Malaysia: Lim Hong Hai Electoral Politics in Malaysia: ‘Managing’ Elections in a Plural Society Lim Hong Hai Introduction Elections are contests for the highest stakes in national politics and the electoral system is a set of predetermined rules for conducting elections and determining their outcome. Thus defined, the electoral system is distinguishable from the actual conduct of elections as well as from the wider conditions surrounding the electoral contest, such as the state of civil liberties, restraints on the opposition and access to the mass media. While all these aspects are of obvious importance to free and fair elections, the main interest of this study is the electoral system. The electoral system is important because it exerts an essential and independent effect on electoral outcomes, and hence on the balance of advantage among contestants in the struggle for representation and power in the political system. Channelled by and buffeting formal political structures, of which the electoral system is part, this contest for power is inevitably an expression of salient cleavages in society. In Malaysia, political mobilization follows ethnic divisions and the struggle for power is among political parties representing particular ethnic groups. It is therefore essential to begin with some basic information on the country’s political system and plural society. The Federation of Malaysia consists of 11 states in Peninsular Malaysia(i.e. the former Federation of Malaya, which gained independence from the British in 1957) and the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, which joined the Federation of Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Besides being federal, the form of government is constitutional, monarchical and parliamentary at both the state and federal levels. Each of the 13 states and the Federation has a written constitution. The Federal Constitution allocates nearly all important powers as well as the major sources of revenue to the federal government. The Federation’s King( Yang di-Pertuan Agong ) is elected for a term of five years by, and rotated among, the hereditary royal rulers of nine of the 11 states in Peninsular Malaysia. The other four states without royal rulers are each headed by a head of state( Yang di-Pertua Negeri ) appointed for four years by the Yang 101