Party System Institutionalization and the 13th Malaysian Election

Political parties in Malaysia are relatively organized and stable in recent years with the apparent rise of two major coalitions of parties in domestic politics. The dominant political parties have the potential to launch a set of patterned interactions paving the way for stiff competition among the parties for giving rise to an efficient and viable electoral system. This paper investigates the institutionalization of political parties in Malaysia which represent ethnic groups in a multi-cultural context and their recent functions particularly in their respective political coalitions with a focus on 13th General Elections (GE). This work argues that political leaders of the dominant parties as well as other small parties have literally followed the rules shaping electoral contests during the 13th GE. Although opposition figures complained against the electoral rules that were being skewed heavily in favor of the ruling Barisan National (BN), eventually all the leaders have accepted the result of the general elections leading towards political stability in the country. This paper reveals that the political parties in Malaysia have rooted in multicultural society and at the same time they form alliances prior to elections securing support from women and youth wings as well as from civil society groups or NGOs to make them more credible by ensuring regular patterns of party competition.