Long live the king(makers)!

I have always thought of Muhyiddin Yassin as a reasonable, restrained and urbane Umno leader; in fact, he used to be one of my favourite cabinet ministers.

When he ascended to the exalted position of deputy prime minister, I was a touch worried that he might just be the new face and the new voice that Umno and BN need to regain the support of the voters who had swung en masse to the opposition coalition in the last general election.

My worry turned out to be both unfounded and unwarranted. Within a week of assuming the second highest office in the land, the public statement of the new DPM has shown that he is just like the past Umno and BN leading lights - arrogant, insensitive and quite removed from reality.

When MIC boss S Samy Vellu made disgruntled noises about not getting enough ministerial appointment, Muhyiddin practically told him to shut up, and Samy Vellu dutifully complied.

This little bit of melodrama played out in front of a national audience must have entrenched the belief among many Indian voters that MIC is indeed a subservient serf to their Umno masters in the BN coalition, and therefore no longer worthy of support.

Soon after, while reflecting upon the results of the by-elections in the two Bukit, Muhyiddin opined aloud that the Chinese voters were ungrateful or “unappreciative”.

This is evidence that the new DPM is very much the prisoner of the kind of Umno racial narrative that used to be both popular and effective in those Mahathir years. Unfortunately for BN, this kind of vocabulary has outlived its shelf life.

The Chinese electorate throughout Malaysia have changed. The unexpected election results of March 8, 2008 have opened their eyes to new political possibilities in Malaysia. They have tasted the nectar of change, and their ravenous hunger for greater and more fundamental change has grown. Just note their increased support for PAS and PKR in the two Bukit.

This talk of Chinese being ungrateful must have touched a raw Chinese nerve throughout our fair land. Instead of apologising for his insensitive remark, Muhyiddin blamed it on the media, as BN ministers are wont to do. This must have riled up the media fraternity, even if they keep quiet, as mainstream journalists are wont to do.

The new MCA boss Ong Tee Kiat was silent on the DPM’s insensitive remarks against Chinese voters, displaying to a national audience once again that indeed MCA is subservient to Umno in all things Chinese, and they do not deserve support from the Chinese community in the next election.

Finally, Muhyiddin more or less warned the Chinese people on the peril of seeing themselves as king-makers.

The ramification of such a seemingly innocent statement had to be played out in the ultra-right Malay press: if the non-Malay people become king-makers, the Malays are in danger of losing their Ketuanan Melayu and their grip on political power will be loosened. The existence of the Malay race would be threatened on their own homeland.

The clarion call for the Malays to rise and unite is only to be expected.

Political narrative aimed to spook non-Malays

That is the sort of political narrative that could frighten the non-Malays into voting for the BN in the past. I doubt it will do the trick now in our new Malaysia. It will probably whip up the appetite of the Chinese and the Indians for change even more.

Given the Malay voting trends in the two Bukit, it is also unlikely that this scare tactic aimed at the Malay masses can generate the usual communal panic as it used to do.

Even when Anwar Ibrahim was still spending his enforced vacation in Sungai Buloh, I had predicted that the Chinese and the Indian voters could play the role of king-makers in national politics.

As soon as PKR and PAS could split the Malay votes in the urban and the rural constituencies, the minority Chinese and Indian voters in the mixed and even the Malay-majority seats could determine the outcome of a contest between Umno and PKR or PAS.

There is nothing wrong with the Chinese and the Indians playing the king-maker role. The only casualty will be the idea of Ketuanan Melayu and Umno. This new found significance of the two minority ethnic groups will not be a threat to the Malays, because they will need to vote alongside those Malays who believe in the new collective ideology of Ketuanan Rakyat.

Thanks to people like Ong Kian Ming and Wong Chin Huat, we now have very professional empirical analysis of past election results, constituency by constituency, and even polling stream by polling stream.

The latest addition to such collection of meticulous election researcher is Kenny Gan. His recent letter to Malaysiakini entitled 'Can East Malaysia again save BN in 2013' is particularly sobering for watchers of Malaysian politics.

The following is his speculation of what the next general election would look like:

“There are 51 non-Malay majority seats, 44 mixed seats and 70 Malay-majority seats in the Peninsula. A non-Malay majority seat is defined as having less than 50% Malay voters, a mixed seat from 50% to less than 66% and a Malay-majority seat equal to or greater than 66% Malay voters.

“Based on the current voter sentiment, BN will be expected to lose all 51 non-Malay majority seats. Based on 30% non-Malay support and not more than 60% Malay support, BN should theoretically lose all 44 mixed seats too.”

At the end of his analysis, Kenny Gan has this to conclude:

“So BN's tally in the Peninsula is nine mixed seats and 45 Malay-majority seats making a dismal total of 54. Can the East Malaysian states save BN this time?”

Again, the spotlight is turned onto the two powerful blocs of parliamentary seats in Sarawak and Sabah. With BN federal power in doubt, the Chinese and the non-Malay indigenous voters would now have a different set of political parameters to consider when casting their votes.

The Chinese-majority seats in those two eastern states are especially gullible to the Pakatan Rakyat assault. The tone of the campaign and the issues raised would be considerably different from past elections.

The Sarawakian and Sabahan Chinese voters may just decide to emulate the fine example set by their ethnic counterparts in the Peninsula, and vote en masse for the Pakatan Rakyat candidates. Those few Chinese seats may just be king-makers again in a hung Parliament in 2013.

Horse trading involving Sabah, Sarawak

Another possibility is that once the dust has settled in the 2013 general election, and the BN and Pakatan have more or less similar number of seats in Parliament, there would be intense horse trading involving Sarawak and Sabah MPs. The torrid history of politics in those two states has shown that political loyalty can be bought and sold to the highest bidder.

Bought or sold, such MPs would be toxic assets to the political coalition which they would choose to belong at the end of the bargaining session, so I am not so excited about this prospect. But it does illustrate that Malaysian politics cannot be business as usual as it was done before 2008. Many new variables have crept into the confused equation.

The same unknown variable has also crept into the 70 Malay seats in the Peninsula.

According to Kenny Gan, there are 70 Malay-majority seats in West Malaysia, of which 25 were won by PKR and PAS in 2008.

Gan has defined a Malay seat as one where there are 66% or more Malay voters. If the results in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau are an indication, the Umno base support cannot exceed 57%.

Again, in a keen contest, the 34% or less king-maker in those Malay majority seats may just want to try switching their political allegiance from BN to Pakatan. The end game in national politics would then be anybody’s guess.

How the Chinese, Indian, and “other” ethnic voters will vote in the next general election depends on how our political drama plays out before the entire national audience.

They are watching with great interest, slowly realising perhaps that for the first time, the so-called minority ethnic groups suddenly have power to change the destiny of politicians and that of the country far out of proportion with their numerical strength.

The new ruling class within Umno and BN are obviously oblivious to this new development. They are stuck in the time-capsule of their old paradigm and talking in the antiquated language of race and violent threat.

That is why Muhyiddin talked and behaved as he did. He is just adding another nail to the closing coffin. We should encourage him to do more of the same.


Written in Malaysiakini by:SIM KWANG YANG was MP of Bandar Kuching in Sarawak between 1982 and 1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.