MAK BEDAH GOES SHOPPING FOR A REAL CANDIDATE IN MALAYSIA'S 2008 GENERAL ELECTIONS

Abstract

On the eve of the campaign period of Malaysia's general elections in 2008, the plans of the Women's Candidacy Initiative (WCI) to increase the number of independent women in Parliament were thrown into disarray when their candidate was forced to withdraw at short notice. Rather than abandon their participation in those elections, WCI went through a creative moment during which they developed an innovative voter-education campaign revolving around the fictional character of Mak Bedah (Aunty Bedah). This campaign sought to draw attention to the issues that WCI felt were important, such as women's poor representation in Parliament. Through a novel and playful campaign, WCI made public a number of candidates' views on issues important to WCI, and succeeded in attracting significant media attention. The creativity exhibited in the development and deployment of this campaign is analysed in this article in the light of literature pertaining to the public sphere. I argue that when considering such interventions in the public sphere, we should not give undue emphasis to the content of discourses deployed but rather see discourses as a means by which ends are achieved. Using WCI's Mak Bedah campaign, I demonstrate how political demands, as much if not more so than discursive logic, may result in given movements gaining broad political traction.

Notes

¹These were development, democracy, culture and religion, land, health services, the law, employment, AIDS, the environment, health and sexuality, and violence.

²Although an independent candidate, Zaitun came to a practical arrangement with the Democratic Action Party such that she was able to run under its name and symbol. The Democratic Action Party is an ostensibly non-ethnically-chauvinist opposition party.

³ Personal comment, 2008.

⁴During the 2004 Malaysian general elections, those involved in WCI in 1999 participated in the campaigns of other candidates.

⁵It is worth noting that Malaysia has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and has committed itself to establishing women in 30% of public-sector decision-making positions. This commitment is affirmed in the Ninth Malaysia Plan, a document prepared by the government's Economic and Planning Unit and Finance Ministry which describes goals to be achieved between 2006 and 2010 and the concomitant economic expenditure.

⁶Nowadays in Malaysia, local councillors are appointed. In the past they were popularly elected. The appointment of local councillors is widely regarded by civil society groups as undemocratic and given to the practice of corruption.

⁷The candidates that the Mak Bedah met and sought the views of were Tony Pua and Edward Lee (Democratic Action Party), Nurul Izzah Anwar and Hee Loy Sian (Parti Keadilan Rakyat, People's Justice Party), Jeyakumar Devaraj and S. Arutchelvan (Parti Sosialis Malayisa, Malaysian Socialist Party, which ran under the banner of Parti Keadilan Rakyat), Siti Maria (Parti Islam SeMalaysia, Malaysian Islamic Party), Samy Vellu (Malaysian Indian Congress), Shahrizat Abdul Jalil (United Malays National Organisation), Carol Chew, Chew Mei Fun and Donald Lim (all from Malaysian Chinese Association).

⁸Amongst WCI participants who assisted Parti Keadilan Rakyat candidate Sivarasa Rasiah in 2004, the justification for so doing was, despite having grievances with his party, that they were assisting not the party but this particular and often well regarded candidate.

⁹See the following website for the entire exchange: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2pvWF5O4zc> Accessed 20 August 2010.