Brunei—Political System

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Negara Brunei Darussalam—the name Brunei assumed on full independence from Great Britain on 1 January 1984— retains many features of a Middle Eastern dynastic system despite its Southeast Asian location on the northwest coast of the tropical island of Borneo. One of the few absolute monarchies in the world, Brunei Darussalam projects itself to the world as a peerless Islamic state, albeit imbued with the characteristic features of Malay world kingship and civilization.

Reigning Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah (b. 1946), who came to the throne in 1968, is twenty-ninth in a line that stretches back to a fourteenth-century Malay Muslim ancestor; he holds supreme political power as prime minister, minister of defense, and, since purging his younger brother Jefri in 1999, minister of finance. The sultan's younger brother Mohamed holds the position of minister of foreign affairs. Highly trusted nonroyals also have been permitted to hold office within a limited cabinet system. Power is centered on the prime minister's office, and the sultan is advised by certain key councils.

Brunei was a British protectorate from 1888 and, with the exception of the period of Japanese occupation (1941–1945), was guided by a British Resident installed in 1906. Great Britain retained responsibility for defense and foreign affairs until independence. Although a written constitution and constitutional form of government were forced on the present sultan's father, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III, by the British in 1959, a rebellion staged in 1962 by Sheik Azahari, the republican-leaning and Indonesian-backed leader of the popular Partai Rakyat Brunei (PRB), was crushed by the British. This led to the suspension of important sections of the constitution and the implementation of state-of-emergency legislation, which was still technically in force in 2001. As a result, parliament has not been convened since 1962; important liberties remain circumscribed; and political parties—two of which exist in principle—are largely inoperative, supported by minuscule membership.

With independence and the growth of modern media, along with developments in higher education, the state in Brunei has sought to reinforce Malayness, Islam, and Sultanism around the concept "Malay, Islam, Beraja" (Kingship), or MIB. More than a slogan, however, MIB is actively proselytized in the officially controlled media and education system and is taken as an article of faith in official pronouncements.

Brunei supports a heterogeneous population of indigenous peoples such as the Iban, who are also found in the neighboring Malaysian state of Sarawak, along with a significant immigrant Chinese population. It is Brunei-Malay–speaking "Malays," however, who are politically privileged in Brunei. Citizenship remains a restricted category from which most Chinese are excluded. Special privileges are offered to distinguish Brunei-Malay speakers from members of other ethnic groups, such as the Kedayan, Bisayah, Murut, and Belait.

Harking back to a Brunei golden age when the kingdom held sway over large parts of coastal Brunei and traded with the Philippines, the Indonesian archipelago, and even China, modern Brunei exults in its Islamic history, even though archaeological evidence of a Hindu-Buddhistic negara (a Malay term for "state") supports the thesis of a flourishing pre-Islamic kingdom astride the Brunei River. Crucial to received models of kingship in Brunei, however, is the historical legacy of borrowing certain key royal insignia, emblems, and symbols, as well as an elaborate code of ranked titles, from the Malacca sultanate. More feudal than Islamic in this Malay setting, the sultan's own title, Yang Di Pertuan ("he who is supreme"), is emblematic of absolutist temporal and religious authority at the apex of a social hierarchy buttressed by a strict code of stratified social relations, in a status-obsessed social-political system.

While MIB is represented as reaching back to a hoary past, the question arises as to just how traditional the current political system actually is. The sultan, a Sandhurst-trained officer, is no stranger to Western ways and, via the British connection, is seen to be a loyal pro-Western ally and client for defense and other contracts. British-derived law, a British-Indian-Malaysian civil-service ethos, and a professional military, along with other imported forms bequeathed to independent Brunei, supply a complete armature of postcolonial controls and censorship necessary to stifle dissent, cripple initiative, and stave off political challenge. Even so, cooptation rather than oppression has been the general modus operandi, with the notable exception of imprisonment of surviving members of the PRB.

Contradictions nevertheless abound. While the trend to Islamicization and even Arabization in religious affairs is increasingly apparent, such as in the increased frequency of the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and the officialized use of Jawi, or Arabic script, in writing Malay, a palpable Westernization is also evident,not only by way of an expatriate presence but also as a product of economic globalization. To the disdain of many traditionalists, Brunei is increasingly a materialistic society. While Bruneians, the sultan included, revel in the liberalism afforded by overseas study or visits abroad, no such liberalism is tolerated at home. But even where the royal family has been known to indulge in pleasures at home, such extravagances are translated in the language of the rakyat, or subjects, as the natural rights of a benign Malay Islamic monarch.

Sharing many features with Middle Eastern ruling dynasties, including vulnerability to challenges from would-be reformists and conservatives, it is not surprising that Negara Brunei Darassalum is nonetheless prepared. There is no legal political challenge, as legitimate parties exist only as memorials, and parliament does not convene. Potential military challenge to the person of the sultan is checked by a praetorian guard in the form of a battalion of Gurhka soldiers, while potential disaffection in the armed forces has in part been offset by a move to split it into three distinct services. A potential Islamic challenge to Sunni orthodoxy has in effect been neutralized by the sultan's adroit brokering between modernists and conservatives, with the sultan and his two wives increasingly adopting a more pious public demeanor. Family challenge, doubtless anticipated by the August 1998 nomination of the sultan's eldest son, Al-Muhtadee Billah, as Crown Prince, is always a wild card in dynastic monarchies. Foreign subversion, including a challenge to offshore oil fields or spillover of any war over the Spratley Islands dispute in the South China Sea, cannot be ruled out. Possible spread of the post-Suharto violence raging in neighboring Indonesia is also a threat. Economic collapse in Brunei Darussalam is unlikely; however, withdrawal of economic legitimacy, such as that triggered by major financial losses, would imperil the closed political system, just as major international exposure of family scandals would damage legitimacy at home.

Borneo; Islam—Brunei

Brown, Donald, E. (1970) Brunei: The Structure and History of a Bornean Malay Sultanate. Monograph of the Brunei Museum Journal 2, 2.

Gunn, Geoffrey C. (1997) Language, Power, and Ideology in Brunei Darussalam. Ohio University Center for International Studies, Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asian Series, no. 99. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.

Hussainmiya, B. A. (1995) Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and Britain: The Making of Brunei Darussalam. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press.

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