Japan’s Lessons for Malaysia

Malaysia has just embarked on its biggest post-independence experiment – rule by a political party not connected to Barisan Nasional (BN), the longtime ruling coalition led by the United Malays National Organization (UNMO). The landslide victory in May by the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) was a surprise to many both inside and outside the country.

“Malaysia is in a totally new environment. We were not prepared for this,” said Khairil Yusof, founder of the non-profit Sinar Project. “We were under the assumption that [Prime Minister] Najib [Razak] was going to win, and with the fake news laws, we were going to work under a more constrained environment after the elections.”

Yusof’s was a common belief, partly because the BN did nearly everything it could, short of ballot stuffing, to stack the election in its favor. Yet it did not work. The shocking outcome has been analyzed countless times by media, analysts, and pundits, but for Bala Chelliah, president of Global Bersih, it was the result of a mix of years of action and timing.

“It was a combination of many factors, a perfect storm,” said Chelliah. “For any change to happen, [you] have to have a perfect storm, and that’s what we saw in Malaysia on May 9.”

So what’s next? While many believe Malaysia is already a symbol of democratic hope for the world, others urge caution. Perhaps history can be a guide. The closest parallel comes from a country not too far away, Japan, which saw a similarly shocking electoral result not that long ago, one that quickly went sour. Though there are several caveats and key differences between the situations in the two countries, Japan’s recent political experience can still inform Malaysia’s new rulers as they chart the complicated path from a single-party state toward a stable, multiparty democracy.

Japan’s Short-Lived Spark

Like the BN, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had ruled the country for decades, almost non-stop since 1955, when it formed the first stable postwar government in Japan. Since then, it has shaped the country’s notoriously powerful bureaucracy in its image. For much of that time, Japan had a strong growing economy, but the LDP even managed to hold onto power years after Japan’s economy stagnated in the 1990s, showing their remarkable tenacity.

However, things changed in the early 2000s. In 2005, popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi led the LDP to a landslide victory. But when he stepped down in 2006, it marked a period of turmoil for the LDP, which would have three different prime ministers before the 2009 election. By then, the LDP was facing many challenges that might sound familiar to those who watched the Malaysian elections closely: a series of scandals, a bungled infrastructure project, and an arrogant prime minister, Taro Aso, who seemed out of touch with regular voters. And the combination led, as in Malaysia, to an electoral disaster for the long-time ruling party.

“2009 was a huge upset … it was the first time since the LDP had formed that it did not emerge as the largest party,” said Amy Catalinac, a professor and expert in Japanese domestic politics at New York University.

The defeat was staggering for the LDP. Tomoaki Iwai, a professor at Nihon University, told the New York Times in 2009 that “the party itself has grown obsolete,” and that the defeat could result in the dissolution of the LDP entirely, not too dissimilar to a sentiment some are expressing about the BN.

It was also, like Malaysia today, a time of hope and optimism, and a chance for the country to reform and bring new policies and ideas into the government under the aegis of the progressive Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

“They got a huge majority of seats. It was a landslide and it was the first time another party had ever done that well,” said Catalinac. “So the feeling was really optimistic and jubilant. People were very positive.”

Like Pakatan Harapan, the DPJ had made several big promises – the key ones being to reform the bureaucracy, move a controversial United States military base from Okinawa, and stop some of the LDP’s pet infrastructure projects.

As anyone who saw the hope and subsequent disappointment of leaders like Barack Obama in the United States, France’s Emmanuel Macron, or Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi knows, it’s harder to follow through with promises when in power than state them in opposition. Even by these standards, though, the DPJ showed itself unable to translate its large victory into any real change. The party failed keep nearly any of its major campaign promises, and showed a remarkable lack of discipline in leadership, breaking into factions and going through three prime ministers in just over three years.

“The first year in office was really critical for the DPJ,” said Catalinac. “They made quite a few mistakes, and then they lost the upper house election and were deprived of the majority in both houses, which made it more difficult to get policies passed.”

Another major factor was one that no party, or human, could control. In 2011, Japan was hit by its worst natural disaster in decades, the massive Tohoku earthquake and ensuing tsunami. While many of the emergency protocols and systems had been set when the LDP was in power, it was the DPJ that took the blame, further showing the Japanese public their incompetence at ruling.

“The LDP is lucky they weren’t in power then,” said Catalinac, “but by that time, the public had already lost faith in the DPJ, so it just compounded things.”

Meanwhile, the LDP proved to be a surprisingly competent and unified opposition party, and put themselves in a position to take advantage of the DPJ’s failure to follow through on its campaign promises. In 2012, early elections were called, and under the leadership of Shinzo Abe, the LDP returned to power, winning a massive landslide that was a near-full reversal of the 2009 results. It took less than four years for the hope and optimism of 2009 to turn into more of the same.

Could Malaysia follow in Japan’s footsteps?

The Mahathir Factor

There is one key difference in Malaysia – the role of former BN prime minister-turned-opposition leader Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, as a soon to be 94-year-old caretaker leader with no political ambitions of his own.

“Mahathir is only going to be there for one or two years,” said Chew Chuan Yang, documentation and monitoring coordinator at the Malaysian NGO Suaram but speaking to The Diplomat in a personal capacity. “To me, I don’t like him, but I will give him the benefit of doubt as he is near the end of his life. He, I think, will have some degree of sincerity.”

In fact, Yang thinks that this might have actually worked out better for Malaysia than had the opposition won in 2013, as many had then hoped. In that election, the BN lost the popular vote but was able to keep its parliamentary majority due the greater weight of rural Malay voters, its then-electoral base. But could then-leader Anwar Ibrahim really have held the opposition together if he had only a slender majority? Five years later, a larger majority and a stronger, respected leader puts the PH in a better position to succeed in its first year, unlike the DPJ in Japan.

The key moment, then, may not be what happens in the next year or so, during Mahathir's caretaker, transition role. It will be how the PH stays together when it no longer has such a widely respected leader at the helm. By its very nature, the PH is an unwieldy coalition, made up of the more center-left Democratic Action Party, the more Islamist-oriented Amanah, and two other smaller parties. They united in opposition to the BN, and remain united under Mahathir, but will they stick together after he departs?

That is why, for Malaysia, the transition from Mahathir to, as many expect, former PH leader Anwar Ibrahim, will be one worth watching, but even more important could be who follows him. After all, both Mahathir and Anwar are former BN leaders themselves. Malaysia might have an opposition government, but it has not yet had a leader not connected to the BN machine.

“The people who follow after Mahathir, they will have political considerations,” said Yang. “This system that the former regime ran has always benefited those in power. Is that really going to change? I may start having doubts about that.”

Failure could result in a scenario that is unthinkable today, but seemed similarly distant back in Japan in 2009: the return to de facto one-party rule. Japan is once again LDP land, and the party is in a stronger position today than ever in its recent history. The failure of the DPJ and its eventual break up leaves Japan essentially without a unified opposition.

“I think the LDP will continue to win elections,” said Catalinac. “I am not convinced that a strong opposition party is going to emerge again in the near future.” Even the current scandal engulfing Abe over the links between his wife and a Japanese private school operator could result in his own fall, but may not impact the LDP as a whole. Could the BN, or UNMO, make a comeback sans the tainted legacy of Najib, who looks certain to face charges over the 1MDB scandal?

Whatever happens, for the PH, Japan provides a cautionary tale. It took Malaysians six decades to give the opposition a chance, and even then it took an ideal, perhaps irreplicable mix of circumstances to allow it to happen. If they fail, who knows how long it will be until they take that risk again?

One thing is clear though, and it is something Japan’s opposition knows all too well — it takes more than a single electoral victory to build a multiparty democracy. If Malaysia can do that, then it will have something truly special to show the world.