This paper traces the political marginalisation of the main Bumiputera (indigenous) political grouping in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak and Sabah. Oten ignored by scholars working on Malaysia, their political plight and marginalisation by the Muslim powerbrokers in both states in the past two decades is symbolic of the making of a ‘Malay Muslim’ state, rather than the promise of multi-ethnic and multi-religious Malaysian federation. In theory, the Bumiputera are favoured in all political, economic and social spheres under the infamous New Economic Policy (NEP). hey are supposed to get easy access to government jobs, scholarships and places in public universities, special licences and easy credit. In reality, it would appear that these beneits are only available to Muslim Bumiputera (MB) while the majority Bumiputera, being non-Malay and non-Muslims, are marginalised or get very little beneit from the NEP and other airmative action policies. Since the early 1990s, politics in Sarawak and Sabah can best be described as an unequal contest between the three main groups: the Muslim Bumiputera (MB), the Non-Muslim Bumiputera (NMB) and the Chinese. he largest NMB political grouping in Sarawak is the Dayak and in Sabah the Kadazandusun.

Item Type:	Research Book Chapter
Research Division:	Studies in Human Society
Research Group:	Political Science
Research Field:	Government and Politics of Asia and the Pacific
Objective Division:	Law, Politics and Community Services
Objective Group:	Government and Politics
Objective Field:	Government and Politics not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Chin, JU (Professor James Chin)
ID Code:	99774
Year Published:	2014
Deposited By:	Humanities
Deposited On:	2015-04-09
Last Modified:	2017-08-11
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