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(Bloomberg) -- A wily challenger came upon a weak and lazy incumbent and pummeled him.
That's how the shocking results of the recently concluded Malaysian elections are being caricatured in the media. One cartoonist portrayed the worst-ever performance by the ruling coalition as the outcome of a contest between Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the mild-mannered ``never-mind'' prime minister, and Anwar Ibrahim, the tough ``mastermind'' of the opposition. The poll, however, was not only about personalities. It was also about the people of Malaysia and their disillusionment with a deeply entrenched culture of political and judicial corruption, cronyism and the resultant concentration of economic power. The unexpected loss of support for the Barisan Nasional coalition was also a testimony to the true extent of anger among the Malaysian Chinese and Indians over race-based entitlements for the majority Malay Muslims. Anwar, a former deputy prime minister under Mahathir Mohamad, hasn't been this important a figure in Malaysian politics since 1998 when he was unceremoniously sacked by his boss and imprisoned on sodomy and corruption charges. Freed by the Federal Court in 2004, his sodomy conviction overturned, the opposition leader is now the staunchest critic of the establishment. To his advantage, Anwar is also seen as a competent organizer. Now that the electorate has given him at least a limited mandate, it will be interesting to see just how far he can go, how quickly and to what effect. Abdullah Versus Anwar Barisan Nasional, which means National Front, has fallen short of a two-thirds supermajority in parliament; and that will curb its power to push for constitutional change. Even worse, it has lost power in five states, including Selangor, Penang and Perak, three of the most economically developed. Anwar, who couldn't contest the election because of a 1999 conviction for corruption, is widely expected to be back in parliament after the ban against him expires next month. Meanwhile, Anwar-controlled Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or People's Justice Party, has already emerged as the biggest constituent of a three-party opposition grouping. It has also improved its individual tally in the 222-member parliament to 31, from just one in 2004. Together, the opposition will be a bigger force in parliament than the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, the core of Barisan Nasional. `Obsolete' Policies Already, Anwar and his allies have announced that they would scrap the pro-Malay economic policies in Selangor, which surrounds the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur. Anwar has previously denounced the quotas as ``obsolete'' and an obstacle to economic growth. Pundits are speculating about how long it will be before Abdullah surrenders the top job -- perhaps to his deputy, the 54-year-old Najib Razak -- or is forced to do so by UMNO leaders. Analysts are also asking whether Anwar can eventually lead Malaysia to a genuine two-party democracy where people's support for one or the other grouping is based on issues, rather than ethnic identities. Such realignment, if it were to occur, wouldn't have arrived a moment too soon. Following horrific race riots in 1969, Malays, who are mostly Muslims and make up three-fifths of the population of 27 million, have been mollycoddled with state-sponsored favoritism. The scope of this effort went way beyond the limited special measures for the majority community that had been agreed upon in the Federation of Malaya's 1957 constitution. Social Contract Bumiputera, or ``son-of-the-soil,'' policies have since then permeated everything from educational opportunities and jobs to government contracts and ownership of publicly traded companies. The ``entitlement economy'' has corroded Malaysia's competitiveness by forcing talented Chinese and Indian youngsters to leave the country for want of equal opportunity. Yet, any suggestion of putting an end to the handouts has always been denounced as a breach of the ``social contract'' and an invitation to racial violence. But the ground is now shifting. In the recent election, the Malaysian Indian Congress, a constituent of Barisan, has almost been wiped out. That's a body blow to the Barisan model of containing the minorities by co-opting them into the ruling coalition and giving them limited access to political power. New Dawn? Anwar described the election result as a ``new dawn'' for Malaysia. We'll see. Even those who are sympathetic to Anwar aren't entirely sure if he really is the voice of all Malaysians or whether his rather hurried metamorphosis into an almost Western-style constitutional liberal is just an optical illusion. After all, Anwar as education minister in the 1980s played a role in the Islamization of Malaysia's secular education system. If today the Chinese -- and, to a lesser extent, the Indians -- have opted out of the national schools, obstructing the formation of a multiracial Malaysian identity, Anwar must share part of the blame. All that, however, is history; and to be fair to Anwar, the ruling coalition did its best to discredit him before the polls, raking up his past. The election result is a clear sign that those efforts didn't succeed. Anwar has won the second round just as spectacularly as he lost the first one to Mahathir 10 years ago. The elections may be over, but the battle for hearts and minds in Malaysia is only just beginning. (Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg News columnist.)
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