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This time around, however, while the Malays more or less maintained their 50:50 status, more than half the Chinese voters and more than 80% the Indian voters swung over to Pakatan Rakyat. And this was what caused the swing or Tsunami on 8 March 2008.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Malaysia Today
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made the historical announcement that he is quitting Umno in front of supporters affiliated with diverse political parties. It was a strategic move, in line with his objective to drive home the message on the importance of Malay unity to protect the interest of the future generation.
The crowd cheered when Dr Mahathir took a dare (from PAS Jerlun Area deputy president Ismail Wan Teh) and announced he is quitting the party. Some gave him a standing ovation after listening to an hour-long talk on “Position of Malays After the 12th General Election” at Star City Hotel in Alor Star on May 19.
They appeared to understand the rational behind Dr Mahathir’s drastic action. The event organised by the Kedah Malay Assembly Hall (KMAH) attracted more than 1,500 people from various political parties and non-government organisations. Dr Mahathir said apolitical bodies like KMAH could provide a platform to unite the Malays, and act as pressure group for the Malays.
“Unity has always been our strength,’’ he said. If the Malays did not unite under Umno in 1946, they would not have gained the strength to resist Malayan Union during the British occupation. Dr Mahathir said the present generation has benefited from the struggles of the previous generation. “If we support a leader who could ruin our race, the future generation will condemn us for making them victims,’’ he said. Dr Mahathir said the time has come to take drastic action, like quitting the party en masse to force Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to step down.
The impact of Dr Mahathir’s decision to quit was so great that it virtually shook the nation and Umno. Even Dr Mahathir’s family members were caught by surprise. Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir said even his mother, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, had no idea his father would resort to such a drastic measure that day.
Mukhriz said Dr Mahathir has a knack for springing a surprise, even on the family, when he makes drastic moves in politics. “It caught us (the family members) by surprise when my father announced that he is resigning as the Prime Minister and party president in 2002 (Dr Mahathir handed over the mantle to his hand-picked successor Abdullah in 2003),’’ he said.
Ismail, the PAS man who dared Dr Mahathir to quit, doubted that the former premier made an impromptu decision to quit. “We can see it coming in his speech. I merely prodded him to say what is on his mind. He has explained at length during the speech on actions that need to be taken,’’ he said.
Some Umno leaders, however, did not respond kindly, as they felt that Dr Mahathir’s action would actually split and weaken Umno especially since he has asked other members to follow suit to send a strong message to Abdullah. Many could not “read” what Dr Mahathir is up to. They are under the impression that Dr Mahathir is out to ruin Umno out of frustration because his attempts to pressure Abdullah to step down have failed. It is learnt that some MPs who are contemplating to cross over to Pakatan Rakyat would use the Mahathir factor as an excuse to convince their constituents that they need to jump ship as even the former premier had lost confidence in Abdullah.
Universiti Utara Malaysia political lecturer Prof Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak said it is high time Umno check the “yes man” culture. He said it has reached a point where the leaders are seen as hypocrites. “In front of Abdullah they (the leaders) tell him they support him, but behind him they say nasty things,’’ he said. Prof Mohamed Mustafa believes Dr Mahathir is resorting to drastic action to save Umno, and not ruin it.
“It is widely reported that Pakatan Rakyat de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is aggressively wooing Barisan MPs to cross over. Anwar may make a strategic move in July when Umno is at the weakest, as members’ attention would be focused on branch elections. It would be disastrous for Umno if snap parliamentary elections had to be called during that period, as the members would be divided because of party elections. Dr Mahathir probably saw it coming and felt the need to jolt Umno leaders to reality and act fast to prevent a political coup,’’ he said.
Prof Mohamed Mustafa believes Dr Mahathir is making tactical moves to save the party, as he had advised those who quit Umno not to join the opposition. Dr Mahathir is probably calling the shots to check Anwar from toppling the Barisan Nasional government.
Anwar was recently quoted as saying that a no confidence vote against Prime Minister Abdullah was the best option to topple the ruling party. Despite Anwar openly stating his intention to topple the Barisan government, Abdullah is not seen as implementing effective strategies to stop Anwar from staging a political coup.
Some observers say asking members to quit would make the party weaker, not stronger. But, if it can be compared to a chess game, Dr Mahathir is actually making tactical moves to check Anwar who is trying to “check mate” the Barisan government. Dr Mahathir has effectively removed some of the “pawns” on the Barisan side by asking members to quit, with the hope that the “knights” and “bishops” (as in the leaders) would make tactical moves to strengthen the fort. But unfortunately the knights and bishops appear to be making moves only to protect the “king” (the leader).
Dr Mahathir is now leaving it to the “pawns” (grass root members) to check Pakatan Rakyat’s advances. There is strong speculation that Anwar may be able to “check-mate” the Barisan government in a matter of weeks. It remains to be seen if Dr Mahathir, who is popularly known as Che Det, succeeds in his attempt in summoning the grass roots to oust Abdullah and “check-mate” Anwar.
Che Det out to check Anwar and Abdullah: by SIRA HABIBU
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The Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club has described as baseless the claim by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim that BN MPs from Sabah will cross over to the opposition by Sept 16.
The club’s deputy chairman, Kinabatangan MP Datuk Bung Moktar Radin, said the concerns raised by BN Sabah MPs in the Dewan Rakyat should not be misconstrued as a wish to switch to the opposition fold.
“Our loyalty is clear and unquestioned, what we voiced out in Parliament was for the best interests of the people in the state. The opposition are trying to take advantage of the situation by manipulating certain issues,” he said in response to Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh’s recent statement that Anwar’s goal of wooing Sabah BN MPs to cross over will not be realised with the way the federal government is actively tackling the issue at grassroots level.
Bung Moktar also commended Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi for the federal government’s incentive package to the state including an additional allocation of RM1 billion. “We hope the allocation is spent within the designated time period and reach the target groups while priority is given to critical projects,” he said.
Sabah BN MPs won’t cross over: Bung Moktar: by The Borneo Times
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And that is what is wrong with this entire episode. ‘Unity’, to Umno, means to unite under the banner of Umno. If the Malays unite under Pakatan Rakyat then this does not translate to unity, even if there are more Malays in Pakatan Rakyat then there are in Umno.
Umno boasts a membership of 3.5 million members. But everyone knows that the 3.5 million members do not exist. To become a Wakil Rakyat you must first become an Umno division leader, as is the popular perception (though this may not necessarily be so -- as some have become Wakil Rakyat while not holding the top position in the division). And to become a division leader you must first become a branch leader. So, many set up their own branches with them as the branch leader and their own family members and office staff as ‘branch members’.
In short, many branches are set up with just one man while the rest of the ‘members’ are ‘injected’ just to make up the numbers and to satisfy the minimum requirement to qualify as branch. Most times the branches can’t even get the required quorum for a meeting to be called and the meetings are merely ‘paper’ meetings, ‘held’ to prevent the branches from being closed down. And it is not Umno alone that suffers from this predicament.
Umno admits that only 51% of the Malay voters voted for it in the 8 March 2008 general election. That means 49% voted for Pakatan Rakyat. Actually this is not that large a drop over the previous general elections. The Malays who voted for Umno this time around is not much different from the elections before that. So how can Umno say that the Malays are now not as united as before? The Malays who voted for Umno, as opposed to the Malays who voted against Umno, remain almost the same. If the Malays are not united now then they were not united before. This can actually be translated to mean that the Malays were never united from the beginning. In short, things have sort of remained the same -- no change.
So what’s all this ‘the Malays are now not united and we need to find ways to reunite the Malays’ talk? It is utter bullshit, a campaign of misinformation to frighten the Malays into thinking that in the past they were never as split as they are now and, therefore, they need to come back to Umno and reunite under Umno or else the future of the Malays would be bleak. Actually this is not true one bit.
What happened in the 8 March 2008 general election is this. The Malays have ALWAYS been ‘split’ or ‘disunited’, to echo Umno’s choice of words. Half the Malays normally vote for Umno and the other half for the opposition. This has more or less always been so and was also so in the recent general election. It is the Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans, Dayaks, etc., who have always been the ‘problem’. 70% of the Chinese and 90% of the Indians would normally vote for the ruling party -- and we need not even talk about the very disappointing (and maybe bodoh as well) Ibans, Kadazans, Dayaks, etc., who gave 30 of the 31 Parliament seats in Sarawak and 24 of the 25 Parliament seats in Sabah to Barisan Nasional.
This time around, however, while the Malays more or less maintained their 50:50 status, more than half the Chinese voters and more than 80% the Indian voters swung over to Pakatan Rakyat. And this was what caused the swing or Tsunami on 8 March 2008. So we need not talk about Malay unity. Malays have never been united and will never be. Malays will always be split 50:50 between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. Look what happened in Kelantan, Terengganu and Johor. It is in Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor where the ‘damage’ was the greatest. And in these states the Chinese and Indians form about half or more than half (Penang) the voters.
The bottom line is: the Malay vote did not shift that much. It is the Chinese and the Indians that we need to talk about. That was where the shift was greater.
In short, the Chinese and Indians have always been ‘united’, if we wish to use that word. But they were ‘united’ under MCA, Gerakan, MIC, PPP, etc. And because they had always been ‘united’, the 50:50 Malay split did not harm Barisan Nasional much. But this time around the Chinese and Indians decided that instead of being ‘united’ under Chinese and Indian parties like MCA, Gerakan, MIC, PPP, etc., (which basically means united within their own race), they decided to ‘unite’ with the Malays. And herein lies Barisan Nasional’s problem.
For the first time, the Malays no longer united amongst themselves and the Chinese amongst themselves and the Indians amongst themselves (like how the Ibans, Kadazans, Dayaks, etc., still are). For the first time, the Malays, Chinese and Indians decided to unite across racial boundaries and as Malaysians under the common, non-race banner of Pakatan Rakyat. And this is a game Barisan Nasional does not know how to play and at the moment can’t play when their parties have the words ‘Malay’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Indian’ in them (save for Gerakan and PPP though they are still perceived as Chinese and Indian parties respectively).
This, in reality, is the crux of the whole issue. No, the Malays are not NOW spilt (they always were split 50:50 from before). No, the Malays have NOT lost political power (there are 122 Malay Members of Parliament now, higher than before). The crux of the whole issue is: the Chinese and Indians are the ones who are actually ‘split’ or ‘disunited’ -- to use Umno’s terminology of the problem. But they split from their fellow-Chinese and fellow-Indians to unite with their fellow-Malays. So, is this ‘split’ so bad? What used to be Malay-Malay (in both Umno and the opposition) and Chinese-Chinese (in MCA and Gerakan) and Indians-Indians (in MIC and PPP) is now Malay-Chinese-Indians in Pakatan Rakyat. That, for sure, is a ‘problem’, but a beautiful problem. But it is only a problem for Barisan Nasional. It is not a problem for Malaysia.
Actually, Umno has another problem -- and which is not that the Malays are split. Umno’s problem is that Umno is split, internally. On one side Umno has Team A -- which is Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (President); Syed Hamid Albar (Deputy President); Hishamuddin Hussein, Muhammad son of Muhammad and Shahrir Samad (the three Vice-Presidents); and Ezam Mohd Nor (Youth Leader). On the other side Umno has Team B -- which is Najib Tun Razak (President); Muhyiddin Yassin (Deputy President); Ali Rustam, Shafiee Afdal and Rahim Thambi Chik (the three Vice-Presidents); and Mukhriz Mahathir (Youth Leader). And, to add to Umno’s problems, it also has Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s Team C (we don’t know yet the rest of the line-up).
That is what is bugging Umno, plus the uncertainty of Barisan Nasional Members of Parliament crossing over to Pakatan Rakyat to form the new federal government. So they raise the ‘Malay unity’ issue to camouflage the real issue. It is but a mere smokescreen to cloud the real issue. And they talk about increasing the 10% scholarship for non-Malays to 45% so that the Malays become alarmed. They don’t really want to do that. They just talk about it so that the Malays will get worried that their children will no longer receive scholarships since it now has to go to the non-Malays. And they hope that the Malays will all rush back to Umno and the defections will not happen. And the same goes for the ‘goodies’ that they are promising Sabah and Sarawak. They are, after all, only promises and promises can be broken once you are assured you will not lose power.
Will all these smokescreens work? Time will tell. Of course, it will all depend on whether Malaysians can still be easily fooled. Here’s hoping they no longer can. But then you will never know. There is always a sucker born every second, as they say.
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After all, Bung Moktar is the authority on it subject and he CONTROLS all Sabahan MPs, or at least, that is what he believes.