Malaysia’s 2022 General Election: Crafting Power in a Crowded Arena

Malaysia’s 2022 General Election: Crafting Power in a Crowded Arena
Lee Hwok Aun, Francis E Hutchinson, editors
Date of publication:  2026
Publisher:  ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
Number of pages:  456
Code:  PIC309
Soft Cover
ISBN: 9789815306378
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About the publication

This edited volume of essays, written by twenty-four established and emerging scholars, is the first—and an ambitious—attempt to study Malaysia’s 2022 general election. That most complex election ever was held under exceptional circumstances. Voters were tired of high-level corruption, exhausted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and angered by past regimes’ failures to fix an inflationary economy. The politics of the election were unsettling. Malay politics, once a key source of stability, was badly fragmented. Voters also had to confront manipulated ethnoreligious tensions and simmering regionalist divisions. The electoral outcomes were ambiguous: a hung parliament and the eventual rule of an Anwar Ibrahim–led coalition of coalitions. Neither result showed a party, coalition or personality that had sufficient authority to undertake the clearly needed reforms of Malaysian political economy and society. Malaysia’s 2022 General Election: Crafting Power in a Crowded Arena explores the electoral campaigns and their results in various states from many personal and interest group perspectives. This book boldly offers insights into what the 2022 general election was and where it will take Malaysia. 
—Khoo Boo Teik
Professor Emeritus, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo
Author of Paradoxes of Mahathirism and Anwar Ibrahim: Tenacious in Dissent, Hopeful in Power

Malaysia’s 2022 General Election: Crafting Power in a Crowded Arena assembles a truly stellar lineup of academic experts as well as political candidates themselves for a novel and insightful examination of a pivotal Malaysian election. Approachable and astute, the volume explores themes of polarization, fluidity and instability as these shaped the political landscape in 2022. The political uncertainty and economic precarity of that time are essential parts of the story, as several chapters highlight, in the wake of both partisan upheaval and pandemic—and hence both public gratitude for Covid relief and frustration with the dislocation and hardship so many experienced. Salient and disruptive, too, were the entry of millions of new voters, thanks to newly enacted automatic registration and a reduction in the voting age, and shifting media habits across generations. Intervening subnational elections in several states, in both Peninsular and East Malaysia, had hinted at voters’ leanings, but political players and observers risked over-projecting ephemeral trends and state-specific dynamics onto the national canvas. The contributions collected here each offer deep dives into specific dimensions and campaigns, including first-hand perspectives. Yet, taken together, the volume offers insight into the Malaysian polity as a whole, germane beyond any one election.
—Meredith Weiss
Professor of Political Science, University at Albany
Author of The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia

Hung parliament! The first in Malaysia’s history, it deserves this twenty-one-chapter book—an incisive and timely contribution to the evolving scholarship on Malaysian politics. With sharp analysis and rich contextual depth provided by a group of political scientists and Malaysian politicians, the book unpacks the shifting alliances, enduring structures, emerging fractures, global pandemic effects, and great hopes that have shaped the country’s political landscape since GE2022. This volume not only captures the significance of recent electoral outcomes contributing to the establishment of Kerajaan Perpaduan (Unity Government), but it also draws compelling connections to the seismic changes and political tussles since GE2018. Essential reading for practitioners, scholars, analysts and anyone seeking to understand the complexities of power, reform and resilience in Malaysia’s democratic trajectory.
—Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani
Professor of Politics and International Relations, Universiti Utara Malaysia
Author of Islam and Religious Expression in Malaysia

Contents

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