Civil disobedience of the Malaysian Chinese voters

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country. Existing political parties tend to establish themselves within the ethnic line including Barisan Nasional which composed of United Malays National Organization (UMNO), Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), each representing the Malays, Chinese and Indian. Similar to Sabah and Sarawak, the BN components are represented by ethnic accordingly. This pattern of voters trend has changed among all ethnics since the general elections of 2008: the Malays, Chinese and Indian voters were no longer inclined to the BN alliance. Thus the 2008 election results may be taken as a form of civil disobedience, an expression of citizen dissatisfaction and protest against several issues pertaining to the ruling BN’s politics, economic policy, education, ethnic and religious matters. The question is, would such trend prevail? Focusing on voters trend in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur and the result of the 2011 Sarawak election, this paper examines the post 2008 election performance of Malaysian Chinese political parties, in particular, the DAP. The analysis saw that the Chinese voters would continue to contribute to the electoral success of the DAP as they seemed to have lost faith in the ability of the BN to look after their interests. As with the SUPP, the MCA was seen by the Malaysian Chinese voters as too moderate and too subservient to the dominant PBB and UMNO.