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politicians to get their training on how government works. The British took note of this and made special provisions for these links to continue. For example, in the first general election in Malaya in 1955, the colonial government allowed Malay civil servants to retire if they wished to stand as a candidate. This was in stark contrast to Britain where civil servants had to resign if they wished to take part in active politics. Of the 103 Malay candidates who stood in the 1955 elections, 53 were ex-civil servants [8].
7.4Post Independence, New Economic Policy, and Malay Dominance
The civil service continued to be closed to the non-Malay community until the 1950s. Even when the British decided to prepare Malaya for independence, they were of the opinion that the civil service, especially the upper echelons, be reserved for the Malays. Owing to security fears, the British were especially sensitive to the large number of Chinese entering the service. From the late 1940s onward, there was a serious communist challenge to the state. The Malayan Communist Party (MCP), led by ethnic Chinese, launched an armed insurrection against the British in 1948, claiming that they were fighting for independence and the end of colonial rule. In such a climate, it was not surprising that General Gerald Templer, the British high commissioner, introduced a quota system in the MCS. The quota was set at one non-Malay to every four Malays, with the result that at the upper echelons of the MCS, it was always 80% Malay [9]. Although attempts were made to extend this quota to the professional and technical services, this was not successful as there were not enough qualified Malay candidates.
In 1963, the year the Federation of Malaysia was established, Malays constituted 86.2% of the MCS. In 1969, for the whole civil service the ethnic composition was 60.8% Malay, 20.2% Chinese, 17.4% Indian, and 1.6% others [10]. Three decades later in 2005, the comparative figures were 77.3%, 9.37%, 5.12%, and 7.77% [11].
On May 13, 1969, serious racial riots broke out in the capital Kuala Lumpur and several other urban areas. The causes of the riots are complex, but for the most part it was political competition between the Chinese and the Malays. The main Chinese opposition party, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), made major gains at the expense of the Alliance. UMNO and the Malay community saw this as a direct challenge to them. Fights between proand anti-government supporters broke out during victory parades held by the opposition. This led to much bigger crowds and mass rioting between the Malays and non-Malays.6
The Malays claimed that as the indigenous people of Malaya, this was their land and the concept of ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) cannot be challenged by the non-Malays [14]. With several hundred dead, the government had little choice but to suspend Parliament and impose emergency rule. An official report, The May 13 Tragedy: A Report, claimed that the economic disparity between the Malays and the non-Malays (read Chinese) was the main cause of the riots [15]. The report argues that the Malays were unhappy that they were shut out of the economy due to Chinese dominance of the economy.
In 1971, the government recalled Parliament and passed several laws to restrict public discussion on “sensitive” issues such as race relations, religion, the sultans, and Malay special rights. The
6Today, there is no clear account of who started the conflict. The most authoritative account of the rioting can be found [12]. For a completely different perspective, and one that argues that the rioting was deliberate and planned [13].
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government also launched the New Economic Policy (NEP), supposedly to correct the imbalance in the economy as identified by the May 13 report [16]. The NEP set out in clear terms the government’s commitment to eradicating poverty and restructuring society by ensuring that all ethnic groups were represented in all professions [17]. Unfortunately, the NEP never lived up to its own stated goals. Rather, the NEP was used as a policy to reinforce the special rights of the Malay and bumiputera community in all social, economic, and political spheres. These special rights were defined broadly as meaning that the Malay community were entitled to preferential treatment by the government in all its activities. A quota was established for bumiputera entry to universities, bank loans, scholarships, business licences, etc. A special bumiputera-only tertiary institution, Institut Teknologi MARA (now called Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)), was establish to provide Malays with opportunities to get a tertiary education. The non-Malays who were excluded saw this policy as nothing more than state-sanctioned racism and discrimination [18].
While the NEP was a political document, its impact was widely felt in the civil service, as the civil service was the main agency tasked with implementing the NEP. Overnight, the civil service and government-linked institutions, such as statutory boards, became an almost exclusive Malay environment. New intakes in the civil service were almost all bumiputera with a token few non-Malays. Since the inception of the NEP, the proportion of Malays in the civil service has grown from 60% to 77%. The elite ranks of the civil service, Perkhidmatan Tadbir dan Diplomatik (PTD) or the Administrative and Diplomatic Service7 became 85% Malay, or had six Malays for each non-Malay [19]. The quota system created by the British for the MCS was not only kept, but also increased from one non-Malay to four Malays, to one non-Malay to six Malays.
PTD officers occupy all key senior positions in the federal bureaucracy, including the ministries and departments staffed mainly by professionals, leading to one scholar who served as a consultant to the Malaysian civil service calling the PTD “the strategic point of control” in the civil service [20]. Another scholar, Lim Hong Hai, reported that, “of the 21 Ministries, only the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment has a Chinese as its Secretary General and the Ministry of National Unity and Social Development has an Indian as its Secretary General. These Ministries also have a total of 41 Deputy Secretaries General, only three of whom are Chinese. All or nearly all of the 19 bumiputera Secretaries General and 38 Deputy Secretaries General are Malays [21].”
The dominance of the Malays in the civil service was a reflection of the new political reality in the wider political arena. UMNO, the main Malay party in the BN coalition, became its key anchor and undisputed leader. In 1974, the Alliance was reconstructed and became known as the Barisan Nasional (BN) or National Front. All parties were invited to join the BN, and although the BN was a coalition, it was clear that UMNO was the acknowledged leader of the coalition [22]. Since the 1974 general elections, the number of UMNO and Malay-majority seats constitutes the majority of seats won by the BN. In addition, UMNO alone command very close to half the seats in Parliament. For example, in the 2004 general election, UMNO won 109 out of 219 seats. As a whole, the BN coalition has never lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament until 2008. This allows it to amend the Malaysian constitution at any time.
In other words, the unspoken truth was self-evident—UMNO could rule Malaysia on its own. More than half the cabinet members came from UMNO, and UMNO occupied all the key posts such as those of the prime minister, the deputy prime minister, finance minister, foreign minister, home minister, and internal security and defence minister. The other BN parties, such as the MCA and MIC, could take part in the government as long as they did not challenge the ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) concept. Although the non-Malays in government were
7 The PTD is the successor to colonial-era elite MCS.
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History and Context of Public Administration in Malaysia 147
allowed to air their political wants and grouses, UMNO alone decided on the outcome of key government policies. Some concessions were granted to the non-Malays as UMNO did not want the non-Malays parties in the BN, such as the MCA, Gerakan, and MIC, to totally lose the support of their communities [23].
With UMNO dominating all levels of the political system, Malaysia is often called a semidemocracy or soft authoritarian state. The Malaysian prime minister (all UMNO presidents since independence) yields more executive power over the political system, especially the civil service, than any other institution in Malaysia. Although in theory there was an independent Service Commission—Public Service Commission (PSD), the Judicial and Legal Service Commission, the Police Force Commission, and the Education Service Commission—the appointment of the commissioners who sat on these commissions was often the prerogative of the minister and the prime minister. In all cases, the chairmen of these commissions were ethnic Malays although there was always (at least) one non-Malay member.
7.5 Centralization of Executive Powers under Mahathir
No discussion of the Malaysian civil service is complete without mentioning the role of Dr. Mahathir. Mahathir, the fourth prime minister of Malaysia, is also the longest-serving prime minister. He served from 1981 to 2003, a period of 22 years. Much of the civil service we see today bear his imprint. When he came into power in 1981, he introduced several changes in order to cement his control over the civil service—then widely seen as dramatic. Using the slogan, “Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy,” all civil servants were made to wear name tags, they had to punch-in time clocks, and they had to undergo regular training and reviews. He strengthened the prime minister’s department control over the entire civil service through the Malaysian Administrative and Planning Unit (MAMPU), which began to review and restructure departments in order to make them more efficient. He gave more powers to the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI)8 and reactivated the Public Complaints Bureau (PCB). He promised to fi ght corruption in the public service [24]. Mahathir vigorously pursued heavy industrialization using Japan and Korea as a model (so called “Look East” policy). Within the civil service, he pursued a privatization policy that saw many public utilities becoming privatized. One justification Mahathir used for the privatization exercise was the creation of a Bumiputera Industrial and Commercial Community (BICC). Many of these privatized corporations were given to selected bumiputera entrepreneurs while the government retained ownership of the larger ones. The end result was that many civil servants found themselves working under private sector conditions. More than 500 government-linked companies (GLCs) were established as a result of Mahathir’s privatization policies [25].
Many of Mahathir’s key projects were controlled by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the prime minister’s department. With billions worth of privatization projects at stake, Mahathir, through the EPU, became extremely powerful. The EPU serves as the center of national planning, in particular, the national 5-year plans. Projects over a certain size initiated by other departments and ministries require the approval of the EPU before they can be implemented. All private sector proposals submitted to the government for approval must be cleared by the EPU before they go to cabinet. Needless to say, the EPU reports directly to the prime minister, i.e., Mahathir. For a time, Mahathir was also finance minister, ensuring that he controlled the entire financial process.
8Later renamed the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
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