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Saturday, August 30, 2008

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!

10 comments:

  1. BUMNO the cornered rat is likely to unleash extreme, I mean extreme, measures to stay in power.

    I do not support frogs, but I wholeheartedly support PR's stand on Bangsa Malaysia. I'm really wondering aloud if Anwar should slow down on his campaign.

    BUMNO's "survival at any cost" defense could be very, very painful for all Malaysians.

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  2. Taking up further from "Retired Audit-General" and "Supernova", the votes for Anwar would be as follows :

    Until and unless the postal votes are proven to be properly casted and witnessed and controlled by an idependent EC with independent scrutineers in attendance, I would first declare the postal votes as INVALID foremost.

    It is well known that "postal votes" are used to shore up the votes for the top leaders of UMNO. Period. And also for UMNO candidates who appear to be losing their individual elections. Double period!

    Thus, if the EC @ 5pm announces officially that 65.3% of the registered voters of 58,458 have casted their votes, this means 38,144 voted.

    @ 9.45pm, if Anwar Ibrahim is declared to have received 31,195 votes by the EC, this means he received 81.8% of the votes casted.

    Arif Shah would have received only 6,857 votes or 18.0%.

    Hanafi : 92 or 0.2%.

    Anwar therefore actually received a majority of 24,246.

    So where did Arif obtained his
    "15,524" votes? This "15,524" is "8,667" more that 6,857. Or 15% of registered voters.

    "Postal votes" comprising 15.0% of the totla registered voters?

    Bollocks! Postal votes should not exceed, in my opinion, 3% of the registered voters.

    Arif's "postal votes" of "8,667" votes is more than the people voting for him by hand!

    The "postal votes" - totally, 100% for UMNO-BN?!! - are noting more than fraudulent "balancing figures". Once you decide what the voter turnout is going to be, in this case 80.8%, you will get a balancing figure of 8,667 additional for Arif!

    Unbelievable and absurd is it not?

    If you were to do a reconciliation of the total direct and postal votes cast for the 8 March Elections in the whole country, you will get a clear picture of the extent of the election fraud.

    You can do a full audit right down to the army recruits and you should be able to indict the Army chiefs, UMNO, and the EC officials for grand larceny.

    Our votes, our democracy, have actually have been hijacked by Mr M's UMNO-BN all these years.

    "Electiongate"? Whose "albatross" shall it be? Mr Mahathir's first and foremost I'd venture to say.

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  3. Well kittykat

    I mentioned this a few articles back and I am saying this again ,Anwar should not push his luck too far . One of these days he's gonna run out of luck and when you are out of luck heaven help you !!

    He should use this time to build up his team , not going in for another battle , in the end somebody will have to give way . When two tigers do a battle for control of territory , one of them , the loser will have to leave for good .

    Never push anyone to a corner , all hell will break lose , and its gonna be either you or me !

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  4. Hi everyone,

    The SPR has still not explained how more than 700 voters in PP whose names were gazetted by SPR were not found on the electoral rolls used for the by-election. There's a suspicion of selective ommission of names by the SPR!

    We have to demand that SPR state the reasons for such an ommission of names, is it clerical error?

    SPR's official announced live on TV that the figure of the by-election turn-out as around 63.5% on close of voting,while at that time BN/UMNO sources claim more than 80% turn-out. SPR must explain how come the actual turn-out then became just above 80%, instead of 63.5%. Why such a big discrepancy?

    There seems to be something fishy going on!

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  5. Unfortunately, one of the casualties of the tsunami was BERSIH - at least on DAP's side, now they're all busy running state executives, no time for all these things that they used to fill their time with when they were just running community service centers :)

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  6. tan, tanjong bungah

    The guy already sworn in lah ! Guess just let it be since he has won . If he lose then this will become another issue . Phantom voters I guess recruited from the cemetery , don't forget the phantoms still around until seven month ends in a few days time .

    Anyway talk something more pertinent right now , like whats going to happen after this !

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  7. Hey KT sorry I didn't reply earlier , thought nobody interested in this Tan Tong Tong fellow ! Yeah your uncle and xiean were right .

    I posted it in that manner as I wanted it to sound sarcastic in the way anonymous posted MASSIVE MASSIVE MASSIVE VOTE RIGGING BY EC..so I purposely let it rhyme Kiam arh nooi,kiam arh nooi,kiam arh nooi .

    Forwarded you some old pictures of Penang thru your email .

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  8. Chaptokam,
    The difference between you and I,
    is I'm trying to figure out a less dangerous way to send BUMNO out of power, while you are working to perpetuate BUMNO.

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  9. Hi chaptokam,

    It's very convenient to sweep things under the carpet? It matters not whether AI has won and been sworn into office. It is a question of the credibility of the SPR.

    If AI had lost and then pursued this matter, I know you're going to say "See AI would say there's vote-rigging and foul play, like missing names, etc, in order to salvage his pride, etc ...!

    Ain't you interested to find out why more than 700 gazetted voters can disappear from the electoral rolls. Isn't there clear evidence of such ommission?

    The SPR was officially given the names, and SPR assured that they would look into it. Is SPR not interested in clearing any doubts that may reflect on its professionalism and credibilty? There may be plausible reasons for the ommission though but let SPR do the talking!

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  10. Hi All

    Following Dr Ooi Kee Beng's reasoning, I hope that UMNO reforms and follows the example of the Taiwanese Guomindang.

    If it takes the ultra-nationalist/racist/fascist road, it would become even more marginalised in Malaysian politics.
    Remember that even fascist parties need mass support to stay in power. With more Malays going over to PKR and PAS, UMNO can only stay in power by massive repression.
    This won't work unless you are willing to turn the guns on your own people (as in Myanmar).

    As a sociologist, I believe that the ongoing trend of Malay urbanisation will also weaken UMNO.
    UMNO needs to change its policies to recapture the urban Malay vote as well as recapture votes from dissatisfied Gerakan, MCA, MIC etc members. The ethnic/religious composition of the Malaysian population makes it imperative to get support from the non-Malays and non-Muslims to stay in power.

    All of you BN supporters should push for genuine reform in UMNO
    if you wish to see your beloved BN stay in power :-)

    Phua Kai Lit

    Phua Kai Lit

    ReplyDelete