ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that the clear victor of the 2004 Malaysian general elections1
was the United Malays’ National Organisation (UMNO), the leading member of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN, or National Front) coalition. The outcome of the eleventh general elections was particularly important to the UMNO because its candidates had been overwhelmingly rejected in the Malay heartland, particularly in the north and north-east Malay states of Peninsular Malaysia, that is Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu, in the previous election in 1999. In that election, the UMNO had lost control of a large number of parliamentary and state seats in the Malay heartland to the supposedly fundamentalist Islamic party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS, or Malaysian Islamic Party).
