Democratic Action Party
The Democratic Action Party is a social democratic and secular political party in Malaysia, sitting on the centre-left of the political spectrum. As one of three component parties of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, it formed the federal government after defeating Barisan Nasional in the 2018 Malaysian general election, ending the party's 53 year-long stay in the opposition. However, before the coalition finished its first term, defections from partnering parties caused it to lose power after 22 months, culminating in the 2020 Malaysian political crisis. At the 2022 Malaysian general election, the PH coalition which the DAP was part of was returned to power again, albeit without a majority, leading it to form a unity coalition government with its traditional political rivals.
The DAP was founded in 1965 by Malaya–based members of the Singaporean People's Action Party, Chen Man Hin and Devan Nair, shortly after Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia. Singapore's expulsion was in part due to intense ideological differences between the PAP and the federal government, led by the United Malays National Organisation. The UMNO which favoured the idea of Ketuanan Melayu and Malay nationalism for the country. In contrast, the PAP favoured a more egalitarian and civic nationalist Malaysian Malaysia, which the DAP would continue to espouse. Following the expulsion, the PAP was elected as the ruling government of a newly sovereign Singapore and would continue to operate on a platform of civic nationalism. However, unlike the DAP, the PAP became more conservative and moved towards the centre-right.
Historically a democratic socialist party, the DAP draws much of its support from progressive voters with a stable electorate from voters of cities, coastal regions, the middle class, and the working class. The party's strongholds are primarily in the urban and semi-urban areas of Penang, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Johor, Malacca and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. In the 2018 Malaysian general election, the party contested in 47 federal and 104 state constituencies under the banner of its ally the People's Justice Party, winning 42 and 102 seats respectively, except in Sarawak, where the party's state branch chose to contest under its own banner.
History
Formation by ex-PAP members
The party is the direct successor of the Peninsular Malayan branch of the Singapore–based People's Action Party, which was then known as the People's Action Party of Malaya . Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia led to its deregistration in 1965 by the Registrar of Societies. The deregistered party's leadership consisted of Devan Nair, Chen Man Hin, D. P. Xavier, Goh Hock Guan and Seeveratnam Sinnathamby, who was the younger brother of Singapore minister S. Rajaratnam, with Zain Azahari bin Zainal Abidin, Chin Chan Sung, Michael Khong Chye Huat, Tan Chong Bee and Too Chee Cheong as committee members.On 11 October that year, the name "Democratic Action Party " was chosen and officially formed by the remnants of the PAP–M. However, the registration of the party was delayed to 18 March 1966 while the ruling Alliance Party laid out new conditions for the registration of political parties in the Societies Act 1966. While awaiting the party's registration, party chairman Chen Man Hin won the state constituency of Rahang, Negeri Sembilan as an independent in December 1965. In August that year, the official party organ, The Rocket, was first published.
The party adopted the "Setapak Declaration" at the first DAP National Congress held on 29 July 1967, declaring itself "irrevocably committed to the ideal of a free, democratic and socialist Malaysia, based on the principles of racial and religious equality, social and economic justice and founded on the institution of parliamentary democracy", and later joined the Socialist International, participating in the organisation's International Council in Zurich, Switzerland.
Early years, 1969 election and crackdown
In 1967, the party was involved in discussions to form a united front of opposition parties against the Alliance coalition ahead of the 1969 general election, although these efforts were eventually unsuccessful. In March 1968, the party reached an agreement with the People's Progressive Party not to contest against each other in the state of Perak for the upcoming general election. The DAP attempted to achieve a similar arrangement with the United Democratic Party, whose base was in Penang, but its leader Lim Chong Eu rejected the proposal and sarcastically thanked DAP secretary general Goh Hock Guan for "his very smug condescension." Later that same month, the newly formed Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia led by Syed Hussein Alatas suggested that the DAP merge into the new party, an offer that was declined.Devan Nair, the co-founder of the DAP, returned to Singapore in 1969 after being withdrawn as a candidate for the general election that year. Lee Kuan Yew, at the time the Prime Minister of Singapore, explained in 1981 that "the Cabinet decided that Singapore–Malaysia relations would always be bedevilled if Devan Nair remained a DAP leader. I persuaded him to come back". Nair eventually became the President of Singapore from 1981 to 1985. Eventually, the DAP contested a general election for the first time in 1969 together with both the PPP and Gerakan in an electoral pact but under separate banners. In its campaign, the party opposed Bumiputera privileges guaranteed under Article 153 of the Constitution and continued Lee Kuan Yew's call for a "Malaysian Malaysia", which irked many Malay ultras. The "Malaysian Malaysia" idea was originally conveyed by Lee in the Dewan Rakyat prior to Singapore's expulsion: "Malaysia – to whom does it belong? To Malaysians. But who are Malaysians? I hope I am, Mr Speaker, Sir. But sometimes, sitting in this chamber, I doubt whether I am allowed to be a Malaysian".
The election results of 1969 saw the DAP winning 13 parliamentary seats and 31 state assembly seats, securing 11.96% of the valid votes cast. Gerakan also made significant gains, campaigning on a similar platform in Penang in which the Bumiputeras had made up a minority of the state. That election represented the largest breakthrough for an opposition party in Malaysia prior to 2008 and came close to unseating the ruling Alliance. However, political rallies that followed triggered racial violence particularly between the Chinese and the Malays, resulting in the 13 May incident which saw hundreds of deaths. Parliament was suspended, and the National Operations Council was established to govern the country until 1971. When Parliament reconvened, the ruling Alliance passed new laws such as the Sedition Act, which criminalised any attempt to challenge constitutional provisions relating to Bumiputera privileges, including Article 153. The DAP and the PPP were the only parties that opposed the Act, which was passed by 125 votes to 17. After the 1969 general election, the DAP would never come close to repeating its past successes for the next 38 years. Although the DAP remained a major opposition party, the ruling Alliance coalition and later its successor Barisan Nasional would clung solidly to its two-thirds parliamentary majority. The DAP, however, continued campaigning on its platform of abolishing the Bumiputera privileges, securing equal rights for all Malaysians and to establishing a democratic socialist state in Malaysia.
1970–2007
The party boycotted the National Consultative Council, a body formed in the aftermath of the 1969 racial riots to "establish positive and practical guidelines for inter-racial co-operation and social integration", in protest of the government's continued detention of its secretary-general, Lim Kit Siang, under the Internal Security Act.In 1978, the party experienced a split when founding member and Penang state chairman Yeap Ghim Guan left and formed the Socialist Democratic Party after attempts by the national leadership to take over the party's state leadership. Yeap was joined by the entire state committee and member of parliament for Petaling Oh Keng Seng. They were later joined by party stalwart Fan Yew Teng, who had served as acting secretary-general while Lim was detained under the Internal Security Act and was the member of parliament for Menglembu. Those who had left the party all labelled Lim's leadership as "dictatorial".
The party suffered more defections in the lead-up to the 1978 Malaysian general election, when one of its most prominent Malay members, Daing Ibrahim Othman, left the party in protest of the leadership's decision to move him to another constituency, which was followed by a number of resignations in Negeri Sembilan for similar reasons.
During the Mahathir administration in 1987, several DAP leaders, including Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang, were detained by the government without trial during Operation Lalang, under the accusation of being a national security threat. It is widely believed they were arrested for protesting the expansion of the New Economic Policy.
In 1995, the party ran what has become widely known as the "Robocop" campaign to wrest Penang from the Barisan Nasional, led by Teoh Teik Huat and Gooi Hock Seng. Despite the hype, the campaign was a failure as the party only won one state and three parliamentary seats. Government personalities and state media used the campaign to ridicule Lim for being a "robot" and "soulless".
Following the ousting of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in September 1998, DAP co-founded the Barisan Alternatif coalition along with Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party and the newly formed People's Justice Party. However, the coalition did not work out very well for the DAP, with two of its top leaders, Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh losing their Parliamentary seats in the 1999 election; the DAP managed to win only 5% of the seats in Parliament. PAS became the leading opposition party in Parliament. It left the coalition in 2001 due to a disagreement with PAS over the issue of an Islamic state.
In the 2004 general election, the DAP managed to capture 12 seats in Parliament, while PAS and Keadilan suffered major setbacks, with PAS losing 20 of the 27 seats it had held after the 1999 elections, and Keadilan lost all seats except one returned after a recount. The eventual outcome saw Lim Kit Siang, who had been elected in his constituency of Ipoh Timur with a majority of 10,000 votes, formally elected as the leader of the opposition in Parliament, a post he had lost to the president of PAS in 1999.
In the 2006 Sarawak state election, the Democratic Action Party won 6 of the 12 seats it contested and narrowly lost three other seats with small majorities. Up til then it was the party's best showing ever in the history of Sarawak's state elections since 1979.