The starting point of the crisis in the judiciary can be traced to the 1987 election of the president of Umno, the dominant political party of the Barisan Nasional.

In 1987, the then president of Umno was Dr Mahathir Mohamad who was also the prime minister of Malaysia. The incumbent received more than 100 nominations from the Umno branches for the presidency whereas his challenger Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, one of the three party vice-presidents was nominated by slightly more than 20 branches.

The fact that the challenger in spite of receiving so few nominations had the audacity to mount a challenge came as a surprise to many pundits. However, when the secret ballots were counted, the result came as a shock to many as well. They had expected the incumbent to win by an overwhelming majority based purely on the great number of nominations he had received from the branches. Instead, Mahathir only won by a narrow margin of 43 votes.