Questions on two-party system
First Published: 7:00am, Jul 10,
2013
Last Updated: 7:23am, Jul 10, 2013
fz.com
What held back the two-party system in Malaysia for so long
before 2008? asks Wong Chin Huat
SINCE 2008, "two-party
system" has become a defining phrase in Malaysia's political discourse.
Most opposition supporters desire it while most BN supporters dread it.
Few have gone beyond the dichotomy
of yes or no and asked if a two-party system would work for Malaysia or if it
can be brought about by a change in government.
(For ease of discussion, I will use
the term "two-party system" throughout, rather than
"two-coalition system" or "two-bloc system", which may be
more accurate but is also clumsier. In political science, if parties form
permanent coalitions and do not compete against each other, then they are not
too different from formalised factions within parties, hence, Barisan Nasional
and Pakatan Rakyat can be seen as two parties.)
Why two-party system?
Vis-à-vis multiparty system, the
two-party system is desired by many, including beyond Malaysia, for two
reasons.
First, its means single-party
governments, which in turn means "responsible government", as the
single ruling party has to assume full responsibility for its
performance.
In contrast, if a coalition
government fails, the partners can always blame each other. Even when a
coalition government collapses, some parties with substantial seats may find
their way to the next coalition government. And if the government lets the
voters down in a two-party system, the voters get to "kick the rascals
out" – party alternation is wholesale and complete.
Second, it encourages moderate moderation.
Since there are only two parties, the winner has to win the middle ground.
Therefore, to not alienate the centrist voters, the two parties are forced to
take moderate positions and meet in the middle.
The extremist members of the two
parties cannot pull the parties to the flank, because they cannot pose an
effective threat – supporting the other party is further against their
interests.
In Malaysia, single-party government
means political stability – ad-hoc coalition would likely see the partners
bickering before the next election. And political stability in turn derives
from moderation.
A two-party system is seen as the
ideal model because Malaysians – including both the opposition and civil
society – have learned to believe in the virtue of the multi-ethnic permanent
coalition model of the Alliance/BN.
Hence, a substitute for the BN must
not be better than it, but also somewhat looks like it.
Despite or because of FPTP?
Conventionally, following the
propositions by French political scientist Maurice Duverger, the
First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system in Anglo-American democracies is thought to
tend to produce two-party system, while the Two-Round System (TRS) in France or
the Party List Proportional Representation in many other European countries
tends to produce multi-party system.
We are then with the right electoral
system since 1955. But why didn't we see a more permanent two-party format
until 2008?
After being purged from Umno, both
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (then already in prison)
united the Opposition parties for the 1990 and 1999 elections
respectively.
However, both the Gagasan
Rakyat-Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah and Barisan Alternatif were effectively dead
before their second elections.
How do we explain this?
This happened despite FPTP or
because of FPTP?
The former implies that there is
something wrong with our society while the latter implies that there is
something wrong with the electoral system – at least it is incompatible with
our society.
What's wrong with our society?
There are again two possible
answers.
The first answer is the
authoritarian rule of the BN – from the Internal Security Act, Sedition Act,
media control, extensive patronage machine, to election manipulation. In other
words, a two-party system would have been possible if BN has ruled
democratically.
Following this line of reasoning is
that a two-party system will be established in Malaysia if there is a change of
government, which the next piece of this series aims to challenge.
The second answer is the pluralism
of Malaysian society – we are multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual, and
multicultural, – which pose a huge challenge to the Opposition to be
united.
This is similar to the ancient
premise – which can be traced back at least to the 19th century English
philosopher John Stuart Mills – that diversity is an obstacle to democracy.
Is this the case? We will shall come
back to this before this article ends.
Do we defy the logic of FPTP?
What about the electoral system?
Does the uniqueness of Malaysia simply defy the logic of FPTP?
Built on the work of Duverger,
contemporary American political scientist Gary Cox links the number of viable
parties in a constituency to its magnitude, or the number of seats within the
constituency.
Cox argues, while a society may
produce as many parties as the number of socio-political groups it has, voters
in a constituency will only support up to the M+1th party/contestants if they
can rank all the parties/contestants by their estimated vote share.
Hence, since M in the FPTP system is
1, voters will support up to only the top two parties, because the votes for
the 3rd, 4th… nth parties will not have any chance to be translated into any
seat.
Taking this formal explanation of
strategic voting beyond the constituency level, Cox further argues that the
national party system is determined not by the legislative electoral system,
but by the executive electoral system.
In presidential systems, because the
magnitude is naturally 1, it produces a two-party system. Within parliamentary
systems, if the office of prime minister is as powerful as that of a president,
as in the case of single-party governments, then it will also produce two-party
systems.
However, if the executive power is
shared, and the prime minister is not dominant, as in the case of coalition
governments, it will produce multi-party systems.
Has Cox's theory failed us
completely? Not so if we divide West Malaysian politics into two
constituencies: Malays and non-Malays.
The Malay politics was basically a
two-party system between Umno and PAS, for 42 out of 53 years from 1955 to
2008, safe for the four years PAS joined BN (1974-1977) and the six years when
Tengku Razaleigh's S46 existed as the alternative Malay opposition party
(1990-1996).
Anwar's Parti Keadilan was not a
match to PAS before 2008 as it won less than one fifth of PAS' seats.
The non-Malay politics was also
basically a two-party system between DAP and Umno's satellite parties from 1974
(after Gerakan and PPP joined BN) to 2008. Even after 2008, PKR is no match to
DAP in commanding the Chinese support.
The question is then: why didn't PAS
and DAP join force right from 1978, when both were the leading Opposition
parties for the first time, winning 35% of popular votes between them? We would
have had a two-party system 30 years before 2008!
Are ideologies or institutions at
work?
Are we cursed by our diversity? Not
really. In 2006-7, Malaysia was torn by the thorniest religious disputes:
demolition of temples, cases of "body snatching", disputed conversion
of minors, fears of apostasy, but none of these stopped PAS from working closely
with Hindraf and the political tsunami from happening in 2008.
Those who place too much importance
on ideology should remember the words of wisdom of Anthony Downs, who authored An
Economic Theory of Democracy: "Parties formulate policies in order to
win elections rather than win elections in order to formulate policies."
In other words, the difference
between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola is only important for marketing purposes.
So, if not ideology, what held back
the two-party system in Malaysia for so long before 2008? Will it hold back the
two-party system even after a change of government?
Attached to Penang Institute, Wong Chin Huat is a
political scientist by training and a political activist by choice. He believes
that like it or not, we are witnesses to history. We can choose to shape it or
be shaped by it.
This article is part of a series on electoral
reforms written by Wong. Watch out for the next instalment on Friday, July 12.
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