Posted on March 12, 2008 by wayangparty
By Eugene Yeo
Long regarded as politically apathetic and “bochap”, there was a well of unprecedented interest amongst Singaporeans especially the young in the latest Malaysian general election.
Whether in heartland kopitiams frequented by the Ah Peks and Ah Sohs or a cyberspace populated by young savvy bloggers and forumers, everybody is talking about the political “tsunami” which has hit Malaysia and if its effect will spill over to Singapore in the next GE.
Many Singaporeans were inspired and electrified by the triumphs of the underdogs against all odds - the overwhelming grassroots machinery of BN, its seemingly infinite resources, vilification by the mainstream media, all of which they can easily identified with given the similar circumstances in Singapore.
Bloggers post daily updates of the Malaysian election campaign and of the results on polling day itself. The podcasts of opposition campaigns, speeches and rallies were widely viewed. Internet chatrooms and forums were filled with threads praising, supporting and even lauding opposition figures though few Singaporeans have met them in person before.
Though the ethnic composition of the electorate on both sides of the causeway differs greatly (Chinese is the majority race in Singapore with a majority of 76% as compared to 26% in Malaysia in which the Malays is the dominant race), the political landscape is uncannily similar with a monolith party or coalition leading the countries since independence.
Political analysts hailed the internet as having a significant impact on the opposition’s electoral success as evident in the high level of support received by the opposition in the urban constituencies with over 60% in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur alone.
Malaysia’s internet penetration is 62% compared to Singapore’s 85% in 2007 and therefore it is not impossible, inferring from the Malaysia experience, that such stunning electoral outcome can be replicated in Singapore in the island’s next general election in 2010 or 2011.
Frustrated and peeved with the mainstream media’s unshamed bias to the incumbent Barisan Nasional, many young Malaysians turned to the alternative media as a reliable source of news.
The more biased and lopsided the reports of the state media are, the more credibility the alternative media gains. The popular online news blog Malaysiakini reported a record half a million visitors an hour on the election day itself causing its server to crash.
Not surprisingly, the majority of netizens are anti-establishment opposition supporters. According to a mock election conducted by the popular news blog Malaysia Today, 88% of its readers voted for the opposition, Barisan Rakyat.
The same trend is also noted in Singapore, not least by the ruling PAP, that more and more Singaporeans are obtaining their news from blogs and forums.
Like their Malaysian counterparts, Singapore netizens are voracious critics of the PAP. Surely it does dawn upon the politically astute PAP that this is a potential threat to their rule in the future.
As Raja Petra Kamaruddin of Malaysia Today put it aptly:
“I also read that some politicians in Singapore are anxious as to what had happened in the last election in Malaysia. They feared that the tide will overspill on the island causing the People’s Action Party (PAP) to collapse in their next general election.”
Filed under: From the Editor
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