A New Balance: The Chinese Vote in the 1999 Malaysian General Election

Abstract

This paper looks in detail at the performance of the three main Chinese-based political parties in Peninsular Malaysia in the 1999 Malaysian general election. They are the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Gerakan (Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, or Malaysian People's Movement Party), which are members of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN), or National Front, coalition, and the Democratic Action Party (DAP), the only Chinese-based opposition party in the Barisan Alternatif (BA), or Alternative Front, coalition. While conventional wisdom suggests that there was a significant swing of Chinese votes towards the government, this paper argues that there was no swing, and that the Chinese voting pattern in 1999 was broadly similar to that of the 1995 general election, confirming that the 1995 Chinese vote marked a permanent shift in the pattern of Chinese voting.