Voters want BN parties to merge into one which is multiracial

By Carolyn Hong, The Straits Times

WHEN Kelantan prince Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah laid out a multiracial vision for Umno last Friday, he astutely seized the agenda of reform for the Malay-centric party.

He was the first senior party leader to articulate a call for Umno to look beyond narrow Malay interests, and pulled the rug from under the party that is still caught in its formulaic response to the March 8 polls.

The polls suggest that communal politics has become a losing proposition.

A survey by the independent Merdeka Centre confirms as much. The results published yesterday showed that two in three voters believe the Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties should merge. They want a multiracial model.

Just as significantly, half the Malays did not consider it a betrayal to vote for the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), which they traditionally regarded as too Chinese.

'For 40 years, the BN represented the best set of compromises possible in a multiracial society. It now has a chance to reinvent itself,' said Merdeka Centre executive director Ibrahim Suffian.

As Tengku Razaleigh noted in his speech, even non-Malays were flying the flag of the conservative Islamist Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and voting for it.

'Why? They did this because they believed that PAS, based on Islamic principles, is fairer to non-Malays than Umno is,' he said.

He said Umno should become an entity trusted by all races.

It is evident that Tengku Razaleigh tailored his message for an audience wider than the Umno members he was addressing in his Kelantan division.

It is a signal to the BN that he is capable of taking on the opposition that is already flying a multiracial flag.

The opposition astutely read the sentiment among Malaysians who were tired of being buffeted by bickering over Malay rights and Islamisation in the past few years.

Its response was to offer a multiracial platform involving the DAP, PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat.

Sticky issues such as PAS' vision of an Islamic state were quietly set on the back-burner. And the strategy paid off to the extent that some believe the political landscape may have changed permanently.

Still, it might be a little early to say.

'I would certainly put in a word of caution, as voters appeared to be voting more against BN than for opposition parties,' said Mr Tony Pua, DAP MP for Petaling Jaya Utara.

The governments in the five opposition-held states are working hard to keep the momentum going by implementing policies to promote the idea of justice over communal interests.

A classic example is the current hue and cry over a pig farming project in Selangor which PAS is supporting on the basis that Islam does not ban non-Muslims from eating pork.

'We have no problems with it,' said Dr Halimah Ali, the PAS state exco member for education and human resources.

Umno's Sepang MP Mohd Zin Mohamed's response was predictably along the old lines - he asked for a review on the grounds of religious and environmental sensitivities.

A few from the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Gerakan party have suggested reform, but they are isolated voices.

Said Gerakan secretary-general Chia Kwang Chye: 'The voters now don't care what colour or creed the candidates are.'

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