Minority Status after Change of Government in an Ethnic Democracy: The Case of Ethnic Chinese Malaysians

Abstract In the 2018 general election, many Chinese voted emphatically for a change of government as they believed that it would lead to the emergence of a more equal Malaysia. Nevertheless, the change of government in 2018 did not alter the status of Malaysia as an ethnic democracy which institutionalizes Malay dominance and undermines Chinese political power. There have still been no significant improvements in the sociopolitical position of Chinese Malaysians and the political actions of Chinese Malaysian politicians remain constrained. A qualitative case study approach, together with Smooha’s concept of ethnic democracy and VanderStouwe’s concept of constrained agency as the conceptual framework, is adopted in this study. The reduced power of Lim Guan Eng as Minister of Finance, the Pakatan Harapan ( PH ) regime’s annual financial allocation for independent Chinese secondary schools ( ICSS s) and its refusal to recognize the Unified Examination Certificate ( UEC ), as well as the unchanged ethnic quota for the public matriculation program, are chosen as cases for this study.