| Summary: | Why has Malaysia's politics, long counted among the most stable in East Asia, suddenly lost durability?
Explanation starts with a single-party dominant system, reinforced by a hybrid political regime and
grounded in a divided and ranked social structure. In this configuration, the United Malays National
Organization (UMNO) operated as the single dominant party. And insulated by the hybrid regime and
supported by ethnic constituencies, UMNO won ten consecutive general elections between 1974 and
2014. But for reasons explored in this analysis, UMNO gradually lost elite cohesion and constituent
support. leading to its momentous electoral defeat in 2018 . This fragmented the single-party dominant
system and its hybrid regime scaffolding. Accordingly, Malaysia's politics has been cast from single-party dominance into multi-party mayhem, with scant chances for re-equilibration any time soon.
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