Coalition Rule by Pakatan Harapan, 2018- 2020: Key Consociational Lessons
This article reassesses Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) 2018–2020 experience through Lijphart’s consociational framework. A qualitative approach is applied, triangulating semi-structured elite interviews with documentary sources and news reports. Findings show that PH built a broad grand coalition across et...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
IIUM Press
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/50126/1/2388-Article%20Text-6237-7107-10-20251030.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/50126/ https://journals.iium.edu.my/intdiscourse/index.php/id/article/view/2388 https://doi.org/10.31436/id.v33i3.2388 |
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| Summary: | This article reassesses Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) 2018–2020 experience through Lijphart’s consociational framework. A qualitative approach is applied, triangulating semi-structured elite interviews with documentary sources and
news reports. Findings show that PH built a broad grand coalition across ethnic and regional lines, applied corrective proportionality by granting Malay-based parties disproportionate cabinet weight to secure ethnic legitimacy, relied on improvised rather than institutionalised segmental autonomy and treated mutual veto as informal bargaining rather than a binding safeguard. These design choices produced short-term legitimacy but weak internal cohesion, leaving the coalition vulnerable to defections, culminating in the ‘Sheraton Move.’ The study provides an empirically grounded account of Malaysia’s post-BN hegemonic coalition governance and demonstrates how inclusion without enforceable rules limits the durability of consociational arrangements. |
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