Making (internet) space for the ‘opposition playground’ in Malaysia

Malaysia bucked the trend of regime resilience in Southeast Asia when the ruling coalition was voted out for the first time in 2018. For six decades, the coalition had clung on to power through a variety of control mechanisms: policy, legislation and ownership, leading scholars to call Malaysia a ‘hybrid regime’, seemingly democratic utilising authoritarian frameworks. The early cracks in the information environment emerged in the late 1990s and by 2008, the traditional opposition parties began making electoral gains. This timeline matched the rise of the mainstreaming of internet technologies. This use of the internet, particularly by activists, brought together in one space anti-incumbent political sentiment: ‘the opposition playground’. The smooth transition of powers that has occurred since 2018 shows that, put together, a variety of bold and creative use of internet technologies by activists can cause a rupture in the authoritarian hold of governments, and slow down democratic backsliding.