51st Merdeka - Racism well & truly alive

In Malaysiakini section for Top Blogs, Uncle Lim has a new post titled 2009 Budget - Abdullah fighting for his political life in which he wrote (relevant extracts):

… Abdullah was fighting for his political life when he presented the 2009 Budget.

I am not the only one to read Abdullah’s 2009 budget, as his “last ditch bid to cling to power” as a Singapore-based analyst commented: “It is a populist budget to deflect the growing popularity of Anwar”

Never before in Malaysia’s 51-year history has a budget received so little national interest and public attention – as all focus is on how long the Barisan Nasional government can last or Abdullah survive as Prime Minister.

In the past three days after the Permatang Pauh by-election, demands have grown in UMNO for Abdullah to step down as Prime Minister and from the other Barisan Nasional component parties to quit the ruling coalition.

Uncle Lim has hit the nail on the head in that there is - no, incomplete, include ‘has been’ as well, thus … there has been, and still is, humongous dissent within UMNO!

* to a lesser (vocal) extent, the BN component parties like MCA, Gerakan and MIC have indicated dissatisfaction with the existing partnership, with Gerakan members being the most vociferous.

While one of the two principal reasons for Anwar Ibrahim winning the Permatang Pauh by-election, with a majority greater than what Dr Wan Azizah had obtained in March 08, has been the voters’ dissatisfaction with the BN, the other has been the UMNO’s internal strife and the accompanying lack of support if not sabotage by some UMNO factions for the UMNO candidate.

If you examine the statistics for the March elections versus Arif Shah’s diminished voter support to just 15524 (Dr Pirdaus had enjoyed 16,950), it becomes clear that a large chunk of UMNO members/supporters had cast their votes for Anwar.

In the March general election the total votes for UMNO from the 3 State seats in Permatang Pauh totalled 20,093. So where have nearly 4600 UMNO supporters disappeared to?

Sure, there could have been some who were so repulsed by SIL’s Mat Rempit-ish brash braggart behaviour that they voted for PKR; then there were no doubt some who thought Anwar had been the victim of a political conspiracy and gave him their sympathy votes; there were a few who didn’t even turn out to vote, and there were some who have been either harbouring secret admiration (and thus voted) for Anwar.

But 4600 UMNO supporters swinging over in a mere 6 months?

If those 4600 had stayed true and blue with the UMNO candidate, Anwar Ibrahim would still have won but with only a (rounded out) 6500 majority, even less than the 10,800 majority what I had predicted for him.

I have borrowed some polling data from Malaysiakini in an article by Ong Kian Ming titled By-election: PKR gets more Malay votes.

Ong wrote a damn good analysis though he focussed on Anwar’s increased support. He analysed that Malay voters increased for PKR by 3% since March 2008, while non-Malay voters for Anwar increased by just 1% (see Malaysiakini table below). Needless to say, these were at the expense of Arif Shah.


My post discusses the cause of Arif’s loss of 4600 UMNO voters.

I also note that the Permatang Pauh by-election voter turnout was 477 less (rounded out to 500) than that for the March election, which could be due to the Tuesday polling day, or 500 UMNO supporters who didn’t bother to come out to vote, either because they thought it wasn’t worth the effort against the Anwar Ibrahim juggernaut (recall that some UMNO pollies had even suggested boycotting the by-election), or they were not supportive of Arif Shah but didn’t want to vote for Anwar or spoil their votes.

I also note in Ong's analysis that PKR gained (and thus Arif lost) 727 votes in Arif’s own Sebarang Jaya State constituency.

Now, there could be a number of reasons for UMNO’s lack of party cohesion, discipline and loyalty in the by-election, eg. members' dissatisfaction with the leaders’ choice of Arif Shah, or those belonging to factions hostile to AAB sabotaging or not supporting their party candidate, etc.

Factions opposed to AAB and those who have personal aspirations to be PM have contributed to the schism in UMNO by campaigning against him openly and aggressively. A house disunited is a house fallen.

The once powerful UMNO monolith seems to be always behind the 8-ball.

Songs of ‘hallelujah, racist politics is no more; it’s a new world where Malaysians want change’ may be true but that would only be part of the new dynamics, and in fact not as powerful as the other causes which have been:

(a) the UMNO internal fight either over the spoils associated with political domination or ideology to ensure that political domination and associated social programs, and

(b) the dream of a political party to make Malaysia an Islamic nation, not only in name but in laws, practice and frighteningly, rule (by a council of unelected mullahs?) where the party now believes (in its collective perception) that such a monumental change is very achievable in the current political state.

Malaysiakini has just published an article by Wong Choon Mei titled Racism still haunts nation at 51st Merdeka which quoted Dr Ramon Navaratnam, a member of the government's New Unity Advisory Panel, stating:

“The momentum of racism has increased with time and the perception of racial discrimination in the abuses in the implementation of the New Economic Policy. Some recent surveys also bear out this unfortunate negative trend.”

“This has been the major source of racial disharmony so to speak. This feeling of alienation and marginalisation appears to permeate among all racial and religious groups, particularly since the 1980's. This is a dangerous trend that has to be arrested.”

“Umno, MCA and MIC are seen as being more concerned with their own separate racial interests and political progress and survival than the welfare of the masses, regardless of race.”

“Some of our leaders use religion to divide and rule. Race and religion can go hand in hand. But our leaders must stand for all and promote better religious harmony. Not all do and that is the sad thing.”

Author Wong also reminded us of the recent aggressive objection by some Muslims to the Bar Council’s forum as a worrying sign. And we recall, PKR's Kulim Wonder was one of the most virulent protestors, so the dangerous racial-religious input has not been exclusively from UMNO or the other BN component parties.

Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng said: “… the outcome of the last general election should not be seen as a demise of ethno-religious politics. It is still very much alive. Racial politics has helped to embed racism in our subconscious mind.”

Indeed, we have just witnessed MCA lambasting an UMNO bigot who classified non-Malay citizens as only squatters of this nation even on the eve of our 51st Merdeka anniversary.

But the UMNO internal problem spells the possibility of danger for Malaysians, especially non-Malays, as the religio-ethnic warriors keep crawling out of the woodwork 'to save' the bangsa dan agama (but in reality their own interests) … with even one such ‘warrior’ from the PKR (still for Anwar Ibrahim to take discipline action against him).

Dirgahayu Malaysia!