Preface

Summary

This is a book I had always wanted to write but had to keep on hold for one reason or another. Arguably, as a “work in progress”, it has been coterminous with my career as, first, a journalist, then as a lecturer and professor, as a senior research fellow and finally as an independent scholar.

Majoring in political science at the University of Singapore in the mid-1960s predisposed me to the intricacies of Malaysian politics and its discontents. Then working as a young journalist in the New Straits Times around the time of the May 1969 riots confirmed my belief that studying politics was a vocation I could not elude, which in turn no doubt spurred my desire to pursue graduate studies in political science at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver from 1970 to 1976. However, at UBC I was drawn to develop my main field of interest in international relations and to write my doctoral thesis on Malaysia's foreign policy. Thus my interest in electoral politics remained on the back burner, but, in truth, it never waned. Malaysian political developments seemingly climaxed during my years as a lecturer at Universiti Sains Malaysia (Penang) and, with my colleague Francis Loh, I put together a book on the emergence of new politics during the 1999 general election. The term, new politics, a corollary of the Reformasi Movement, has now earned considerable currency in the Malaysian studies literature. It has been associated with the wave of democratization in Malaysia that saw the salutary engagement of ordinary citizens in the electoral process alongside an unprecedented level of political activism.

New politics in no small way brought about the outcome of the landmark 2008 general election which saw the ruling coalition lose for the first time its two-thirds majority of seats in Parliament. During my second year at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (now known as the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute), I analysed the outcome of this election together with Ooi Kee Beng and Lee Hock Guan in a book published that same year, and wrote many op eds and several articles about its impact.