Introduction: Revisiting GE12 and Implications for GE13

Malaysia’s election in 2008, in seeming to inaugurate a change of regime, quickly became one of contemporary Southeast Asia’s most studied. For decades beforehand, Malaysia had operated a hybrid regime type, characterized by electoral authoritarianism and a single party dominant system. More specifically, civil liberties remained tightly constrained, while elections, though permitting meaningful levels of competitiveness, were seriously manipulated. Accordingly, the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) government, centered by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), was regularly returned to power. But with at least some uncertainty over outcomes persisting, Barisan gained some legitimating cover, thereby more efficiently obtaining compliance from citizens than under more closed forms of authoritarianism.