Judith Strauch

Tactical Success and Failure in Grassroots Politics: The MCA and DAP in Rural Malaysia

ONE OF THE perpetually fascinating aspects of politics, as has often been noted, is the strange bedfellows it makes. These peculiar pairings and linkings are found not only among groups and individuals, but among political actors, the ideologies they espouse, and the strategies and tactics they employ. Internal contradictions of this sort no doubt exist within all political systems. Occasionally a case occurs which highlights these contradictions and the intracacies of their implications for strategies, tactics, and eventual (though by nature temporary) resolutions. Such a case played itself out in 1971-1974 in Perak, Malaysia, where the dominant Chinese-Malaysian party-the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA)-initiated a grassroots mobilization program known as the Task Force. The MCA was and is a basically conservative party, and its state-level Task Force initially employed essentially conservative methods to attract a large following. But gradually Task Force aims shifted to the left of those of the party, and its increasing success led eventually to its expulsion from the MCA. In sum, a conservative party entrusted a slightly radical wing to employ what were meant to be conservative methods in the interest of the partys conservative goals. But