potentially easier. Party leaders can threaten to expel their own party
members for violating the agreement when they sabotage the coalition’s candidates. Ideological compromise in joint coalition campaigns is likely to be much harder. Party leaders havequote to convince their entire party base that ideological compromise is necessary to enhancenot the party’s chances of victory. This requires significant rhetorical persuasion and ideological re-engineering. Do Again, opposition party leaders can assess only what kind of rhetoric| works best to persuade and convince their party members by experimenting and learning what works over time.
In summary, after each successive iteration of elections, party leaders learn information about their respective popularities and the efficaciescitation of their various electoral strategies. These informs them about their expected distributionfor of the utility from cooperation, and the most effective ways of reducing the transaction and substantive costs to cooperation. The key Not observable implication is that opposition| inter-party cooperation at the onset of electoral autocracy is rare, but becomes more likely as time progresses. In autocracies with ideologically similar opposition parties,copy as in Singapore, we should expect that parties eschew coordination on allocating districts in the initial cycles of elections but coordinate much more frequently thereafter. Where opposition parties are ideologically divergent, as in Malaysia, we should expectReading coordination on both district allocation and joint campaigns to be rare in the initial electoral cycles. Repeated electoral cycles should see more frequent and more cohesive opposition alliances with both district allocation and joint campaigns.
13 3.2 Learning when?
To be sure, learning does not always come naturally for obstinate politicians. Politicians
frequently choose to ignore the feedback that they receive or may mistakenly believe that their
policies and electoral strategies are already in line with what maximizes their chances of
winning.42 So what conditions will compel politicians to learn from their mistakes of non- cooperation and change their electoral strategies accordingly?
Opposition politicians on the margins of political power in authoritarian regimesquote are particularly sensitive to electoral results, even if those results emerge from unfreenot and unfair elections. A better than expected electoral outcome is likely to convince opposition politicians Do that they are pursuing the right course in opposing the autocrat. A poorer| than expected outcome signals to opposition party leaders that they are not getting their electoral strategies right. Still, when electoral results are only marginally poorer than expected, party leaders may be able to deflect accountability by blaming the autocrat or thecitation specific conditions of the time. Particularly disastrous or unexpectedlyfor poor electoral results, however, significantly reduces the scope of blame avoidance by party leaders. There will be even more pressure on the Not party leader as party members begin| to question the party’s electoral strategies. Party members do not want to be part of a perpetually losing organization with diminishing popularity among the electorate. Failure orcopy reluctance to learn and change electoral strategy to produce better electoral outcomes invites intra-party revolt. When non-cooperation with other opposition parties result in particularly disastrous or unexpectedly poor electoral results, opposition party leaders will beReading under the most pressure to learn from their mistakes. The search for better electoral outcomes – increasing vote share and the probability of winning more seats in the next electoral cycle – motivates party leaders to learn to overcome the transaction and substantive costs of
42 Norris and Lovenduski 2004
14 coordination with other opposition parties, even if they were ideologically distant to themselves.
In other words, self-interested concern for their own leadership positions within the party motivates party leaders to learn.
On the other hand, opposition party leaders will have weak incentives to learn to coordinate when their parties perform better than expected, or when they can avoid blame for marginally poorer than expected electoral results. Under these circumstances, intra-party pressure to change the party’s electoral strategy is weak. Party members will be satisfiedquote that the party is making incremental improvements against the autocrat or is at least notnot completely out of touch with the electorate. Because their positions are relatively more secure, party leaders will Do therefore be less motivated to seek cooperation with other opposition| parties, especially those ideologically distant from themselves. Even if they may recognize the benefits of coalition building, the high substantive and transaction costs of coordination discourage party leaders from exerting effort to overcome them. citation for 4. Empirical Strategy Not The foregoing theoretical discussion| suggests several observable empirical implications of inter- and intra-opposition party behavior. It proposes that (1) opposition party leaders discriminate between twocopy different types of coordination problems and their solutions, (2) opposition party leaders negotiate coordination in the short-term according to bargaining and signaling models, (3) over the longer term, pre-electoral coalition formation will be rare at the onsetReading of authoritarianism but become likely over time, and (4) opposition party leaders encounter varying pressures and incentives to learn to mitigate the costs of cooperation. These are summarized in Table 1 below.
15 Table 1: Summary of Theoretical Framework
Coordination Candidate selection or district Mobilize and turnout anti-regime Problem allocation support
Objective Reduce the number of opposition Persuade opposition voters to engage candidates contesting against the in cross-party voting; Persuade incumbent independent or pro-regime voters to switch camp
Solution Agreement to select and field only Jointly campaigning to voters using one candidate, or to allocate common logo, name, slogan,quote districts among opposition parties. manifesto, or by announcing post- election cabinet. not Short-Term Bargaining models (e.g. bargaining Signaling models (e.g. focal points, Analysis model of war, crisis bargaining costly signalingDo model) model) |
Long-Term (1) Uncertain expected utilities Obstacles (2) Transaction costs (e.g. information about relative electoral viability) (3) Substantive costs (e.g. internal party resistance) citation
Timing As time increases,for likelihood of coordination increases
Electoral After particularlyNot disastrous or unexpectedly poor electoral results, results | likelihood of coordination increases
copy
To empirically establish the causal process of learning to build opposition coalitions, I rely on a paired comparative historical analysis of Singapore and Malaysia – two most similar electoralReading autocracies in Southeast Asia. The choice of Singapore and Malaysia is deliberate for several reasons. Up till May 2018, the two countries were the longest running electoral
16 autocracies in the post-World War Two period.43 This makes them crucial and influential cases of electoral authoritarianism.44 The Barisan Nasional (BN) dominant ruling coalition, and its pre- cursor the Alliance, has governed Malaysia for more than six decades since the country’s independence in 1957. The People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore has a similar record of more than half a century of dominant party rule since the party won elections under self- governance from the British in 1959. If a theory of opposition party learning and cooperation is to have empirical traction, its prints should be clearly found on the soil of authoritarianquote rule in these two countries. not Opposition parties in both countries exhibit significant cross-national and cross-time Do variation for key independent and dependent variables of the theory.| Ideologically similar opposition parties in Singapore have never formed a comprehensive alliance since the country’s independence from Malaysia in 1965. While they have frequently coordinated on distributing the available electoral districts to contest among the variouscitation parties, they have never developed joint electoral campaigns. In contrast, Malaysia’s ideologicallyfor distant opposition parties have formed comprehensive coalitions with both district allocation and joint campaigns four times in the last Not three decades. This difference between| the two countries is even more puzzling in light of their similarities with each other. Appendix Table 1 shows the degree to which the two countries are similar on a range of importantcopy variables that are thought to affect a country’s trajectory of democratization and incentives for opposition coalition formation.
In noting the similarities and differences between Singapore and Malaysia, the point is not justReading to note that the similarities on some variables can be “controlled” for while the differences on other variables can be leveraged on as part of a “most similar” controlled
43 Slater 2012; Gomez 2016; Chua 2010 44 Seawright and Gerring 2008; Herron and Quinn 2014
17 comparison research design.45 Certainly this is how controlled comparisons are typically utilized and justified for causal inference. But another equally if not more important reason is that my early identification of these similarities and differences prompted me to engage in inductive iteration.46 This meant pivoting repeatedly between challenging the existing theories, developing
a new theory, and what my empirical fieldwork revealed. Causal inference was strengthened as
analytic narratives emerged on how exactly coalition building occurred in the two countries.47 In
the analytical narratives in the rest of this paper, I triangulate evidence from the secondaryquote literature, past electoral results, archival evidence from declassified Americannot and British diplomatic cables, newspaper reports, opposition party newsletters, and field interviews with Do opposition politicians. |
5. Coordinating over Electoral Districts in Singapore and Malaysia citation 5.1 Bargaining and Coordination in Singapore
After more than half a century of dominantfor party rule, Singapore’s opposition parties have learnt that inter-party coordinationNot over district allocation is the best strategy to play to maximize their own self-interest of| vote-maximization. Parties need to allocate districts such that
only one candidate from one party contests against the PAP’s candidate in each electoral district. copy Figure 1 below shows the proportion of contested districts with more than one opposition
candidate in every election from 1968 to 2015. The figure demonstrates that, except for general
elections in 1972, opposition parties agreed to avoid competing against each other for the vast
majorityReading of districts that were contested.48 Between 1976 to 2015, only 5.8% of contested
45 Lijphart 1975; Slater and Ziblatt 2013; George and Bennett 2005 46 Yom 2015; Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read 2015, 21–26 47 Bates et al. 1998 48 Note: Based on total number of electoral districts contested. Oftentimes, multiple districts were not contested. In 1980 and 2001, nearly half of all districts available were not contested. Also excludes 9 instances of independent candidates forcing three-cornered contests.
18 districts had more than one opposition candidate from different opposition parties. In other
words, inter-party coordination over district allocation was successful about 94 percent of the
time for the 306 electoral districts that were contested in over ten cycles of elections.
Figure 1: Proportion of Electoral Districts with Multiple Opposition Candidates
quote not Do |
citation for Not |
The general electioncopy in 1972 was an exception because they were the first truly competitive elections in post-independent Singapore.49 When Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965, opposition parties objected to the separation and boycotted the first general elections in
1968.Reading Approaching the 1972 general elections, opposition parties reconsidered their boycott. The
PAP’s complete political dominance had seen them cast into the political wilderness. Eager to correct their earlier mistake, opposition parties re-entered the electoral arena. Since no single
49 Josey 1972
19 opposition party had won any seats in 1968, there was no publicly available information about
how strong each party was. Therefore, all had maximum incentives to misrepresent their relative
popularities. All made superficial claims that boosted their party’s publicly perceived strength in
order to justify contest more electoral districts. For instance, both the Worker’s Party (WP) and
the United National Front (UNF) publicly announced that their respective parties were making
preparations to contest in all constituencies against the PAP.50 The People’s Front (PF) declared that they would field candidates in about half of all the available electoral districts.51quote Close observers of domestic politics were not convinced by such boastfulnot claims. Declassified diplomatic cables from the American and British embassiesDo suggest that these political parties were all much weaker than they claimed to be in public.| An American embassy airgram concluded that “the UNF has no significant popular support at present and has no prospect of gaining support under present conditions” in late 1969.52 Another airgram analyzing citation the Barisan Socialis (BS) noted that active membership had declined from 5,000 in the early
1960s to only about 700.53 Summarizing thesefor sentiments, a lengthy report analyzing all opposition parties described them as Not“lackluster,” “desperate,” “woefully lacking in political | experience,” with “small, weak shoe-string operations.”54
Despite their self-aggrandizement, opposition parties did make strong efforts to copy coordinate on district allocation.55 The PF appealed to other opposition parties not to contest in
their 20 “stronghold” districts, so as “to avoid splitting the anti-PAP votes.”56 They explicitly
50 The StraitsReading Times. 23 September 1971. “Workers’ Party to contest all 58 seats.” and The Straits Times. 25 October 1971. “UNF to contest all the 65 seats: Vetrivelu.” 51 New Nation. 15 June 1972. “People’s Front hits at UNF leaders.” 52 “The United National Front.” A-217. Airgram from the American Embassy in Singapore to the Department of State. Source: National Archives of Singapore (NA3230, Blip 199). Original source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. 53 “The Extreme Left Wing in Singapore.” A-57 Airgram from the American Embassy in Singapore to the Department of State. Source: National Archives of Singapore (NAB1100. Blip 159). Original Source: U.S. National Archives and Record Administration. 54 Parliamentary elections approaching in Singapore.” A136 Airgram from the American Embassy in Singapore to the Department of State. Source: National Archives of Singapore (NAB1100, Blip 166). Original Source: U.S. National Archives and Record Administration. 55 Josey 1972, 60–99 56 The Straits Times. 11 February 1971. “It won’t work, say the other Opposition parties.”
20 stated, “What we want is a one by one straight fight with the PAP.”57 The PF even signed a non- competition agreement with the WP.58 Yet, despite the incentives to bargain and coordinate with each other, the countervailing incentives to misrepresent their true strength in the first competitive elections proved difficult to resist. The intransigence was reflected in the numerous rounds of negotiations, where the WP accused the Barisan Socialis “of adopting a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude.”59 The PF criticized the UNF leaders for being “a bunch of publicity seekers.”60
In the end, a little less than half of all the electoral districts contested saw three-corneredquote contests. The public was not convinced by this display of opposition infighting,not and the PAP won a clean sweep of all the contested seats. Do The disastrous outcome of the 1972 general election forced |all the opposition parties to recognize the tremendous costs of non-coordination. Since then, opposition party leaders have organized pre-electoral meetings before every general election to allocate electoral districts. In citation the most recent general elections in 2015, bargaining over the allocation of 29 contested districts among the eight opposition parties was resolvedfor over two meetings in a little more than a month, with only one small district the subjectNot of conflict. My interviews with opposition party leaders revealed several findings. They all| confirmed that the logic and benefit of coordinating over district allocation was clear. No one wanted multi-cornered contests where opposition parties would split the votes awaycopy from each other. Furthermore, opposition party leaders implicitly understood the high transaction costs involved – the time and resources wasted in the bargaining process. Those same time and resources in the short electoral campaign window could be better used Readingto mount attacks against the PAP.
57 The Straits Times. 10 February 1972. “Lay off our 20 wards plea by the Front.” 58 The Straits Times. 6 August 1972. “Opposition move to avoid splitting of votes: People’s Front and Worker’s Party sign electoral pact.” 59 The Straits Times. 13 June 1972. “Parties fail to form a common front: outlook dim and Dr Lee is blamed.” 60 New Nation. 15 June 1972. “People’s Front hits at UNF leaders.”
21 To reduce the transaction costs of bargaining, Singapore’s opposition parties have
developed and generally observed an informal rule. The rule is this: If one particular opposition
party A had contested in a particular district against the PAP in the previous election, they had
first dibs in staking a claim to contest in that same district for the next election.61 This rule
applied for all parties unless a separate party B could justify why they should be allowed to
contest instead. Debate then raged among opposing opposition leaders about what was a
justifiable reason.62 Opposition party leader A confirmed to me that inter-party bargainingquote in such circumstances resembled a game of chicken, not Do “You start off first with having to look big and muscular. Everybody| huffing and
puffing themselves up to look bigger than they actually are. Some will blink.
Some won’t. Then in the end, if we can agree we agree. If not, three-cornered
fight. More often than not, you know someonecitation will blink and then the game of
chicken will come to an end.”63 for Not |
5.2 Bargaining and Coordination in Malaysia
Unlike the ideologicallycopy similar Singaporean opposition parties, Malaysian opposition parties are
more ideological polarized.64 The two main opposition parties that emerged after 1965 were the non-
Malay, secular, leftist Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Malay-Muslim, conservative Malaysian IslamicReading Party (Parti Islam se-Malaysia / PAS). PAS’s leaders, while each imbuing their own interpretation of Islam into the party, have all never wavered from PAS’s stated objective of transforming Malaysia into
61 SG004, SG005, SG007, SG008, SG010, SG011, SG012, SG013, SG014 Interviews. All locations: Singapore. 62 SG004, SG005, SG006, SG007, SG008, SG009, SG010, SG011, SG012, SG013, SG014 Interviews. All locations: Singapore. 63 SG004. Location: Singapore. 64 Crouch 1996; K. M. Ong 2015; Saravanamuttu 2016
22 an Islamic state governed by Islamic principles and law. The DAP is diametrically opposed to PAS. For
the DAP, no one ethnic group has superior claims of “ownership” of Malaysia, nor can any single religion
claim to govern Malaysia.
The ideologically polarized PAS and the DAP were joined over the decades by somewhat
more ideologically moderate opposition parties. There were three major defections from United
Malays National Organization (UMNO), the Malay-Bumiputera only dominant component of the BN coalition, that spawned new opposition parties: the Malay-only Spirit of 46 Malayquote Party (Parti Melayu Semangat 46 / Semangat 46) formed in 1988, the multi-ethnic People’s Justice not Party (Parti Keadilan Rakyat / PKR) formed in 1998, and the Malay/Bumiputera-only Malaysia
United Indigenous Party (Parti Primubi Bersatu Malaysia / BERSATU)Do formed in 2016. The | National Trust Party (Parti Amanah Negara / AMANAH) was formed in 2015 after a progressive
Islamist faction defected from PAS. The first possible opportunity for candidate citationcoordination in the post-1965 era in Malaysia was a by-election in Serdang, Selangor in Decemberfor 1968. Absent credible information about the relative strengths of both opposition parties, the newly-formed DAP and Gerakan65 refused to Not coordinate to select only one opposition| candidate to contest against the Alliance candidate. The Alliance won with a slim majority of 607 votes. The second-best DAP candidate had 5,928 votes, and the Gerakan copycandidate who had 1,330 votes.66 This defeat, due to a lack of inter-party candidate coordination, was a harsh lesson for opposition party leaders. They agreed not to contest against each other in the upcoming 1969 general elections.67 When Goh Hock Guan, then Secretary-GeneralReading of the DAP announced an agreement to coordinate allocating electoral districts with Gerakan, he referred to the earlier loss in Serdang and said,
65 Gerakan, also known as Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, was formed in 1968 from remnants of the United Democratic Party. The party joined the BN from 1970 onwards and controlled the Penang state government from 1969 to 2008. 66 Drummond and Hawkins 1970, 321 67 Brown 2004, 94; Drummond and Hawkins 1970, 321–22; Saravanamuttu 2016, 98–99
23
“The experience we have got from this election has been bitter enough, and I
believe we will never again fight among ourselves and allow the Alliance to sit on
our corpses.”68
The 1969 agreement to coordinate district allocation among the non-Malay DAP,
Gerakan, and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) was a moderate success. By somequote calculations, the agreement lead to the non-Malay opposition parties winningnot more parliamentary seats as compared to the 1964 elections, specifically due to the reduction in the number of Do candidates.69 The results were more stunning at the state level. Gerakan| won control of the state
assembly in Penang, and also won half of the state seats in Selangor and Perak alongside DAP
and the PPP. Even PAS made gains in the states of Perlis, Terengganu, and Kedah.
Regrettably, this result was widely interpretedcitation as the non-Malays abandoning the
consociational Alliance coalition, thus posingfor as a direct threat to the Malay dominance of political power. Open street violenceNot occurred between the Malays and the Chinese on 13 May 1969. Consequently, normal parliamentary| process was suspended, and an all-powerful National
Operations Council was promulgated. The Alliance transformed itself into the Barisan Nasional
by co-opting Gerakan, PPP,copy and PAS into its fold in the name of peace and stability.
Between 1970 and 1977, the DAP was the sole major opposition party. The twin
opposition pincers of PAS and DAP only re-emerged when PAS was expelled from the BN in late 1977.Reading The 1978 general elections was the first time where prospects of coordination between the two opposition parties might arise. Yet, this was not the strategy they adopted. Instead, it
68 The Straits Times. 22 February 1969. “DAP and GRM announce pact to contest the General Election.” 69 Ratnam and Milne 1970, 210
24 appeared that any “unholy alliance” between the DAP and PAS consisted of them increasing the
number of opposition candidates by placing two opposition candidates in each electoral
district!70 The logic was this: In Malay-majority electoral districts, PAS’s entry may help split
the Malay votes between PAS and the BN. The DAP candidate can then prevail if it secured the
non-Malay votes and the votes of liberal Malay voters. In non-Malay-majority electoral districts,
DAP’s entry may help to split the non-Malay votes between the DAP and BN. The PAS
candidate can then win if it can secure the Malay votes, and the votes of some non-Malays.quote Nevertheless, such a strategy did not appear to help either parties much. Bothnot PAS and DAP performed poorly in the 1978 and 1982 general elections, winning only a handful of electoral Do districts. |
Table 2: Average Number of Candidates Per Constituency Across Elections, 1974-199571
General Election No. of Average numbercitation No. of State Average number Year Parliamentary of candidates per seats of candidates per seats contestedfor contested State parliamentary seats (excluding seat (excluding independents) Notindependents) | 1978 154 2.32 276 2.56 1982 154 2.50 312 2.46 1986 177 2.18 351 2.26 1990 132*copy 2.01 351 2.01 1995 192 2.06 394 2.14
Reading
70 Mauzy 1979, 290. See also “Port Klang By-Election.” Diplomatic Report by the British High Commission. 5 December 1979. Source: National Archives of Singapore, NAB 2045, FCO 15/2496, Blip 00002-00005. Original Source: UK.. National Archives. 71 I assume that all independents caused multi-cornered contests. For 1974-1986, author’s calculation from NSTP Research and Information Services 1990. For 1990, parliamentary seats by author’s calculation from Business Times. 12 October 1990. “PAS-DAP ties show up in opposition front.” *Parliamentary seats for Peninsular Malaysia only. State seats by author’s calculation from Khong 1991. For 1995, author’s calculations from Gomez 1996, 15–16.
25 Table 2 shows the average number of candidates per electoral district from 1978 to 1995.
If coordination between opposition parties was perfect, then we should expect that the average number of candidates per electoral district to be 2 – one ruling party candidate and one opposition party candidate. The table reveals that the DAP and PAS did not coordinate with each other in 1978 and 1982 because of their ill-conceived strategy of increasing the number of opposition candidates. They subsequently learnt to coordinate with each other thereafter, save for some minor exceptions. quote Since 1986, an informal rule has been emerged over the years to reducenot the transaction costs spent on the bargaining process for allocating electoral districts. Non-Malay-majority Do districts will be allocated to the Chinese-based DAP. Districts with |a high-proportion of Malay voters will be allocated to the Malay-Muslim-based PAS. Ethnically mixed districts will be allocated to any centrist and multi-ethnic opposition party. All parties maximized their electoral viability against the BN when their respective ideologiescitation matched the local demographics of the districts. for Figure 2 and Figure 3 illustrates this rule applied in the 1999 and 2013 general elections. Not Figure 2 shows the allocated electoral| districts across all parliamentary seats in the entire country. Each vertical bar represents an electoral district, and all districts are arranged from having the lowest proportioncopy of Malay voters to the highest proportion of Malay voters. We can infer that the DAP contested in parliamentary seats where Malays were not a majority. The PKR, the multiethnic moderate splinter party from UMNO, contested in ethnically heterogenous districts,Reading while PAS contest ed primarily in districts that were overwhelmingly Malay.
26 quote not Do |
citation
Figure 2: Allocated districts in Malaysiafor for the 1999 General Elections72 Not |
Figure 3 repeats the same story. It focuses on parliamentary districts in Peninsular
Malaysia only, and usescopy the proportion of Bumiputera voters as the scale in which to sort the vertical bars representing each electoral district. It demonstrates that the Chinese-based DAP contested almost exclusively in districts where there were less than 40% of Bumiputera voters, whereasReading PAS competed in most of the districts where the Bumiputera majority was very high.
There was substantial variation in where the centrist PKR contested, however, because the multi-
72 Data shared with me by Li Zheng Hao, an undergraduate student at the National Taiwan University in a personal email on September 7, 2016.
27 ethnic PKR could allocate its candidates to a large range of districts that were perceived to be
ethnically heterogenous.
quote not Do |
citation for Not |
copy Figure 3: Allocated districts in Peninsular Malaysia for the 2013 General Elections73
My interviews with 16 opposition leaders in Malaysia also confirmed the application of Reading this informal rule.74 An overwhelming majority of interviewees agreed that coordinating on district allocation was beneficial for all the opposition parties involved, and that the bargaining
73 Data from Pepinsky 2015. 74 MY009, MY010, MY011, MY013, MY014, MY017, MY018, MY019, MY020, MY021, MY022. All locations: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
28 process was primarily based on the ethnic demographics across electoral districts. Moreover, there was little dispute over district allocation between DAP and PAS because the districts that they were interested in contesting had little overlap with each other. Instead, both parties had to spend the most time negotiating with PKR. These negotiations were difficult but surmountable, however, because there were so many electoral districts to trade with each other.
6. Divergent Trajectories of Coalition Formation in Singapore and Malaysia quote 6.1 Little incentives and high costs for joint campaigns in Singapore not Despite their common recognition of the incentives to coordinate on district allocation, Do all the opposition leaders that I interviewed in Singapore said that they| foresaw no explicit benefit if they upgraded their coordination to form an opposition coalition with joint coalition campaigns.75 They repeatedly reiterated that there was no need for any joint campaigns because
“there was no use for it.” To their mind, the ideologiescitation and manifestoes of all the opposition parties “were all the same.”76 Opposition leaderfor B put it most bluntly, Not “In Singapore, the opposition| parties have no branding. There is no ideology.
There is no philosophy. They are all the same. There is no differentiation between
them.”77 copy
Looking back to the 1980 general election, a pre-electoral report prepared by the British HighReading Commission confirmed that:
75 SG004, SG005, SG006, SG007, SG008, SG009, SG010, SG011, SG012, SG013, SG014 Interviews. All locations: Singapore. 76 SG010. Location: Singapore. 77 SG011. Location: Singapore.
29 “The various opposition parties have again proved that they are their own worse
enemies. Instead of presenting coherent platforms of their own, they have relied
on inconsistent and largely ineffectual attacks on the government, and have made
little attempt to coordinate their positions…”78
Party leaders doubted that a coalition with joint electoral campaigns would increase their
vote share and increase their chances of winning extra constituencies against the PAP.quote The idea of encouraging cross-party voting or winning the support of independent or pro-regimenot supporters did not cross their mind. Opposition party leader C declared, Do |
“I can tell you this. If I can make the guarantee that if we come together in an
alliance we will win, then everyone will come. I cannot. The pull factor is not
strong enough.”79 citation
for If the “pull factors” were weak,Not then the “push factors” were undoubtedly strong. Throughout my interviews, opposition| leaders repeatedly referred to the substantive costs of joint electoral campaigns – the reduced autonomy to make decisions when they have to work with other opposition leaders.copy80 Opposition leader A claimed for all opposition parties in general,
“Going into the next general election, I do not think you are going to see any Readingsubstantive significant change in terms of the opposition forming up…. the big
78 “Singapore Election: Eve of the Poll.” Report from the British High Commission. Source: National Archives of Singapore (D2014030078, Blip 0009-0016). Original source: U.K. National Archives. 79 SG009. Location: Singapore. 80 SG004, SG005, SG006, SG007, SG008, SG009, SG010, SG011, SG012, SG013, SG014 Interviews. All locations: Singapore.
30 difference is in terms of how XXX and YYY81 can get along…. You still got to
talk to that guy. You have to work with him. Is that worth all the trouble? Worth
all the effort? That kind of situation. And when you think about it, it does not
really matter.”82
6.2 Learning to overcome the costs to joint electoral campaigns in Malaysia
In contrast with the intransigence of Singapore’s opposition party leaders, Malaysia’squote ideologically polarized opposition party leaders frequently upgraded their cooperationnot with joint electoral campaigns in comprehensive alliances. The empirical recordDo reveals that developing joint campaigns was very difficult in the initial stages, but cooperation| became deeper once
opposition party leaders learnt how to mitigate its costs over time.
Approaching the 1986 elections, where there were the first possibilities of alliance
formation with joint campaigns, inter-party negotiationscitation were not smooth sailing. A review of
newspaper clippings on this period revealed thatfor opposition parties had conflicts over several issues.83 The key conflict was how theNot DAP could accept PAS’s public goal of transforming Malaysia into an Islamic state without| eroding their own secular, non-Malay, non-Muslim
support base. Any hint of cooperation with PAS might send DAP’s supporters fleeing back to the
BN.84 Eventually, both copyparties tacitly agreed on coordinating over allocating electoral districts,
but no joint electoral campaigns.
For the 1990 elections, there was a stunted birth of an opposition alliance. An unwieldy two-partReading opposition coalition was formed. PAS allied with Semangat 46 and other minor Muslim
81 The identities of specific politicians have been anonymized as agreed with the interviewee. 82 SG004. Location: Singapore. 83 A listing of the newspaper clippings kept at the Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies can be found at http://www.malaysian- chinese.net/library/clipping/, last accessed January 4, 2018. I spent about two weeks in October 2016 primarily reviewing the files P39.10, P39.10.1, and P39.10.2 which were concerned with opposition coalition formation in the 1980s. 84 “DAP likely to stay out of the front.” The Star. 14 July 1986.
31 parties to form the Muslims Unity Movement (Angkatan Pepaduan Ummah / APU), while the
DAP and other minor non-Malay parties collaborated with Semangat 46 to form the People’s
Might alliance (Gagasan Rakyat / GR). This reflected the uneasy compromise that both DAP and
PAS’s leaders settled on. By allying themselves only with the moderate Semangat 46 but not
going further to form a coalition with each other, both parties could partially overcome internal
party resistance. An op-ed in the Business Times summarized the bizarre and confusing outcome aptly, noting that, “The members and supporters of both parties are strongly against quoteany such “unholy alliance” but their leaders obviously feel that political expediency demandsnot covert collaboration between the two”.85 Do Through campaigning with the moderate Semangat ’46, both| the DAP and PAS sought to reshape their public image. PAS sought to “tone down its image of an extremist, fundamentalist party,” and “soften its image and make it more acceptable to people whose understanding of the
“true teachings” of Islam was not adequate”86 Similarly,citation the DAP’s campaign with Semangat 46 meant that the party’s “image as an extremist,for chauvinistic Chinese party – due to its long campaign for equal rights for the Chinese and other minority communities – would be shed in the Not larger coalition led by a Malay party.”| 87 This moderating logic through joint electoral campaigns was key to encouraging cross-party voting and maximizing vote share for their own respective
parties. copy
After 1990, there were another three instances of opposition coalition formation. Two of
them fractured after failing to defeat the BN.88 The cycles of alliance formation and fracture reflectReading the tensions that party leaders confronted balancing between the high costs of internal
85 “PAS-DAP ties show up in opposition front.” Business Times. 12 October 1990. Source: Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies, Newspaper clippings collection, P39.10. 86 Khong 1991, 9 87 Khong 1991, 11 88 For complete details, see Appendix Table 2.
32 party resistance and the vote-maximizing benefits of joint electoral campaigns. A key leader
from the DAP remarked on the potential benefits,
“In the case of DAP, I think the top leaders are very clear where we should go. If
you follow Kit Siang’s [long time DAP leader] writing, it is very clear that he
understands the problem. The problem is that we will never win alone. Therefore, we need coalition partners. We need strong coalition partners in order to winquote together.”89 not
Do At the same time, however, another DAP leader also noted the tremendous| costs of cooperation
with PAS,
“The most important element for the DAP iscitation that there is still a massive phobia of PAS. We sort of learnt our lesson, rightlyfor or wrongly from 1999, when the association with PAS results in the backlash particularly among the Chinese Not voters. And that being our |core base, we have to be ultra careful… …especially in
2008. Because we were so fearful of the repeat of 1999. We lost a lot. Almost
wiped out. Left copywith 9 seats. Kit Siang and Karpal [long-time DAP leaders] lost.
So it was something that is always at the back of our heads…”90
A similarReading dilemma between the potential benefits and high costs of cooperating with the DAP was also on the minds of PAS leaders.91 A PAS leader described their thinking as such,
89 MY018. Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 90 MY014. Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 91 Noor 2004, 632–33
33
“PAS must be reminded that it was only when they are in coalition with others
that they have a chance to increase their vote share… Well, you know very well
that there is a lot of commonality and differences. And whether it is difficult or
easy will really have to depend on leadership. And leadership that are more
focused on winning an election very close to the seat of power will really want to ensure that their chances are not jeopardized by bickering and wrangling overquote policy matters.”92 not
Do To overcome internal party resistance to coalition formation| with their ideological rivals, both the DAP and PAS learnt that they must experiment with various ways to re-educate their own supporters. For example, after the DAP’s disastrous electoral results in 1999 as part of the
Barisan Alternatif alliance where it lost the votes ofcitation its core supporters, the DAP decided to embark on a political re-education campaign forwhen it was cooperating with PAS as part of the later Pakatan Rakyat alliance. The DAP relied on its party newsletter, The Rocket, to try to Not persuade its supporters that cooperation| with PAS was necessary, and that PAS supporters were not as extremist as they were made out to be.
An analysis of thecopy distributed- to-members-only newsletter found that The Rocket began to publish more and more positive articles about PAS and PKR that were written by DAP’s leaders. I hand-coded 196 opposition-related articles in 49 issues of The Rocket over two four- year periods.Reading The first four-year period was between 2001-2004 immediately after the DAP withdrew from Barisan Alternatif. The second four-year period between 2010-2013 was when the DAP was in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition with PAS and PKR. Figure 4 shows that articles
92 MY013. Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
34 that portrayed PAS or PKR positively jumped from 10% between 2001-2004 to 80% between
2010 to 2013.
quote not Do |
citation Figure 4: Relative Proportions of Opposition-Relatedfor Articles in The Rocket
Not |
copy
Reading
Figure 5: An Example of a “Positive Image” Article
35 Figure 5 above shows an example of a “positive rival” article, summarizing a speech by long-time DAP leader Karpal Singh at the DAP’s national congress held in December 2012. The report noted that Singh “stressed that PAS is an important friend in Pakatan Rakyat” and that despite their differences, PAS was “a solid party with ideology and principles.” Karpal went on further to stress to the DAP’s supporters that “If we do not change with the times, the times will change with us.” quote 7. Conclusion not Opposition parties in electoral autocracies have to overcome tremendous challenges to Do resist the dominant incumbent. While many party leaders may recognize| the need to act collectively against the autocrat, not all coordinate their actions all the time. Much depends on whether party leaders are incentivized and motivated to learn from their electoral experience.
Absent obvious incentives to solve a negligible votercitation coordination problem, Singapore’s ideologically similar opposition party leadersfor remain unmotivated to deepen their cooperation. Their efforts have yielded coordination over district allocation only. When faced with intra-party Not resistance for cooperation with their| ideological rivals in joint campaigns, Malaysia’s opposition party leaders learnt to find ways to reduce such resistance. Pakatan Harapan,copy an opposition alliance among the DAP, PKR, Amanah, and Bersatu, was the latest iteration of coalition formation in Malaysia. The alliance finally managed to topple the long-dominant BN not only because the incumbent Prime Minister was deeply unpopular, but also becauseReading its leaders learnt to develop the deepest forms of electoral coordination ever witnessed in the country’s electoral history. Despite their great ideological differences, the alliance developed a common manifesto that was more comprehensive and substantive than previous iterations, campaigned and contested in the elections using a common logo for the first
36 time, and also, for the first time ever, announced the alliance’s choice of prime minister and deputy prime minister should the alliance prevail over the BN. These numerous efforts projecting anti-regime unity among the opposition elites coordinated the anti-regime vote by inducing cross-party voting from each other’s supporters, and by convincing moderate pro-regime supporters to switch camps.
Moving forward, researchers will profit from verifying the empirical implications of simple game-theoretic models applied to the bargaining and signaling processes of oppositionquote pre-electoral coalitions. For instance, we should expect that inter-party bargainingnot to select a single opposition candidate in presidential autocracies to be more intense than allocating districts Do in parliamentary autocracies. We should also expect that voters respond| positively to joint campaigns such as common manifestoes, as compared to coalitions without such manifestoes.
Regardless of the outcomes, however, the arduous, pragmatic task of toppling autocrats will always require the opposition to learn from their mistakes,citation and to try again another day. for
Not |
copy
Reading
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42 Appendix
Appendix Table 1: Similarities between Singapore and Malaysia
Variable Singapore Malaysia
Colonizer British British
Ethnic Fragmentation93 76.1% Chinese 68.8% Bumiputera/Malays 15.0% Malay 23.2% Chinese 7.5% Indian 7.0% Indians
Religious Fragmentation94 43.2% Buddhism/Taoism 61.3% Islam quote 18.8% Christianity 19.8% Buddhism 18.5% No religion 9.2% Christianity 14.0% Islam 6.3% Hinduismnot 5.0% Hinduism Do Electoral System 1965-1988: Single member 1963| -Present: Single member district with plurality voting. district with plurality voting.
1988-Present: Mix of single member districts, and multi- member districts with party plurality bloc voting. citation
Availability of Financial World Bank Easefor of Doing World Bank Ease of Doing Resources (Out of 190 Business Rank 2 Business Rank 24 Countries)95 WorldNot Bank Ease of Getting World Bank Ease of Getting Credit| Rank 29 Credit Rank 20
GDP Per Capita PPP $93,905 $29,432 (2017 Current (Rank 1 in Southeast Asia) (Rank 2 in Southeast Asia) International $)96 copy
93 Population.sg, Race and Diversity. Last accessed on 12 October 2018 at https://www.population.sg/population-trends/people-society. DepartmentReading of Statistics Malaysia, Current Population Estimates 2017-2018. Last accessed on 12 October 2018 at https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/cthemeByCat&cat=155&bul_id=c1pqTnFjb29HSnNYNUpiTmNWZHArdz09&menu_id=L0 pheU43NWJwRWVSZklWdzQ4TlhUUT09. 94 Department of Statistics Singapore, General Household Survey 2015. Last accessed on 12 October 2018 at Department of Statistics Malaysia, Population Distribution and Basic Demographic Characteristic Report 2010. Last accessed on 12 October 2018 at https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/ctheme&menu_id=L0pheU43NWJwRWVSZklWdzQ4TlhUUT09&bul_id=MDMxdHZjWTk 1SjFzTzNkRXYzcVZjdz09. 95 World Bank Doing Business Rankings 2018. Last accessed on 15 October 2018 at http://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings?region=east-asia- and-pacific. 96 Excludes the petro-state of Brunei Darussalam. World Bank International Comparison Database. Last accessed 15 October 2015 at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?view=chart&year_high_desc=true.
43 Appendix Table 2: Cycles of Opposition Coalition Formation and Fracture in Malaysia
Year Major Event
1990 PAS and Semangat 46 form APU. DAP and Semangat 46 form GR.
1995 DAP withdraws from GR in protest against PAS’s increasing Islamization policies in Kelantan and Terengganu.
1996 Semangat 46 disbands and reabsorbed into UMNO.
1999 DAP, PKR, PAS forms Barisan Alternatif (BA) opposition alliance. BA produces a common manifesto backed by the rallying cry of “Reformquoteasi”.
2001 DAP withdraws from BA opposition alliance again against PAS’s increasing Islamization policies in Kelantan and Terengganu. not
2008 DAP, PKR, PAS do not campaign together for the generalDo election but still coordinate district allocation. |
DAP, PKR, PAS form Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition alliance after general election where they unexpectedly deny BN a two-thirds majority of the legislature.
2013 PR contests in the general election withcitation a common manifesto and a written alliance agreement. Continues to deny BN two-thirds majority of legislature. BN loses popular vote for thefor first time.
2015 DAP withdraws from PR opposition alliance again in protest against PAS’s insistence in implementingNot Islamic hudud law. | 2017 DAP, PKR, Bersatu, and Amanah form Pakatan Harapan (PH).
2018 PH wins general election against BN. copy
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