Friday, May 25, 2018

My take of GE14.

Sat 26 May 2018.




17 days have passed since the UMNO-led government was toppled in no less than a bloodless political revolution in Malaysia. I'd been itching to write again about it after the first quick posting on it, but the huge amount of news in all the media exploding on a daily basis kept me from the keyboard. This quiet Saturday morning I'll try to put down several more thoughts to share here.

You have to be a student of Malaysian history to even begin to fully appreciate the truly momentous General Elections this time around. 

Since the first one in 1959, this is the 14th. General Election for the relatively young country, and looking at the world political map, it's young indeed. For 59 years, Malaya and then Malaysia had known no other government, other than the UMNO-led coalition, first known as "Perikatan"(the knot), and from 1969 as "Barisan Nasional" (the National Front). The shift this time was nothing less than a tsunami, a huge tidal wave, an authentic revolution, so huge that you have to be a Malaysian to really comprehend it.

Firstly, the grave  mistake that UMNO made this time around was to remain arrogant. So arrogant that it could concoct any story and knew it can get away with murder. (Najib did). So arrogant that it could disregard public opinion and actually believe in their own self-appraisal. So arrogant that the supposedly well-bred, well-educated Najib cursed Mahathir in his speeches, thinking that he'd get away with that, too. The low-class act when he had removed the Police escort previously accorded to the ex-PM, removed all the government-paid staff given to him, and cut him out of State functions, when protocol says Mahathir should be invited as a former PM. 

So arrogant that the principle of separation of power was chucked aside, and set the Income Tax and the Police on Mahathir, and even had Tun Hasmah called in for questioning for a 5-minute speech she made at a women-empowerment event, disbanded the Public Accounts Committee in the midst of its deliberations, and simply removed or tranferred  an endless list government officials, starting with the AG,  as if he was a feudal lord. 

But his bitter target was Mahathir. Najib treated him like dirt, never mind that he claims to be "a gentleman" and Mahathir was his boss and mentor, who picked him to succeed the vacous Dollah. 

In UMNO Najib removed Muhyiddin, the second most powerful Party man  who was put there through party elections, and not a whimper came from the party ranks.

The same crass treatment was doled out to Mukhriz.  All for sounding out on 1MDB (now the UMNO Youth leader is saying the 1MDB issue should have been addressed - after UMNO lost the elections!).The newly approved Parti Pribumi Malaysia Bersatu, right on the same day the Parliament was dissolved, was  suddenly suspended by the RoS on his instruction, and effectively ( or so Najib thought ) cut out of the GE.

So arrogant, now that UMNO members have all been shut-up, that Najib boasted he'd steamroll the opposition, and as later events showed, didn't even bother to hide all the money , jewelery, and Birkin bags, and didn't even prepare an escape plan just in case he lost. 

Well obviously he hadn't read Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". (Mahathir had). Why should Najib worry? For 13 straight times in more than a half-century, UMNO had led the BN coalition to victory in Parliament. Only at state level had BN lost, and only in Kelantan, Selangor and Penang, or 3 out of 13 states, so what-me-worry ? His own Intelligence and the Western Press all said he'd win this time, too, 1MDB nowithstanding. But he forgets, the same Press also said Clinton would win the US Presidency !

The second reason was the huge turnout. In all countries in the world where some semblence of the democratic electrol process is practiced, low runout is bad for the opposition, large turnout good. In the first 12 GE's, the highest turnout was 76% in 2008, the lowest 68.1% in 1986. The last GE in 2013 saw a significant jump - to 80%!. Still, UMNO-BN kept Parliament and 10 out of 13 states, so no worry there. 

UMNO thought the opposition couldn't get any higher. But the final figure for GE 14 was an 82.32% turnout. Not many so called democracies, East or West, get even 60% nowadays. And while the final analysis hasn't been done, this turnout was achieved even with many voting centres locking out thousands of  voters because of the 5-o'clock deadline, and the working day voting date decided by Najib as an obvious attempt at hindering voting and thus favouring BN. Obviously the turnout theory is believed by, and not lost to UMNO. Najib saw the high turnout in 2013,  and how UMNO-BN only secured 59.9 % of Parliament, and lost the popular votes, but won because of the constituencies,or first-past-the- post system.

The third reason is the social media. News, true or not, is now instantaneous. And people communicate easily with the said 20 million smart phones now in use in this country of 30 million.

The fourth reason is the increase of lower age group among voters. Younger people are more inclined to change than older ones. At my polling station in KP I saw this, where the long "line 6" went right on to the road, and me in the short "line 1" only stood for about 1 hour (that's quick ).  

The fifth reason is the scandal-wrecked UMNO-BN government, worsened by the incredibly stupid reasons given in their response to the public criticisms.  1MDB, Felda, Felcra, MARA, Tabung Haji, Mindef contracts, Proton, the state of the economy and the now proven poor management of national finances  all piled up on the desk of the government of the day. And of course the mother-of-all calamity was GST. In fact GST alone would probably have brought UMNO-BN down to their knees.

These socio-economic issues have always featured in all democratic electoral processes world-wide. Here it's complicated by racial undertones because of the 3 dominant racial make up of the population. In 1969 there were racial riots, and people remember. But the approach to these has always been "stop-gap". The underlying sentiments are deep, and demand better and more substantive remedial measures. But UMNO and the other members of BN are racial parties individually, harbouring  racial preferences deeply opposed to the others in many areas. But the dominant position of UMNO has always meant that while UMNO compromised for BN's  moderation, but the others compromised more. 

The opposition in 2008 and 2013, with Anwar out and about, Lim Kit Siang and his "Rocket" as fierce  as ever, and spoiler PAS in the same company, performed their best to date at the polls. But while they cooperated as a united opposition, they flew their own flags. On the ballot paper they were separate. This confused the voters. The 30-seat, or 20-seat positions these 3 parties secured, even with Anwar and Lim at their loudest, seemed destined to be a permanent feature in Parliament, for years to come. 

This was where Mahathir came in, and if Anwar and Lim Kit Siang disbelieve this, they do so at their own peril. Mahathir had at one stage given up trying to put together a united opposition because of the deep differences between PKR, DAP, Amanah, and PAS. With GE13 and immediately after, PAS was still friendly with DAP. The 21 seats PAS won in Parliament was their best performance ever, and they couldn't have done it  without DAP.

When Muhyiddin, Mukriz and Afdal were sacked, and Mahathir resigned from UMNO to put up Bersatu, Mahathir was pushing Bersatu to take the lead in this fledgling coalition. PAS was making unfriendly sounds, and was finally dropped out. UMNO had helped PAS leave (money surely changed hands) but, overestimating its national strength, PAS kept their own symbol, and even boldly contested 157 Parliamentry seats. Had PAS used a common symbol with BN, they would have won Kedah and Perak ouright, and probably increased their Parliamentry seats. In the end they lost 3 seats, which doesn't look much, except they actually won only 18 out of the 157 they contested. That's a dismal  11% success rate.

The political cunning of Mahathir saw him convincing erstwhile hard-core enemies PKR and DAP, and the much weaker Amanah, to adopt a single symbol for GE14. Unfortunately, Najib made sure Bersatu would not enter this GE on its own, by getting the RoS to deregister Bersatu (court case pending) on the very date that Parliament was dissolved, even though  RoS had months ago approved its registration.

In fact Najib resorted to all the dirty tricks in the book in attacking Mahathir whom he had singled out. So Mahathir chose PKR's logo, because DAP agreed to it, knowing the Malays, now Mahathir's main target at wresting power from UMNO nation-wide, would never vote for the Rocket, leaving only the urban centres for DAP.  With Malay votes, DAP candidates could get more seats, as eventually proven from GE14's results.

This was how  PH, led by Mahathir , had won 8 out of 13 states, and 122 out of the 222 seats in Parliament. This is no washout for UMNO-BN, or PAS, but a great beginning for new politics for Malaysia.

And all these, for Mahathir, at 93. 

As I said, at GE14 the old man simply outsmarted and outclassed Najib. Najib, in fact, is the main cause of the downfall of the 60-year old BN. Either he doesn't know it, or is in self-denial, but he's paying a heavy price for his own failures. And now, that may include incarceration, with all the goings-on in the news. Bakri Musa wrote in 2014: "Najib is busy spinning himself just to remain standing, and he confuses fast circular motion with rapid advancement".

Tun Razak must be turning in his grave.


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