Discursive Approaches to Politics in Malaysia

The lengthy years of the Perikatan (Alliance) and its successor Barisan Nasional (BN) administrations (1957–2018) gave Malaysia the opportunity to construct and mould the practice of democracy. Democracy is reflected through the existence of various political parties, the holding of regular elections under closely administered electoral processes, the upholding of rights and freedoms of the people to participate in party politics and civil society, the heated interactions among multi-ethnic citizens over mainstream and social media and the limited avenues provided by the law for the populace to express and display dissent. In Peninsular Malaysian politics, fault lines along the divisive racial and religious lines appear to dominate the discursive scene, with related issues over the role of Malay royalty trailing not too distantly behind. The past decade or so has seen political fortunes of the opposition, defined here as parties that oppose BN whether separately or together in coalitions during general elections, progressively improving, culminating in Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) trouncing of BN in the fourteenth general elections (GE14) in 2018. However, in Malaysian politics, elected politicians do not by themselves fill all political gaps. In uncertain times, as have prevailed in Malaysia since Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia’s (PPBM) betrayal of PH in February 2020, the Malay monarchy has become more important than ever in deciding who and which political coalition gets to form the country’s executive branch. This chapter presents an overview of how race, religion and royalty are routinely encountered in the country’s politics, particularly over the last decade.

Budget speeches are an overview of public economic initiatives and can anticipate revenues, expenditures, policies, and activities. These speeches enable a government to discursively legitimize economic competence. While legitimation can be achieved by the representation and evaluation of economic initiatives, intertextuality should also be analyzed because the use of voices helps or hinders legitimation. The chapter explores how the Barisan Nasional (BN) government legitimized its economic competence through intertextual voicing. It outlines the source and engagement of voices and operationalizes a method that involves five sequential stages. The chapter analyzes an archive of Malaysian federal budget speeches from 2010 to 2018. The analysis discloses various instances of intertextual voicing because the speeches articulate voices in economics, politics, and religion. The choice of voices is shaped by the Malaysian context. Intertextual voicing legitimizes BN through moralization and authorization. The voices can be considered as voices of economic competence because economic, political, and religious voices discursively legitimize actions and decisions for the economy. Intertextual voicing serves ideological purposes because it perpetuates government economic agency. In budget speeches, BN promotes itself as indispensable to Malaysian development, and it should consequently continue to govern the country. These speeches then become part of the genres that validate BN.

Although on opposing political spectrums, Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH) legitimised their presence through several vocational roles. These roles were not overtly mentioned, but their use can be unveiled by a conceptual metaphor analysis. This chapter analyses eleven supply bills or better known to Malaysians as budget speeches presented by two Ministers of Finance, Najib Razak (2010–2018) from BN and Lim Guan Eng (2019–2020) from PH. The analysis was informed by conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and membership categorisation analysis (Sacks, 1995). Whilst BN constructed 39 vocational roles for itself, PH had 16 roles. The two coalitions share a preference for certain roles, such as GOVERNMENT IS GENERAL/SOLDIER and GOVERNMENT IS DOCTOR, but BN also favours GOVERNMENT IS CAPTAIN. Both BN and PH legitimise their governance by representing themselves as hero-like-authoritative figures who can handle multiple vocational roles. These roles are played out in narratives highlighting the government’s authority, value systems and ideologies.

Tamil vernacular schools provide access to education and career opportunities for Indian Malaysians. Tamil schools are perceived to be an important component of Indian minority rights, an avenue for the Tamil-speaking community to establish and institutionalize their language and cultural identity. However, the government reduced its allocation for these schools in the 2021 budget. Indian political leaders, shouldering the responsibility to channel the discontent among Indians, have raised concerns on various platforms, such as newspapers, social media, and television interviews. It is imperative to observe how Indian political leaders prioritize minority rights while preserving their own or parties’ political interests. Politicians utilize rhetoric to influence the public, but few studies are conducted on the political discourse of Indian Malaysians. This chapter studies an interview in Vizhuthugal-Samugathin Kural, a Tamil talk show televised on Astro Vaanavil. Grounded in discourse studies, this chapter analyzes the (de)legitimizing strategies used by two prominent Indian politicians from MIC and DAP. Although the two parties hold opposite ideologies, this chapter highlights their similarities in advocating minority rights for Indian Malaysians.

The media in Malaysia have long been controlled by censorship laws, and media bias has long been identified as a key hindrance to progressive discussion in the public sphere, as the government traditionally controls the media. The former Pakatan Harapan (PH) government made media reform promises in their election manifesto, which covered the repeal of laws deemed oppressive and a threat to free speech, and importantly, the support for self-regulation mechanisms through a media council. The Malaysian Media Council (MMC) was formed in December 2019 with 17 pro-tem committee members. Yet, the future of media reform is uncertain because systemic barriers remain. Besides the continued existence of censorship laws, some media organisations retain patronage by political parties and different sectors of society have distinct expectations of policy outcomes. Moreover, the fate of media reform is unclear after the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government came to power in late February 2020. This chapter employs a content analysis of press releases and news articles, supplemented by participant observation, to explore the legitimation of media reform. It first provides an overview of progress on media reform, and then analyses the challenges and barriers faced by members of the MMC and activists who fight for media reform. This chapter suggests that Malaysia is expected to continue to witness policies that limit media freedom rather than those that pursue media reform.

This chapter analyses how multilingual mainstream Malaysian newspapers reported the Tanjung Piai by-election of November 2019. The Tanjung Piai parliamentary seat became vacant after the death of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) Member of Parliament. Barisan Nasional (BN) held the seat previously but lost it to PH in the 2018 general elections. This by-election was important because it indicated the people’s confidence in PH and the Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad. This chapter uses framing theory to explain how the media structure their delivery of news, promoting interpretations of events by selecting certain facts. Frames appearing in the media are important when they resonate with the audience’s strongly held perceptions. Articles in Harian Metro, Malaysiakini, The Star and Sin Chew Daily are analysed to determine the intensity of coverage, the predominant sources, the frames and the valence of the articles towards PH and Mahathir Mohamad. The analysis reveals that BN’s resounding victory is a strong indication of the people’s disappointment with the government and their efforts at reforms. The voters protested PH with an intention to ‘teach it a lesson’ by voting for BN’s candidate.

This chapter focuses on discursive strategies of legitimation in mainstream Malay-language newspapers during the 13th and 14th general election campaigns. It analyses how editorials and columns published in Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia constructed arguments during the campaign periods from 20 April to 4 May 2013 and 28 April to 8 May 2018. The chapter examines how particular relations of power were enacted, reproduced and legitimised within Malaysia’s government-owned mainstream media, where control was institutionalised. To contextualise and illuminate the discursive and social practices of both campaigns, the analysis is grounded in the discourse-historical approach’s conception of argumentation and pragma-dialectics’ ten rules for rational dispute and constructive arguing. This chapter, therefore, looks at the argumentation strategies employed in editorials and columns serving as a methodical justification of validity claims reflected linguistically using speech acts. The findings demonstrate the politics of fear that characterises much of Malaysian right-wing rhetoric, particularly how fear of the future was employed by Barisan Nasional as it struggled to maintain and retain legitimacy during both campaigns.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a treaty endorsed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1965. It advocates ending discrimination based on ethnicity and prohibiting the circulation of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred towards ethnic origin. Malaysia is one of the 14 member states that has not ratified ICERD. When the Pakatan Harapan government announced a review of the treaty in October 2018, it sparked a series of protests expressing resentment, predominantly by political and religious leaders, although the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) explained that ratification of ICERD would help to mould a united Malaysia. This chapter aims to unpack how articles in mainstream English language newspapers discursively represent the sentiments of the various parties for and against ICERD. Employing the dialectical relational approach, and premised upon membership categorisation and identity politics, this chapter studies New Straits Times and The Star and unveils the interplay of racial, social, and political voices and the justifications for the positions taken. The findings indicate that ICERD is largely constructed by social actors using the discourses of fear, threat, and discrimination against the Bumiputeras, who seemingly would be undermined by the minorities. These are discursively manifested in hypothetical forms through the use of conditionals and modality as well as overlexicalisation of vocabulary to intensify the tone of extremity. The debates on ICERD employing the discourses of identity politics seem to be for political gains rather than for the interest of equality and human rights for all Malaysians.

This chapter examines the (de)legitimation strategies that women’s movement organisations in Malaysia use to advance their policy and issue demands. Sustained pressure from activists has been important to get the state to implement reforms to improve women’s rights in this country. One of the frequent means by which they delegitimise the decisions and practices of the state and claim legitimacy for their own change agendas is through media statements which are widely published and reported in the mainstream press. This case study explores the strategies employed in English language media statements released by the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality, the Women’s Aid Organisation, and the All Women’s Action Society. More specifically, it focuses on statements pertaining to one of the key areas that the groups advocate, namely women’s right to safe, healthy, and gainful employment. Using frameworks on discursive (de)legitimation and social actor representation, this chapter examines the various ways the organisations frame and assess legislation, policies, and political actions that impact the experiences and livelihood of working women. It distinguishes and analyses four main (de)legitimation strategies used in the press statements, which are (de)legitimation through authorisation, rationalisation, discourses of nation-building and discourses of women as victims. The chapter argues that these devices may be effective in shaping public opinion and gender governance outcomes if they are perceived as representing or promoting national interests but potentially constrained by culturally dominant discourses that marginalise feminist ways of thinking.

This chapter examines how a particular social event, Malaysia’s 2021 budget is reported in The Star Online. It aims to analyse the discourse surrounding the budget through use of corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS). Using corpus linguistic techniques, a specialised corpus is firstly compiled of the phrase ‘Budget 2021’ in The Star Online from one month before and after Parliament passed the budget on 26 November 2020. A total of 889 articles ranging from a number of sections (e.g. Nation, Letters, and Business) were identified from the website that resulted in 339,651 words. Standard corpus methods were employed namely, the investigation of frequency lists, collocational patterns as well as examining the corpus in more detail via concordance. Findings from the Budget 2021 corpus show patterns of how language is used to describe, explain as well as oppose a political issue like the national budget, which may influence how governance achieves legitimacy in the eyes of the public. It also reveals how discursive meanings can be viewed in a more systematic way.

On 18th March 2020, the Malaysian government enforced a movement control order (MCO) that required everyone to stay in their homes until 4th May 2020 to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. During this time, social media became not only a source of information for citizens but also the main space for their mediated social and public lives. Besides the hashtags #stayhome and #dudukrumah, the hashtag #KitaJagaKita started trending as netizens and civil society took the initiative to champion the proper enforcement of the MCO and safe distancing, as well as to find solutions for the shortage of medical safety equipment. This chapter presents findings from a discourse analysis on the discourses surrounding the hashtag #KitaJagaKita on Twitter and its use to (de)legitimise the Perikatan Nasional government and its leader, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. Pro-government netizens use the hashtag to represent the government as protecting citizens through its policies and guidelines, and fellow citizens, who adhere to the MCO, as partnering in this effort. Netizens who are less supportive of the government, however, argue that the government is not doing enough to protect citizens and healthcare workers. They use the hashtag to criticise government policies and a lack of decisiveness and speed in properly implementing the MCO. They also use the hashtag to rally citizens to take care of each other by fundraising and finding “better” solutions for healthcare workers.

The 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal is one of the most complex and widely reported scandals in the world as it involves a complicated web of financial transactions, business deals and other forms of transactions. The complexities of this scandal were first exposed by an online news portal called The Sarawak Report. Metaphors were extensively used by the primary writer, Clair Rewcastle Brown, to describe the scandal, which helps readers comprehend the magnitude of the scandal. The data used in this chapter come from 1MDB-related articles in The Sarawak Report blog. Critical metaphor analysis is used to identify, interpret, and explain the primary orientation of the conceptual metaphors found in the blog posts. This approach unpacks the metaphors used in context and reveals underlying meanings and motivations of surface level metaphors, helping readers to make connections between the subject matter and the concepts that are used to describe it. The analysis shows that the mixing of different concepts and analogies enable readers to understand the actions of the culprits, the act of money laundering, and the severity of the crime of corruption. This chapter demonstrates how metaphors can be used to make a complex and challenging issue easier to comprehend.