KL vote swing: Dangers and opportunities

KL vote swing: Dangers and opportunities

Posted by Raja Petra
Monday, 17 March 2008, MT

THREAT OF RACIAL POLARISATION

A danger is that Umno will now attempt to regain Malay voters by appealing to baser racial and religious instincts in order to try to outflank PAS and PKR. Thus, with these results, it is possible that Malaysian politics could become even more racially polarised, exposing the divides among the three opposition parties that must now manage to cooperate.

By Philip Bowring

THE elections of March 8 have not quite broken the mould of Malaysian politics as it has existed since independence 50 years ago. But the scale of the setback for the governing coalition of race-based parties raises opportunities for the country to move away from a system that has provided stability but has become little more than a patronage machine which has failed to respond adequately to a changing society.

Most remarkably, the swing to the opposition occurred among both rural and urban Malay voters, as well as among Chinese and Indians.

Though it still has a substantial majority in Parliament, thanks to a skewed system, the Barisan Nasional (BN) received barely more than 50 per cent of the votes. It now has control of only eight of the 13 states.

Malay voters migrated more to the multiracial, but predominantly Malay, party of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and to the main Islamist party. Indians and Chinese deserted coalition parties in hordes.

The result was a particular triumph for Datuk Seri Anwar. His Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) now has more seats than the Democratic Action Party (DAP), which has long been the main, predominantly Chinese, opposition party, as well as Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS).

But the opposition triumph carries dangers as well as opportunities. The most immediate danger is that members of Umno, the main ethnic Malay party that leads the governing coalition, will try to heap most of the blame on Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

For sure, Datuk Seri Abdullah has been a weak leader whose promises to attack corruption and restore faith in the government have not been fulfilled.

Most Malaysians still seem to think he has good intentions, but has not been strong enough to tackle the huge vested interests in the status quo.

The first to demand the Prime Minister's resignation was his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad. But it was during Tun Dr Mahathir's 23-year rule that the patronage system and abuse of power became institutionalised.

The track records of Datuk Seri Abdullah's likely successors in the Umno hierarchy show that they are even less likely to try to reform the patronage system or address the grievances of non-Malays.

Another danger is that Umno will now attempt to regain Malay voters by appealing to baser racial and religious instincts in order to outflank PAS and PKR.

Thus, with these results, it is possible that Malaysian politics could become even more racially polarised, exposing the divides among the three opposition parties that must now manage to cooperate. That will not be easy, given that PAS is a religion-based Malay party; the DAP a centre-left, mainly Chinese party; and PKR a middle-of-the- road, but mainly Malay party.

Much may depend on the skill and ambitions of Datuk Seri Anwar.

His appeal has been re-established and his party holds the middle ground. But his liberal, multiracial views have, at times, been at odds with the political rewards of emphasising an overtly Malay and Islamic agenda.

Beyond the dangers are opportunities. Short-term issues such as crime and inflation played a role in the government's defeat, overshadowing an economy booming on the back of record commodity prices and a surge in government spending.

But these cannot explain the size and generality of the swing that occurred everywhere except in the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak - where, ironically, race and religion are not such fraught issues as in peninsular Malaysia.

Among all races, there is now a realisation that preferential policies intended to bring the Malays to socio-economic equality have, in many cases, just become a way of enriching the Umno elite.

Among all races, perhaps there is also a recognition that the government must make more effort to focus on Malaysian rather than on communal or religious identity.

PAS, hitherto only in power in poor, conservative Malay Kelantan, will now find itself in government in the richer, more urbanised states where non-Malays (and foreigners) are numerous.

The experience will broaden its outlook, which was already shifting due to the need to increase its appeal to urban Malays, and not to frighten non-Malay voters into taking refuge with BN.

It is too early to tell whether there has been a fundamental change in the mainsprings of Malaysian politics. But there is now some prospect that issues other than race and religion will take more prominence; that class, quality of administration and economic issues will play a larger role.

At the very least, the Umno patronage system, the mix of greed, arrogance and nepotism that comes from 50 years in power, has been undermined by an increasingly aware electorate, now fed news by the Internet as well as the government-controlled media. For that, Datuk Seri Abdullah must take some credit. He may have been unable to stop the rot within, but a greater openness compared with the Mahathir era made it easier to expose abuses.

In the coming months, Malaysia will be living with more uncertainties: Can Datuk Seri Abdullah survive? Can Umno reform from within? Can the opposition parties now in state government cooperate?

It will be unsettling, but it is necessary. The old mould needs to be broken.

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE