Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on February 26, 2018

Early this year, the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) shared the findings of its survey among urban Malays which showed that they were upset with Umno, but fearful that a change of government would place Malay interests at risk.

The voters consulted in five states by the policy institute were angry with the party that is built on the protection of Malay rights because of the corruption that has set into the system.

However, they were more worried that change would affect their economic well-being and the position of Islam in the country’s affairs, said the outgoing Ideas CEO Wan Saiful Wan Jan.

“Malays, both urban and rural, are demanding that the constitutional guarantee of their special position will be defended,” Wan Saiful said in a text message to The Edge.

“I travelled to various parts of Malaysia to interview Malay voters and this demand seems to be universally present,” he said.

This anxiety could be an effective insurance to ensure that the ruling government is returned to power in the coming 14th general election.

For six decades, led by Umno, the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition has placed special emphasis on developing the capacity of the indigenous bumiputera communities, and in particular the Malays, through a comprehensive array of capacity-building programmes.

These range from educational opportunities, entrepreneur development, grant programmes, infrastructure development, agricultural schemes and microfinancing, among other things.

The investments have built up a formidable reservoir of support for the BN that has helped it to secure a record run in office.

Over time, however, the stockpile of goodwill has been eroded by a growing disconnect between the political and economic elite, on the one hand, and a large swathe of the people yearning for better governance and fairer treatment, on the other.

This led to the shock of the 12th general election in 2008, when an unprecedented five states fell to opposition parties.

The disaffection among voters was confirmed by the next general election in 2013, when the ruling coalition lost the popular vote for the first time, polling 47% of votes cast to the opposition’s 51%.

Nevertheless, due to the liberal application of rural weightage, BN holds 60% of the 222 parliamentary seats.

Simultaneously, however, there is a growing uneasiness, especially among beneficiaries of the government’s positive discrimination programmes, that the buffer provided for disadvantaged bumiputeras by the BN’s policies may be swept away by the tide of political change.

Their concerns have found expression through right-wing groups like Perkasa and the Red Shirts movement, which are founded on promoting Malay interests.

Running parallel to the concern over ethnic identity is the perception that the position of Islam in national life may be diluted by the growing clout of an invigorated opposition front, seen in the rising fortunes of the DAP.

For the conservatives, the growing strength of the DAP, which swept a record 28 seats in the 2008 general election, from an anaemic 12 in the 2004 electoral outing, called for an assertive response from Malay-Muslim groups.

Moreover, in the 2013 general election, DAP’s representation in the Dewan Rakyat surged to 38 seats, its highest number to date.

For PAS, the flag bearer of political Islam in the country, this meant that it had to end its electoral cooperation with DAP in order to keep the faith of its core support base.

That split came about within two years of the 13th general election, causing the collapse of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition that was seen to have been the opposition parties’ best chance to date of capturing federal power.

Following the cutting of ties between the two parties in June 2015, political observers saw that multi-cornered fights would be highly likely in the 14th general election, virtually scuttling the opposition’s chances of a strong electoral outcome.

“If PAS ends up as an independent non-cooperative opposition party, then it will unintentionally assist BN in winning if it starts fielding candidates in PKR seats as what happened in Kota Damansara (in the 13th general election),” Merdeka Centre director Ibrahim Suffian was reported as saying.

Although PAS’ exit from Pakatan Rakyat badly damaged the prospects of the opposition parties, they regrouped soon afterwards as the Pakatan Harapan coalition, uniting the multiracial PKR, DAP with its predominantly Chinese support and Amanah, formed by progressive Islamists who had exited from PAS.

Said Wan Saiful: “The presence of DAP in the Pakatan Harapan coalition makes [the disaffected Malays] impose a higher threshold before they can give their trust and support to them.”

“As for Pakatan Harapan, their most important task is to persuade the Malays that they can be trusted to maintain and even strengthen the Malay agenda,” he said.

This then is the bottom line. The key to the opposition’s chances of taking control of Putrajaya is a Malay-based party that unhappy Umno supporters can switch their allegiance to.

Enter the indestructible Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

At 92, he has not only sprung out of retirement, the longest-serving prime minister of the country has rewritten the playbook of national politics in a series of stunning turnarounds.

From leading Umno and a government that had stymied the opposition at every turn, he has now cast himself in the opposite role as the commander of the opposition front — vowing to unseat his former protégé, prime minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Equally dramatic was his rapprochement with his former nemesis Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, his former deputy whom he sacked from his cabinet and Umno 18 years ago. Mahathir’s surprised showing at Anwar’s court appearance in September 2016, followed by the handshake between the two leaders, is an iconic moment in the progress of the opposition movement.

Earlier, in March 2015, Mahathir shook up the political status quo by chairing the launch of the Citizens’ Declaration with an array of the most prominent opposition leaders, notably his former arch-rival DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang and leading citizens’ rights advocates, including Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan.

A key point in the declaration was to seek the removal of Najib and those who had acted in concert with him to the purported detriment of the country.

Mahathir has certainly galvanised the political opposition, but much remains to be established in terms of the systemic overhaul that the opposition is seeking to achieve.

Penang Institute Fellow Dr Wong Chin Huat advocates a methodical application of reforms, in a texted message to The Edge.

“Pakatan Harapan needs to offer an honest yet pragmatic narrative about the country’s present and future,” he said.

“Too sweeping changes will scare people to cling onto the status quo, while too little changes will see the nation gradually sinking into quicksand,” said Wong.

“Pakatan Harapan needs to outline, first, basic institutional reforms — electoral, judicial, legislative and administrative — that must be implemented after GE14 to make government responsive and accountable to the people, and secondly, the more difficult issues — involving ethnicity and religion — which must be inclusively and patiently discussed so that new solutions might be implemented after GE15,” he said.

Ironically, most of the problems that Wong identifies had their genesis during Mahathir’s 22-year rule.

Yet, for the moment, the old warrior is game for the looming battle, as he niftily demonstrated at a press conference right after he was discharged from hospital last week.

After updating the media on the all-clear given by his doctors, Mahathir ended the conference, got to his feet and flexed his arms like a boxer impatient for the match to begin.

“I’m all right now,” he said, as if to put his opponents on notice.

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