GEORGE TOWN, Sept 15 — Malaysia’s democratic system is like a tyranny of the majority where the winner wields all the power, national Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today

He called the system a “majoritarian democracy” in which a concentration of power lies in the hand of winners while the losers are excluded from participating in any kind of power sharing.

“The inherent problem of such a system is the possibility of tyranny of the majority,” he said in his keynote address at the Federalism in Malaysia: Design and Practice Conference here this morning.

He explained that in theory, the nation’s federalism system which incorporates the Senate to represent state interests in Parliament should have served as a good check to the majoritarian tendency and move it towards a “consensus democracy”.

“Unfortunately, our federalism is overly centralised and our Senate is, with all due respect, essentially incapable of advancing the states’ interests,” he said.

“We know the myriad problems caused by the insistence of certain members of one community on disallowing the use of certain words they claim to be exclusive to them; or the demand that the religious books of one community cannot be translated into a certain language,” he said.

He pointed out that the community that feels victimised naturally insists on its fundamental rights while the more dominant group threatens retaliation.

“That is unwarranted and confrontational. There is no reasoned discourse. It is less about theology than about generating mass psychology,” he said.

Malaysia is a Federation of states which, in theory, should be practicing federalism but the Permatang Pauh MP believed that the nation is more a unitary state.

Federalism means a division of power between the federal government and state governments while a unitary state means power is centralised.

“True federalism can only proceed from true independence so calls for devolution of power from the Federal government must never be associated with campaigns for separation,” he said.

The Federalism in Malaysia conference is a two-day event organised by Penang Institute to discuss the federalism system in the country.