Barisan Alternatif

The Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front, abbreviated BA) was a political coalition of four parties in Malaysia. It was founded in 1999 as a counterweight to the ruling Barisan Nasional, and fell apart after the defeat in the parliamentary elections of 2004. During 2008, three of the four members of the Barisan Alternatif parties were formed again to form a coalition, Pakatan Rakyat the.

Foundation

The Barisan Alternatif was founded as a counterweight to the Barisan Nasional, the members of parties since independence of Malaysia, the government provides a two-thirds majority. On 24 October 1999, the four main opposition parties agreed on cooperation in the campaign. These parties were the Islamist Parti Islam Se - Malaysia ( PAS), the social democratic Democratic Action Party (DAP ), Parti Keadilan Rakyat, the liberal ( Keadilan ) and Parti Rakyat Malaysia, the democratic socialist ( PRM).

1999 parliamentary elections

The most successful party of the Barisan Alternatif in the parliamentary elections of 1999 was the PAS, which received the majority of votes in the states of Kelantan and Terengganu and one-third of the votes in Kedah and the number of its seats in parliament increased from 7 to 27. In contrast, the result of the DAP with 10 seats was rather disappointing. The newly founded Keadilan won only five seats, the PRM no.

Overall, could conquer in the Malaysian Parliament Barisan Alternatif 42 of the 192 seats. The Barisan Nasional was thus with 148 seats ( 77%) defend their absolute majority.

Decay

From the beginning, the Alliance was thus charged that it is a declared goal of PAS, to make Malaysia an Islamic theocracy and was not willing to take back this goal publicly. However, it was then still a temporary compromise was reached and the theocracy was not adopted as a target in the joint program of the BA.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States, the DAP left on 21 September 2001, the Barisan Alternatif.

After the cleavage has occurred at the election in 2004 to conflicts within the coalition. In many cases, the allied parties could not agree on a common candidate. The BA won only eight seats in parliament. Seven of them went to PAS and Keadilan to a. After the election, the coalition broke up for good.

Pakatan Rakyat

For the general elections of 2008, three of the four Barisan Alternatif parties were formed again to form a coalition, Pakatan Rakyat the. It is to the PAS, DAP and Keadilan. The PRM approached independently. The new coalition, 82 from 222 seats to win, so that the Barisan Nasional lost the reigning two-thirds majority, which allows constitutional amendments succeeded.