Malaysia, a country ruled by the same party since independence was won six decades ago, has never been looked to as a regional leader in democracy. This changed on 9 May when a historical opposition win shocked Southeast Asia to a grinding halt.
Former prime minister Najib Razak and Barisan Nasional did not want to take any chances this year and every effort to stem a fair fight was rolled out. Cynical redelineation of electorate borders meant previously competitive seats were tightened up to be solid wins for the government. A law forced through the legislature at the 11th hour aimed at stamping out 'fake news' effectively made reporting on the massive 1MDB corruption case illegal and further tightened media restrictions.
Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, the political party that current Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (pictured) created, was briefly deregistered and his face was not allowed to appear on election material. The very date of the election was blatantly planned to disenfranchise as many voters as possible by being on a weekday. In a country where voters must return to their home states to vote, for many working in Kuala Lumpur or elsewhere this became a near impossible feat.
If the intention was to strongarm Malaysians into complacency it clearly failed. The story has become the triumph of Mahathir Mohamad, himself part of the political elite as a former prime minister for two decades, and his opposition coalition. This is wrong. The real story of the historical change of government isn't the endorsement of the now governing Pakatan Harapan coalition, it is the mass-mobilisation of Malaysia's civil society in the face of anti-democratic moves at suppression.
Malaysia's formal politics is not something Australia should replicate. A focus on ethnicity within parties is a feature which, thankfully, Australian politics is moving away from. But the movement, from anti-corruption groups, community organisations and particularly millennial and Gen Z activists, ought to be a lesson to democracies across the world. Australia has a lot to learn from the month of flurried, self-motivated organising within the country and by the diaspora.
Before the vote, much of this organising focused on ensuring voters were able to return home for poll day. Malaysians took to crowdfunding online for plane and bus tickets for working class voters, successfully pressuring airlines to lower prices and suspend fees for flight changes, and organising diaspora to meet up abroad in departure terminals for postal votes to