This paper looks at the Malaysian General Election campaign of
2013, and focuses primarily on the 1Malaysia project that was foregrounded
by the administration of Prime Minister Najib Razak. It compares the
1Malaysia project with other projects aimed at nation-building, such as the
Wawasan 2020 project of former Prime Minister Mahathir and the Islam
Hadari project of former Prime Minister Badawi; and asks if 1Malaysia was
truly an attempt at building a sense of Malaysian nationhood based on uni-
versal citizenship regardless of race or religion; and it also considers the
response to the 1Malaysia project that came from the opposition parties of
the country. Malaysia has experienced a steady process of islamisation that
dates back to the Mahathir era, and the question of whether the political
domain of Malaysia has been overcome by religious-communitarian markers
and values will be raised in the paper as well.