Authors: Fernando Casal Bértoa and Sri Murniati Yusuf

The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) launched a blueprint entitled “Reforming Our Institutions: Blueprint for Reforms.” The blueprint was developed through engagement with multiple Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), experts and Members of Parliament in an effort to identify reform priorities over the next three years, as well as interlinkages between specific reform initiatives.

Recognising that there are a slew of institutional reforms that Malaysia must implement across different areas, we have put together a visualisation of 13 individual reforms, which fall into four clusters.

This brief seeks to examine the tax incentives used in Germany, Canada, Thailand and Australia to encourage political donations from the public. The literature suggests that tax incentives can be used as a tool to encourage the public to donate to political parties and politicians in a transparent and accountable manner while increasing public participation in the political process.

The tax regimes in Australia, Thailand and Germany uses tax deductions while Canada uses tax credits, with different rates and requirements in each country. Some of the requirements include limits on amount of donations to mitigate the risk of outsized influence of big money, prohibited donors such as foreign entities and disclosure or reporting requirements to ensure transparency. The regulatory ecosystem can be used as a reference for future policymaking on political donations in Malaysia.

Tax incentives can be a useful way to encourage people and corporations to donate to the party that they believe in and compensate for the fear that both parties and the public have of the requirement for transparency and accountability. As such, tax incentives can be part of more comprehensive reforms of political financing in Malaysia, which should include public funding of political parties and transparency requirements for political donations, as outlined by the Political Financing Bill proposed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Political Financing, in which IDEAS serves as Secretariat.

Many observers of Malaysia anticipated a more progressive shape of democracy for the country as it bucked the global and regional trend of sliding backwards into more authoritarian regimes or far-right populist rule. Unfortunately, the deposed BN coalition effectively manufactured a narrative to entice its long-time political rival, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party (PAS), into working together in forming the National Concord (MN) to destabilize the PH government and potentially return the BN coalition to power. This strategy led to the eventual resignation of the seventh prime minister and self-sabotage of the promising “New Malaysia” agenda. Leadership ambiguity ensued for several weeks until the hastily assembled PN coalition stepped in as a substitute amidst the start of the pandemic.

The far less transparent and rather desperate installation of the PN government without the people’s mandate led to clear and urgent demands from the Malaysian public, especially its civil society, to rethink democracy and reform its decaying institutions as posited by Francis Fukuyama in his works. As the eighth prime minister was forced to make way for the current prime minister to avoid being removed in a vote of no confidence in Parliament, numerous concessions were dealt out as part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the fragile government and the largest opposition bloc. This further invited public criticism as the deal was discussed and done among the leaders of the respective parties and its supporting members of Parliament (MPs).

Conducted by Merdeka Center between February to March of 2022, this opinion poll serves to measure the Malaysian adult's perception towards the implementation of ICERD based on the response from 1202 respondents. The survey has two parts, firstly on matters pertaining to ICERD such as level of awareness, general perception and overall acceptance towards the convention. The second part consists of Malaysians attitude towards identity, discrimination, special rights and cross-ethnic relations. This survey is part of the 'Promoting National Unity and Interracial Harmony' project under the Democracy and Governance unit at IDEAS, funded by the European Union.

The #TanpaPerkauman Graphic Handbook

A collaboration betweeen IDEAS and Imagined Malaysia which serves to offer a concise compilation of the #TanpaPerkauman infographics under the National Unity and Interracial Harmony project funded by the European Union (EU). This handbook functions also as an educational resource and visual aid to inform and create greater awareness among the public regarding race relations, human rights, and the significance of international conventions for Malaysia from a historical-social perspective.

Buku Panduan Grafik #TanpaPerkauman

Suatu usaha kerjasama antara IDEAS dan Imagined Malaysia yang menyimpulkan set infografik #TanpaPerkauman yang diterbitkan sebelum ini di bawah projek Perpaduan Nasional dan Keharmonian Kaum yang didanai oleh pihak Kesatuan Eropah (EU). Buku panduan ini turut berfungsi sebagai sebuah sumber rujukan berbentuk visual yang memaklum dan mewujudkan lebih kesedaran dalam kalangan masyarakat awam berkenaan isu perhubungan antara kaum, hak asasi manusia, serta kepentingan dan fungsi konvensyen antarabangsa buat Malaysia dari sudut pandang sejarah dan sosial.

Political corruption in Malaysia is multi-faceted, multi-layered and deep rooted. In 2015, revelations brought about by the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal became a turning point in Malaysia’s history. The global scandal prompted civil society groups and ordinary citizens to mobilise and call for transparency and accountability in political funding. Numerous recommendations to improve transparency in our political financing system have been submitted to the government over the years and Pakatan Harapan (PH) came close to tabling the Political Financing Bill in Parliament before the government collapsed during the Sheraton Move in February 2020.

This paper provides some insight into the relationship between voter and politician by discussing the findings from a series of workshops IDEAS conducted with youth wings from political parties across Malaysia on the topic of political financing. To try and understand the perspective of voters, in May 2021 IDEAS commissioned a survey to understand Malaysians’ perception of politicians. The findings from this survey will be presented and discussed, which will contribute to understanding the linkages between voter expectations and political financing.

The fight for a transparent political financing system is not new. Since 2011, various groups have proposed recommendations to reform political financing, from Transparency International-Malaysia, G-25 and the National Consultative Committee on Political Financing. Some progress has been made over the years, which resulted in a Bill being drafted under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration. The Bill was set to be tabled in early 2020. However, the Sheraton Move that triggered a change in government occurred at the end of February 2020 and PH lost power.

This paper provides an important update on the developments surrounding political financing in Malaysia. The unstable political conditions that Malaysia has undergone over the past two years indicate that there is a need for laws that provide for greater stability and institutionalisation of a party system. To this end, while we believe that a Political Financing Act is urgently needed, many other problems continue to inflict Malaysia’s political system, and passing the Act might not be adequate in tackling these problems. These four problems are - large businesses owned by political parties, the imbalance of wealth between political parties, established informal practices in Malaysian politics and internal party elections. This paper will examine these four challenges in turn. Policymakers seeking to enact such a law must seriously address these challenges, in order to ensure that the Act is implemented with holistic considerations in mind.