Socialist Party of Malaysia
political party in Malaysia
The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM, Malay: Parti Sosialis Malaysia; Chinese: 马来西亚社会主义党; Tamil: மலேசிய சோசியலிஸ்ட் கட்சி), is a socialist political party in Malaysia.
Formed in 1998, the party was denied registration as a political party until 2008 on the grounds that it was a threat to national security. Shortly after, it achieved its electoral breakthrough when it won its first parliamentary and state seats in Sungai Siput and Kota Damansara respectively.
History
Formation
The party's lineage can be traced to Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia (PSRM), which reverted to its original name of Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) in 1990. PRM merged with Parti Keadilan Nasional in 2003.
In 1991, several grassroots based organisations working with the urban and rural poor in Malaysia formed an alliance. These included the Jawatankuasa Sokongan Peneroka Bandar led by Mohd Nasir Hashim, Alaigal led by Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, and Pusat Pembangunan Masyarakat headed by Arutchelvan Subramaniam.
In 1994, the groups staged a massive Labour Day demonstration at the heart of Kuala Lumpur, surprising many people. The last major demonstration called by the working class in the capital city was in the 1970s.
In 1995, these grassroots organisation who already had their strong support among the plantation workers, the urban poor, and industrial workers mooted the idea for a political party to represent the aspirations of the poor and the marginalised.
“Socialist Party of Malaysia” enters the record as political party in Malaysia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Socialist, Party and Malaysia can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q857555. VIAF identifies the subject as 130646781. The Library of Congress control number is nr2002009095. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 2008, 1990 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Socialist Party of Malaysia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.