http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5317&Itemid=178
Malaysia's Multi-Ethnic Coalition Near Collapse
Written by John Berthelsen
Friday, 05 April 2013
Tattered banner
UMNO may have to go it alone as Chinese, Indian parties crumble
Regardless of who wins Malaysia's 13th* general election, expected to be
held on April 27, the historic multi-ethnic coalition that has ruled the
country since independence will have likely collapsed.
"Whatever the results, the Barisan coalition will cease to exist as we
know it because the Malaysian Chinese Association, Gerakan and the Malaysian
Indian Congress will be wiped out," a Kuala Lumpur-based businessman told Asia
Sentinel. "Assuming UMNO forms the government with Sabah and Sarawak parties,
there will be no Chinese and Indian representatives in the government. And that
is not a good scenario to have."
The Barisan and the opposition, made up of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat
headed by Anwar Ibrahim, the ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party and the
fundamentalist Parti Islam se-Malaysia are embroiled in what is being called
the closest election in the country's history, with both sides predicting
victory. One opposition strategist said the race would probably come down to a
margin of 10 seats either way in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat, or parliament.
For most of the time from its 1957 inception as an independent nation,
the country has been governed by a carefully engineered amalgam of ethnic
parties led by the United Malays National Organization, the Malaysian Chinese
Association, the Malaysian Indian Congress and, to a lesser extent, Gerakan,
which has faded in recent years.
However, in the debacle of the 2008 election, the MCA was left with just
15 seats in parliament. Gerakan, the second mostly Chinese ethnic party, ended
up with just two seats. The MIC was left with three. UMNO won 78.
In the upcoming polls, political analysts say the MCA could see its total
seats fall to just one or two, roiled as the party is by years of major
scandals and political infighting that once impelled one of the contending
factions to secretly film party leader Chua Soi Lek having a sex romp in a
hotel room in a vain effort to drive him from politics. The resurgent
opposition Democratic Action Party expects to claim the vast majority of
Chinese voters. Gerakan, whose base is in Penang, which is controlled by the
DAP, could be wiped out completely, the analysts say. The MIC is equally riven
by scandal and infighting, with its members and leadership gravitating away
towards the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf.
This is not a scenario conjured up by the opposition. It has been
discussed within UMNO councils for months as the party has watched the other
components of the Barisan drift into disaster. It is at least partly
responsible for the rise in race-baiting in recent months as UMNO and its
attack-dog ancillaries such as the Malay supremacy NGO Perkasa raise the
spectre that ethnic Chinese, and particularly Chinese Christians in a Muslim
country, will take over the reins of power.
Ethnic Malays make up 50.4 percent of the population, Chinese 24 percent
and Indians 7.1 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook. UMNO sees its
chance to keep its leadership of the country intact by winning every available
ethnic Malay vote and hopefully luring ethnic Indians back into the fold.
Thus indigenous tribes, most of them in East Malaysia, with 11 percent of
the population, probably hold the key to the 2013 election, most political
analysts feel. The states of Sabah and Sarawak and the federal territory of
Labuan control 57 of the 222 seats. The 165 peninsular seats are almost equally
divided between the Barisan and Pakatan Rakyat.
As the MCA in particular descended into chaos, an UMNO operative told
Asia Sentinel months ago that UMNO basically decided it would have to go it
alone in the 13th general election. While the other ethnic parties will field
candidates in the election, UMNO will try to take as many constituencies
dominated by ethnic Malays as possible and hope the component parties can have
some impact.
If not, the 57 East Malaysia seats -- depending on how the parties
controlled by the current chief ministers fare in the election -- will control
peninsular Malaysia's destiny. In both Sarawak and Sabah, the bonds of loyalty
that keep elected lawmakers tied to particular parties are slippery indeed. In
one case in the 1980s, when the opposition unexpectedly took control of the
statehouse in Kota Kinabalu, the victorious coalition locked their winning
members behind a chain link fence to keep them from being bribed away by the
losers.
Should the collapse scenario actually take place, it will produce a
"mono-ethnic and unelectable opposition that will be constrained to the Malay
belt" in the Peninsula, where 20 million of the 28 million Malaysians make
their home -- without the help of the East Malaysian states. Both chief
ministers have been implicated, although not indicted, in scandals involving
untold amounts of money in bribery for timber sales. They would be pleased to
talk to the opposition in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
If UMNO is to rebuild the coalition, win or lose it means its gamble to
conduct the election by appealing to the fears or prejudices of its Malay
constituency has failed the country at large, and that it must regain the trust
of the complex ethnic mosaic that makes up the rest of the country.
"What's left is UMNO seats, high Malay-majority seats," said an
opposition political operative. "They might be propped up with some Malay seats
in Sarawak, and some Sabah UMNO seats. If they lose, they would have to
reconstitute. They have to start moderating their line and to try to get back
the support of the minorities. Assuming they hold power, I would assume over
the next five years they would have to reconstitute."
It is unsure what the implications are for Malaysian society as a whole.
Tension has simmered for decades, since 1969 riots took the lives of hundreds
on both sides of the ethnic divide, exacerbated by the New Economic Policy
created in 1971 to give economically disadvantaged rural Malays a leg up.
Malays get the majority of government jobs and places in universities. The
country has been on a 30-year campaign to ensure rising ethnic Malay ownership
of the commanding heights of the business community.
So-called Ali Baba companies dot the landscape, with the "Ali" being an
ethnic Malay usually sitting behind a polished and empty desk, while "Babas," a
nickname for Straits-born Chinese, run the business from the backroom. Billions
have been wasted on government-linked companies given to UMNO cronies to run
into the ground. An explosive report by the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists released today said as much as RM200 billion* was
funneled out of Malaysia last year to Singapore, an astonishing burst of
capital flight.
"Malaysia's system of holding back the dynamic Indian and Chinese
minorities has turned it into a bastion of mediocrity in a fast-growing
region," Wall Street Journal columnist Hugo Restall wrote in an editorial
today. "The country's best and brightest leave because the cronyism and racial
quotas in education and employment hold them back."
*Corrections. Typo. Originally read 12th general election. Originally
read US$200 billion. We apologize for the errors.
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