Having been a broadcast political journalist from 1999 to 2005 in a public broadcast network in Kuala Lumpur, I have been exposed to the challenges of news reporting, be it parliamentary reporting or government related news coverage. Practising a journalistic career in Malaysia is often constrained by the censorship policies of the Ministry of Information. The accepted practice for many years has been that news has to be in favour of, or promote, the government’s policies and welfare. I left broadcast journalism in 2005 and became a journalism academic teaching subjects such as ‘Issues in Modern Malaysia’. My professional interest in the local political events encouraged me to observe the country’s political challenges. I discussed examples of contemporary cases of important political events in lectures. From 2006 onwards, I noted a wide range of commentaries criticising the government on blogs. The government ordered a clampdown on websites posting these commentaries. During this period, large rallies and protests (Bersih and Hindraf) occurred in the country, gaining world attention. Online, political disclosures occurred through the INP, Malaysiakini.com. Various forms of government anomalies were exposed in online media, such as abuses of power, corruption cases, sex scandals, cronyism, misconduct in the judicial system and mishandling of religious matters – issues neglected by mainstream media, operating under government influence and tight legal restrictions. Continued disruptions also affected the economy and the cost of living in urban areas increased. Oil prices rose along with unemployment. As a result of disappointment with the Barisan Nasional (BN) government and frustrations about bread-butter issues, rallies and protests sparked a more varied public agenda.
One of the biggest public rally movements was the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih 1.0), which held its first public protest on 10 November 2007. It was conceived of as a movement for electoral reform and the fair conduct of elections. The government was reported to have mishandled this rally by using water cannons and tear gas. The actions were condemned by many Malaysians and the international media. Many then connoted similar treatment was later given to another large-scale rally movement, the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), organised by the Malaysian-Indian ethnic community to pressure for equal rights and opportunities for the minority groups. The rally took place on 25 November 2007, in order to submit a petition to the British High Commission against the ruling government. Two months later, Malaysia’s federal Parliament was dissolved on 13 February 2008, in accordance with the country’s rules on national elections. Thus a campaigning period was declared on the 24 February 2008, and 8 March 2008 was set as the 12th Malaysia GE2008. The ruling government experienced an unexpected upset by losing 5 out of 13 states to the Opposition and almost losing its two-thirds majority in the Parliament. The GE2008 result was a watershed moment for the country, with increased support for the Opposition parties (DAP, PKR and PAS). A resurgence of PR (Pakatan Rakyat/People’s Alliance Party) followed, and Anwar Ibrahim’s popularity grew at the time. Civil society and NGO’s movements also grew. These were mostly young and middle-class people vocal and active in presenting the people’s problems and networking strongly with Malaysiakini.com. Throughout this election, Malaysiakini.com was viewed to start gaining a huge popularity as compared to the mainstream media based on the media consumption at the time.
After I left Malaysia in 2009 for further study, I read about rallies and protests in Malaysia, from Bersih 1.0 to Bersih 2.0 in 2011, Bersih 3.0 in 2012 and Bersih 4.0 in 2015. These represented a shock wave of changes illustrating how people’s determination to express their political opinions towards the government was gaining momentum. Reports of these events indirectly portrayed the INP, Malaysiakini.com, as playing a very important part in igniting social and political mobilisation in Malaysia. The GE2013 result confirmed that political events are continuing to demonstrate that what began in GE2008 is still developing. Both elections were watershed moments for Malaysia and the implications of the outcome of the 12th General Election result. The General Election held on 8 March 2008 drew the country’s highest voter turnout, with 8.2 million out of 10.7 million registered voters voting (Utusan Malaysia, 10 March 2008a). The BN government, a coalition of 14 primarily ethnically based political parties, was predicted to win as they had done in the past 11 general elections since independence in 1957. But this did not occur with the success expected. One popular argument used by many scholars who reflected on events at the time (Leong, 2009; Lim, 2009: Mohamad, 2008; Moten, 2009; Surin, 2010) to explain the setback was that contemporary events did not favour the BN government. The public had witnessed a series of large street protests in the city of Kuala Lumpur organised by a few groups with diverse agendas. Such events had not been seen since the late 1990s, particularly in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis and the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim, the BN’s Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) in 1998. The latter event had sparked the Reformasi among Malaysians, a movement initiated by Anwar’s supporters in opposition to the former PM, Mahathir, which took the form of street demonstrations and rallies. The most important and largest protests were organised by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih 1.0), a coalition of NGOs, which held its protest on 10 November 2007. This was followed by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a Malaysian-Indian NGO representing the Malaysian ethnic Indians, which held a rally on 25 November 2007. There, thousands of Indians protested against the BN government, which was alleged to be ignoring the minority group and had fuelled their anger by putting down their temples. After the rally, this group demanded the release of Hindraf’s leaders, detained under the Internal Security Act 1972 (ISA). This act was later replaced by the controversial Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Federal Government Gazette 2012a).
Despite strict media regulation, the lack of Internet censorship in Malaysia meant that the public could watch these street demonstrations online. They witnessed media coverage showing how the authorities released tear gas and chemical-laced water cannons at the Bersih and Hindraf protesters, and these actions were evaluated by the public as a mishandling of a distress by the authorities. Many images also emerged showing demonstrators suffering from the chemicals. These images were captured by Malaysiakini.com and videos were uploaded on the video-sharing website, YouTube. Meanwhile, the government-owned mainstream media was pictured blaming the damage to public infrastructure on the demonstrators in Kuala Lumpur and for disrupting traders’ daily businesses. The Bersih and Hindraf rallies proved to be a critical intervention in political culture and media practitioners pointed out their importance in their interviews.
There was deepening public dissatisfaction caused by rising fuel prices, high-profile cases of clampdowns on vocal critics, particularly socio-political bloggers, who were critical of the BN’s personalities, such as Nathaniel J. Tan. Tan, a blogger at http://Jelas.info/, was arrested under the OSA on 17 July 2007 (O’Brien 2007). Raja Petra Kamaruddin, editor of malaysia-today.net, a political blog, was detained under the ISA on 12 September 2008 for posting anti-government comments (Walker 2008). In fact, arrests of bloggers have continued, with the latest case being the arrest of Syed Abdullah Syed Hussein Al-Attas, under the OSA, for insulting one of the country’s royals, the Sultan of Johor, through his blog, uncleseekers.blogspot.com (Herald Sun, 7 July 2012). Furthermore, a few months before GE2008, Opposition supporters revealed a grainy video clip of a senior lawyer, V.K. Lingam, allegedly trying to fix the appointments of ‘friendly’ judges (Anand, 2007), which appeared to reveal inequities supported by the members of country’s judiciary. The minority groups, especially the Chinese, were influenced by current issues such as the heavy-handed responses to a YouTube video parody of the national anthem made in 2007 by Wee Meng Chee, a Chinese ethnic student who wove the Negaraku – the national anthem – into a Chinese language rap critical of the BN government and of the Malays, the primary ethnic group in Malaysia. However, the ethnic Indian group’s response towards the Hindraf rally may be the biggest factor in explaining the widespread rejection of the BN at the time. In an interview conducted as part of this study, a minority group journalist respondent from a Tamil mainstream newspaper noted that Indian ethnic votes for the BN government dropped from 82 per cent in the 2004 election to 47 per cent in 2008 due to the Hindraf issue. The minority group’s deterioration of support to the BN government can be seen as a result of its growing political consciousness and as a response to the government’s mishandling of the rally with violence added to the discontent. The collective effect of these actions made the BN appear to be out of touch with the people and prepared to do anything to preserve its power. The public’s partial rejection of the BN, clearly evident in the limited victory in the GE2008 result, was perceived as forceful and unexpected and described as a ‘political tsunami’ (Asli, 2008; The Star, 9 March 2008a). It was the BN’s worst performance in Malaysia’s electoral history (Oorjitham, 2008; Sani, 2009; Welsh, 2008).
The BN government led by former PM Abdullah Badawi at the time was effectively challenged for the first time by the Opposition, the PR, resulting in close voting margins. Although the BN won a majority, it was a mere 51.2 per cent of the 2008 vote compared with 64 per cent in the 2004 polls, while the Opposition improved its performance from 9 per cent to 37 per cent (Kuppuswamy, 2008). This resulted in the BN managing to retain its power with fewer seats in the House of Representatives (140), while the Opposition won the remaining 82. The BN not only almost lost the long-held two-thirds majority in the Parliament, but 5 of 13 state legislatures were now controlled by the Opposition, including the wealthiest states of Selangor (where Putrajaya, the BN’s administrative capital, is located) and Penang (home state of the former PM). Further, BN lost several major stalwarts of its coalition, including the seats of three full ministers, two chief ministers and several deputy ministers. One of the 14 member coalition parties, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) was completely wiped out in the election, something which had never happened before.
The GE2008 result was in sharp contrast to that of 2004, when the former PM Abdullah, in his first term, won 90.4 per cent of the parliamentary seats. The former PM, who was known as ‘Mr. Clean’, rode on a wave of enthusiasm left by the previous PM, Mahathir Mohamad, who had been in office for 22 years. Abdullah’s concept of administration was based on Islamic principles, ‘Islam Hadhari’. Islam Hadhari was launched in the BN manifesto in GE2004 to have two goals: first, ‘to situate the role of Islam and the Muslim ummah in the context of the development of the Malaysian economy’ and second, ‘to help bridge differences between Muslims and non-Muslims, thus serving to overcome racial polarisation that remained a serious problem in the country’ (Gomez, 2007, p. 145). His consultative approach was a welcome change from that of Mohamad, who was decisive but was also considered by many to be confrontational (Hamid & Ismail, 2012; Pepinsky, 2007). Yet from late 2007 onwards, there were speculation charges of favouritism and corruption linked to Abdullah’s son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, and his son, Kamaluddin Abdullah Badawi, which tarnished his ‘Mr. Clean’ image. His consultative approach was viewed as uncertain and slow. In addition, the former PM was photographed having fallen asleep in the Federal Parliament and UMNO party meetings, and the pictures were widely circulated on the Internet (Lim, 2009). All these factors being reported online about the BN government seemed to cause it to suffer the upset which surprised election observers.
The book’s argument draws on a close reading of the mainstream media and INP news during the campaigning period, combined with analysis of extensive interviews with media practitioners as election observers. It will be shown that there had been a change in the mindset of Malaysians, particularly in their perceived distrust of the government in power, associated with the increasingly active political participation evidence. The Opposition parties, through extensive utilisation of Internet communications, skilfully played on the BN government’s performance and weakness. Before the election, most of the Opposition parties’ leaders had their own social networks such as Tony Pua (www.facebook.com/MPTonyPua), Lim Kit Siang (www.limkitsiang.com) and Anwar Ibrahim (www.anwaribrahim.com), which discussed their political activities, government’s malpractices and their opinions on the government’s performance that to them was lacking in a way with regards to the developmental projects.
Oppositional strength arose from the unification of parties such as the PKR, DAP and PAS, which formed a coalition (the Pakatan Rakyat or People’s Alliance, PR) on 1 April 2008. After the GE2008, it became known as the Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front). Thus, this election indicated a new paradigm in the country’s politics, even though the Opposition’s performance had yet to be proven, and the new alliance might have been temporary or further changes in the future. The stability of the BN was also questioned (Nair, 2012; Sachsenroeder, 2013; Welsh, 2012). The question asked was: would it continue to encounter problems in fulfilling all the needs of ethnic constituents? In the parties in the BN coalition, explanations were sought. Despite his failure to deal with problems within his party, Abdullah acknowledged the emergence of the Internet and the insufficient utilisation of it as the main factor for the BN’s poor performance in the GE2008. On 9 March 2008, the New Straits Times quoted the former PM as saying: ‘We didn’t think it was important. It was a serious misjudgment…we thought newspapers, the print media, the television were important… (but) the influence of alternative media was painful’. Agence France-Presse on 25 March 2008 quoted him as saying: ‘We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber-war. It was a serious misjudgment. We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important’ (p. 1). This perception was confirmed by other sources. Contemporary coverage and research (Associated Press, 11 April 2008; Chongkittavorn, 2008; The Economist, 15 March 2008b) and interviews conducted with research respondents had indicated that the Internet was indeed a critical factor in the BN’s upset. Previously, Asli (2008) claimed that the Internet and blogs provided alternative information that could be downloaded, printed and distributed even to the kampungs (villages). The BN’s control of the mainstream media with government ownership of media and legal restrictions had led the public to start putting more trust on the Internet’s sources, particularly information obtained from the alternative news websites such as Malaysiakini.com. In a country where the mainstream media consistently reported ‘good news about government leaders and cooperation between races while promoting a single national identity’ (Lent, 1979; Sani, 2005), the credibility of mainstream media has been questioned by many scholars due to its failure to cover critical news about the BN government, including issues pertaining to nepotism, cronyism, corruption and the political elite’s business interests at the time (Kluver, Ho & Yang, 2003).
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The INP Malaysiakini.com is viewed by many to have become the main alternative voice in highlighting government weaknesses. Steele (2009, p. 93) confirmed that Malaysiakini.com subscriptions increased from the peri...
