A state of flux in Malaysia's racial politics

A state of flux in Malaysia's racial politics

Posted by Raja Petra
Monday, 17 March 2008, MT

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One of the key platforms of the Anwar-led PKR is to review or dismantle the NEP. Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, the Anwar ally and new chief minister of Selangor, has said he will now act on the PKR's promise on the NEP.

By Yang Razali Kassim, For The Straits Times

HAVING successfully denied the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) its two-thirds majority in the new Parliament, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is now in a position to snatch away the right to form the government from the BN.

With 82 seats out of 222, the opposition parties are only 30 seats short of a simple majority. The Malaysian electoral system does not require MPs who switch parties to resign their seats. Datuk Seri Anwar's visit to East Malaysia last week is therefore noteworthy. Should he succeed in wooing over 30 new BN MPs, he will have the numbers - 112 - to form a government.

But then again, he may not succeed in throwing the BN out. Umno, the pillar of the BN, is not likely to take this prospect lying down, as dazed as it is now. Too much is at stake. The prospect of losing power is so alarming that we should expect counter-moves from Umno - as is happening now.

That is why there have been denials in the media in recent days - from both sides - about possible crossovers.

If Datuk Seri Anwar tries to woo over BN members, Umno, too, can play the same game. Indeed, Umno will have no choice but to deploy every device at its disposal, for this has now become a matter of survival.

The upshot is a political system in flux. Malaysian politics has entered a new era.

Significantly, this era has been riot-free thus far. The first time the ruling coalition lost its two-thirds majority in 1969, ethnic riots followed.

That was why, as soon as it was clear the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) had swept to power in Penang, DAP leader Lim Guan Eng urged party members to avoid victory parades.

BN leaders must also be commended for taking the massive losses in their strides.

This maturing of Malaysian democracy will set the tone as the chief players sort out the many uncertainties of the post-election phase.

For a long time, the Malaysian political system has hinged on a few fundamentals. The first is power-sharing among the major races.

Power was shared on the premise of ketuanan Melayu, or Malay political dominance, in exchange for citizenship for the earlier generation of immigrant Chinese and Indians. This arrangement in 1957 gave rise to the Alliance coalition of race-based parties - the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC).

Following the 1969 riots, the Alliance was expanded into the 14-party strong BN, or National Front. The New Economic Policy (NEP), involving affirmation action, was introduced to placate Malay fears, and the five national principles of Rukunegara were put in place to foster national integration.

For 40 years, Umno ruled the country by sharing power with the representatives of the minority communities.

Cabinets were formed on the basis of ethnic representation, with each community allocated a quota of seats. The 2008 election has thrown this BN-based coalition system into doubt.

With many BN ministers from the Chinese and Indian parties having been defeated at the polls, and with losses among Umno ministers as well, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi will find it difficult to maintain the racial balance in his Cabinet.

For Umno, what is at stake now is not just ketuanan Melayu, but also the NEP, a strategic road map to fulfil bumiputera aspirations for economic parity with the other races.

One of the key platforms of the Anwar-led PKR is to review or dismantle the NEP. Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, the Anwar ally and new chief minister of Selangor, has said he will now act on the PKR's promise on the NEP.

The PKR and DAP's seriousness on this matter has begun to sink in among Umno leaders. They have warned the opposition against marginalising Malay interests.

Undoing the NEP will be a tricky task. How the NEP is handled - or mishandled - can unravel the peace that we now see.

More fundamentally, there is now the possibility of a two-coalition system. It is possible that the Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front, or BA) - comprising the PKR, DAP and Parti Islam SeMalaysia or PAS - may be revived.

This new BA would be fundamentally different from its predecessor, which was formed at the height of the Anwar sacking in 1998. The DAP left it following differences with PAS over the issue of an Islamic state.

The new BA would be led by neither PAS nor DAP, but by PKR, which is multiracial, though Malay-based. The new BA, if formalised, would not be fixated on establishing an Islamic state or the NEP or Chinese education. This emerging 'politics of the middle ground' is significant.

We are seeing, for the first time, the possibility of two opposing coalitions - one barely in power, led by Datuk Seri Abdullah, and the other styling itself as the 'government-in-waiting', led by Datuk Seri Anwar.

Both have multiethnic representations, and both have Malays and Muslims at the core. But BN is race-based, while the emerging BA claims not to be. Significantly, both depend on a formula of power-sharing.

The new PKR-DAP-PAS coalition is a reinvented creature thrown up by the 2008 general election. It is now being tested in the four opposition-controlled states other than Kelantan - Perak, Kedah, Selangor, and to a lesser extent, Penang.

Unsurprisingly, it is proving to be tenuous and conflict-prone as its component parties adjust to the realities of government.

But if they can make it work, the BA may succeed in offering itself as the alternative government, with an alternative model of managing a multiracial society - unless, of course, it unravels before it achieves its goal.

The writer is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University



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Undoing the NEP will be a tricky task. How the NEP is handled - or mishandled - can unravel the peace that we now see.