Abstract

Vote of no confidence is a medium used in the state assembly house and federal parliament in Malaysia to sack a political party that is believed to be incapable to rule the respective state or federal government. In Malaysian political history, vote of no confidence was first used in the Terengganu Assembly House in 1961. It was proposed by the representative from the Alliance party against PAS, the ruling party. Later in Sarawak, it was used to topple Chief Minister, Datok Stephen Kalong Ningkan in 1967. In recent years, vote of no confidence was used to dismiss the Pakatan Rakyat party from being a Perak state government. Most of the cases were involved the Alliance/National party and the opposition party with an exception to the case of Sarawak, which is more complicated. This working paper is intended to analyze these three situations which end up with the victorious to the Alliance/National Front, the party which led the federal government since 1955. Some comparison will be made as these three situations are from different states and it involved different parties. The political crises that occurred in respective states will also be discussed and analyzed.