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The Dynamics of Coercion in the Malaysian Political Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Simon Barraclough
Simon Barraclough
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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Extract

The study of coercion and how it is applied within a political system is useful for a number of reasons. As a strategy of control and management it is in itself worthy of investigation. Moreover, an examination of how coercion is applied can tell us much about the nature of a particular polity. Indeed, as Weber emphasized, the state itself is distinguished from other political systems to the extent that it successfully upholds the claim to the legitimate application of force. The willingness of a regime to use coercion against opponents or dissidents, or to regulate the political participation of the ordinary citizenry, has a direct bearing upon such questions as human rights, democratic values, authoritarianism, and the degree of consensus within a given polity.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , October 1985 , pp. 797 - 822
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

This article includes material gathered during fieldwork conducted in Malaysia in the period 1980–81. In the course of this fieldwork a number of Government Ministers and MPs, as well as opposition figures were interviewed. All opinions and any errors of fact are solely the responsibility of the author. The author wishes to thank Mrs Sue Harris for her assistance in preparing the typescript.

1 Since our study concentrates upon the legally-sanctioned political process, the question of the coercion of members of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) will only be alluded to indirectly.

2 The term ‘regime’ is not used here in a pejorative sense but rather to describe the dominant political entity which, as either the Alliance Party or in its subsequently expanded form—the Barisan Nasional—has ruled the country since independence. The ruling party enjoys such a close identification with the actual government that at times it is difficult to separate the two entities—hence the choice of the term ‘regime’.

3 Gould, J. and Kolb, W. L., A Dictionary of the Social Sciences (New York: The Free Press, 1964) p. 99.Google Scholar

4 Bayles, Michael, ‘A Concept of Coercion’ in Pennock, J. Roland and Chapman, John W. (eds), Coercion, Nomos XIV, Yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (Chicago: Aldine, 1972), p. 17.Google Scholar

5 Excluded from the scope of this study are the isolated cases of the use of coercion within the ranks of the ruling party as an element of factional conflict. For some perceptive insights into this aspect of UMNO's internal politics see Crouch, Harold, ‘The UMNO Crisis 1975–1977’ in Crouch, Harold, Hing, Lee Kam, and Ong, Michael (eds), Malaysian Politics and the 1978 Election (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1980), esp. pp. 20et seq.Google Scholar

6 In 1981 the FRU numbered some 1,300 personnel and the Field Force 5,800. The 1980 figure for the army was 52,500. In the same year RELA was estimated to have a strength of 200,000, a figure which appears somewhat inflated. Under the Fourth Malaysia Plan both police and army numbers are to be dramatically increased although the effects of economic recession might cause this expansion to be modified.

7 Correspondence between Tunku Rahman, Abdul and DrChye, Toh Chin quoted in Gullick, J. H., Malaysia and Its Neighbours (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 170.Google Scholar In an interview with the present writer, the Tunku recalled his anger with a number of opposition leaders in Parliament, in particular the Seenivasagem brothers and Dr Tan Chee Khoon. However, he maintained his belief that they had a duty to perform and it would have been morally wrong to seek to use his powers as Prime Minister to silence them by threats of coercion. Interview, Penang, 1980.

8 Shafie, M Ghazali, National Developments in Southeast Asian Countries: Towards National Resilience (Kuala Lumpur: 12 05, 1977) (Roneo duplicate), p. 8.Google Scholar

9 ‘Manifesto of the National Patriotic Youth and Student Movement (Gepatriot), December 1977’ in The Communist Party of Malaya: Selected Documents (Southeast Asia Documentation Group, n.d. (1979?)), p. 33.Google Scholar

10 In recent years the Malaysian Government has vigorously reimposed the death penalty for the possession of firearms and ammunition.

11 For an indication of these activities—especially in the wake of events in Iran's revolution—see Kraar, Louis, ‘The Multinationals Get Smarter About Political Risks’, Fortune, vol. 10:6, 24 03 1980.Google Scholar

12 See, for example, the comments on Islamic revival in the Quarterly Review of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Second Quarter, 1980, The Economist Intelligence Unit, p. 5.Google Scholar

13 New Straits Times, 1 December 1980.Google Scholar

14 See United Nations, Yearbook on Human Rights for 1973–4 (United Nations, New York, 1977), p. 301.Google Scholar

15 Straits Times (Singapore), 8 07 1980.Google Scholar

16 Interview by Times [sic] Magazine of Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie on 13 January 1977, (Cyclostat statement issued by the Malaysian High Commission, Singapore, 8 March 1977).

17 Laws of Malaysia, Internal Security Act 1960 (Revised 1972).Google Scholar

18 For published accounts of detentions see Ishak, Abdul Aziz, Special Guest: The Detention in Malaysia of an Ex-Cabinet Minister (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; and Wain, Barry, ‘Knock in the Night’ in Lipsky, Seth (ed.), The Billion Dollar Bubble and Other Stories from the Asia Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones, Hong Kong, 1978).Google Scholar See also Bar Council, States of Malaya, Memorandum of Internal Security Act, 24 February 1979.

19 Statement by Deputy Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Syed Ahmad Shahabuddin reported in the Star, 11 March 1979. This was corroborated by the description of Taiping Camp given by detainees interviewed by this writer.

20 DPP stands for ‘Deputy Public Prosecutor’.

21 See Societies (Amendment) Act 1981, Section 2.

22 For example, see Inspector-General Tan Sri Mohamad Haniff bin Omar's criticisms of the behaviour of opposition parties at the 1969 General Elections in his paper ‘National Security and the Layman’, Pengaman (Magazine of the Royal Malaysian Police), April/06 1975, pp. 82–5.Google Scholar

23 For a complete text of the statement see New Straits Times, 15 February 1977.Google Scholar

24 See Straits Times (Singapore), 14 02 1977.Google Scholar

25 See, for example, the remarks of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police during the 1978 General Elections, New Straits Times, 7 June 1978.Google Scholar

26 Permits are usually granted but strict conditions imposed. DAP MPP. Patto gave as an example, that at one DAP dinner attended by over 1,000 guests, the police intervened to prevent more than one loudspeaker being used. Interview January 1980. Petaling Jaya.

27 For example, in early 1981 the MCA Youth Vanguard rally on the Kuala Lumpur Padang was dispersed by police.

28 Star, 28 May 1981.Google Scholar

29 Interview with Dr Syed Husin Ali, Kuala Lumpur, January 1981.

30 Interview with Abdul Razak Ahmad, Johore Baru, March 1980.

31 Straits Times (Singapore), 26 01 1970.Google Scholar

32 Ahmad, Zakaria bin Haji, ‘The Police and Political Development in Malaysia: Change, Continuity and Institution-Building of a “Coercive” Apparatus in a Developing Ethnically Divident Society’, Ph.D. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1977, p. 341.Google Scholar

33 Constitution (Amendment) Act 1981, Article 15.

34 Ibid., Clause 15(b). N.B. It is the Agong who summons sittings of the Parliament.

35 See the statement of former Home Affairs Minister Ghazali Shafic quoted in the Star, 14 April 1979.

36 A full text of the judgement is reproduced in the Star, 15 September 1979.

37 Straits Echo, 28 February 1972.Google Scholar

38 These emergencies related to Indonesian Confrontation (1964), the constitutional crisis in Sarawak (1966), the May 1969 riots, and the Kelantan crisis (1977).

39 For details of the legal argument see Ibrahim, Ahmad, ‘Power to Dismiss the Prime Minister or Chief Minister in Malaysia’, The Parliamentarian vol. 63: 1 (01 1977).Google Scholar

40 For a discussion of these legal points see Suffian, Tun Mohamed, An Introduction to the Constitution of Malaysia (2nd Edn, Kuala Lumpur, Government Printer, 1976), pp. 235ff.Google Scholar

41 Bedlington, Stanley S., Malaysia and Singapore: The Building of New States (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 140.Google Scholar

42 Dahl, Robert A., Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 200.Google Scholar Dahl has characterized polyarchies as ‘systems that offer the lowest barriers to the expression, organization, and representation of political preferences and have provided the widest array of opportunities for oppositions to contest the conduct of the government’. See Dahl, Robert A., ‘Governments and Oppositions’ in Greenstein, F. I. and Polsby, N. W. (eds), Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3 (Reading (Mass.): Addison Wesley, 1975), p. 129.Google Scholar

43 Nordlinger, Eric A., Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies (Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 11.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., p. 10.

45 Milne, R. S. and Mauzy, D. K., Politics and Government in Malaysia (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1978), pp. 354–5.Google Scholar

46 Lijphart, Arend, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 153.Google Scholar

47 Southeast Asian Chronicle, Issue No. 72 (April 1980), p. 7 (emphasis added).Google Scholar