3 reasons why DAP is alive and kicking despite the odds

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From Lim Teck Ghee

Three factors have made the DAP’s fight to gain a larger political following and recognition of its multi-racial credentials – despite its primarily Chinese leadership – more daunting.

The first is the widespread perception among many in the Malay electorate that it is indeed a Chinese chauvinist party. Ever since its formation, it has been tarred by Umno leaders as well as Umno supporters manning the Malay mass media and other organs of Malay influence with the accusation that it is an enemy of the Malay race.

The DAP until today is regularly vilified in the Malay world as the mastermind behind any controversy that is construed as undermining the dignity of the Malay race, Islamic religion as well as disrespectful of king and country.

The second is the failure of the country’s opposition parties and their leaders to stay the course of resistance against the Umno-led Barisan Nasional (BN) political juggernaut during the past four decades. In reshaping the country’s politics after the May 1969 episode and to make more palatable the reality of a Malay-dominant national polity, second prime minister Razak Hussein was able to induce several former opposition parties including Gerakan, PPP, PAS, and several former opposition parties in East Malaysia to join the enlarged Alliance, which was renamed Barisan Nasional (BN).

In the aftermath of the 1974 election, it was initially the DAP and the Sarawak Nasional Party (SNAP) in East Malaysia which kept alive the flame of political opposition in Parliament. Dr Tan Chee Koon, from the newly set up Parti Keadilan Masyarakat Malaysia or Pekemas, was the sole other opposition member elected to the 1974 Parliament, which saw BN winning a more than two thirds parliamentary majority – 135 of the 154 seats contested.

This majority enabled the governing party to introduce more amendments to the constitution on several occasions thereby strengthening the executive powers of Umno and BN governing parties, and further diluting the democratic spirit of the original constitutional document.


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