Ethnic Fault Lines in Malaysia – washingtonpost.com

 

  …News reports cite the government’s failure to tackle the grievances of large minority groups — ethnic Indians and Chinese — as a reason for the electoral upset. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he will not resign (BBC) despite the setback. CFR.org’s Daily Opinion Roundup notes editorials around the world see the election results as a clear call for greater pluralism in Malaysia.

Chinese and Indians together constitute one-third of Malaysia’s 27 million people and play an important role in the country’s economy. But they resent the government’s decades-old discriminatory policy that gives Malays educational, housing, and job preferences. Lack of religious freedom is another issue of contention for the minority communities, which are mostly non-Muslim. A recent working paper (PDF) by a Singapore research institute said a curb on religious liberties of non-Muslims could cost the government the non-Muslim vote.

Tensions between the government and ethnic minorities came to a head last November when Hindraf, a coalition of Hindu nongovernmental organizations, staged demonstrations for the rights of the ethnic Indian community. The government detained five Hindraf leaders under the Internal Security Act, which permits indefinite detention without charge or trial. This damaged Abdullah’s popularity while also arousing the ire of civil society groups and international human rights organizations. Abdullah, elected in 2004, was welcomed by Malaysians after two decades of the authoritarian leadership of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. But grievances — ranging from inflation and commodity price hikes to worsening minority rights and corruption in the judicial system — plague the government today. A December 2007 survey conducted by the Merdeka Center, a Malaysian opinion research firm, shows Abdullah’s popularity fell from around 91 percent in 2004 to 61 percent in 2007.

The elections took place a year ahead of schedule, because the government anticipated that problems lie ahead for the economy, argues columnist Philip Bowring in the International Herald Tribune. The Malaysian economy is currently growing at 6 percent, underpinned by strong export prices for commodities such as palm oil and crude oil. A pre-election surge in government spending and massive subsidies for fuel and food have controlled price inflation that otherwise would be double the official 2.3 percent, say experts. The Asia Times writes Abdullah is expected to raise oil prices later this year after the elections.

The elections have also put the spotlight on Malaysian governance issues. A Malaysian law bans public gatherings of more than five persons without a permit, which global watchdog Human Rights Watch says denies constitutional guarantees of the rights to free speech and of assembly. It says Malaysia’s elections have been characterized by “vote buying, the use of public resources by the ruling parties, and gerrymandering.”

Malaysia’s media too, is tightly controlled by the state. According to the most recent Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, Malaysia ranked 124 out of 169 countries (thirty-two ranks down from 2006). Yet Malaysia has an estimated 10 million Internet users, including opposition politicians (Reuters), many of whom are turning to the web for free expression. According to the OpenNet Initiative, the Malaysian government uses “surprisingly low levels of [Internet] filtering.” Political analyst Ooi Kee Beng of the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies says the Internet is providing Malaysians with an avenue for immediate political expression. “The Net is a Pandora’s Box, and that is now open,” he says. Experts project the country’s political battles will increasingly be fought on the Internet.

Ethnic Fault Lines in Malaysia – washingtonpost.com

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The malaise of enforced inequality

 

The NEP was supposed to last only two decades. In any case, surely Malaysia’s elites didn’t envision the scope of the pro-Bumiputra, or indigenous Malay, bent that evolved. Consider just a few of the discriminatory policies now on the books. On the corporate front, foreign and domestic non-manufacturing firms have to take on Bumi partners who hold at least 30 per cent of the share capital. Firms that want to list on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange are required to reserve 30 per cent of their equity for Bumi shareholders. Bumis get preferential housing loans and easier access to business licences and Government contracts. Department stores and supermarkets have to reserve 30 per cent of their shelf space for Bumi products – regardless of consumer preferences.

Then there’s the education system. Before the NEP, Malaysia’s public schools were mostly racially integrated. Now they’re largely segregated, as Chinese and Indian parents opt to send their children to schools where they feel they won’t be discriminated against or exposed to Islamic teachings. More than 80 per cent of Government-sponsored scholarships to study abroad go to Malays. Business leaders have a hard time sourcing good local talent, across a range of industries, largely because they’re required to have 30 per cent Bumiputras on their staff.

These policies have, if anything, become more entrenched over time. While the original NEP called for Malays to get 30 per cent of the country’s wealth – whatever that means – subsequent economic plans inserted vague language calling for more “wealth creation” for Bumiputras. As for encouraging racial tolerance, that hope was put to bed in 2006, when the party conference of the United Malays National Organisation was broadcast live and Malay representatives said they’d defend pro-Malay policies to “the last drop of blood”. After the Prime Minister concluded his remarks, shouts of “Long live the Malays!” filled the chamber. Needless to say, the 2007 conference wasn’t televised.

This Bumi bonanza has slowed investment in Malaysia, and the ruling coalition knows it, even if officials won’t say so publicly. At a time when foreign investment has poured into Vietnam, China and India, Malaysia has seen a much smaller sliver of that pie. It’s fallen from America’s 10th largest trading partner to its 16th largest in little over a year. Malaysia has lost automobile plants to Thailand and electronics plants to China. Motorola, a major electronics employer, threatened to pull out of Penang late last year but decided to stay when the Government awarded the company a major contract. (On Saturday, voters there elected the Opposition Democratic Action Party.)

In the weekend’s election, ethnic Chinese swung heavily to the DAP. Ethnic Indians, too, plumped largely for Opposition candidates.

But the Malay swing vote – the core of the National Front coalition – contributed to the surge. The first indication of the swing came in the capital, where the daughter of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim beat the National Front candidate. (Anwar, a former deputy prime minister, was barred from running.) Then Opposition parties took the states of Kelantan and Kedah, an unprecedented victory in a rural Malay-dominated belt.

It’s never easy to shed affirmative action policies; as the US experience shows, once preferential treatment is given to a specific ethnic group, it’s a hard habit to break. But if Saturday’s Opposition gains show anything, it’s that even Malays are starting to figure out that pro-Malay policies are hurting the country. That is, at least, a start.

The malaise of enforced inequality | The Australian

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wither Malaysia, under BN ?

Malaysia swings toward change – International Herald Tribune

 

But the opposition triumph carries dangers as well as opportunities. The most immediate danger is that members of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the main ethnic Malay party that leads the governing coalition, will try to heap the majority of blame on Prime minister Abdullah Badawi.

For sure, Abdullah has been a weak leader whose promises to attack corruption and restore faith in government have not been fulfilled. Most Malaysians still seem to think he has good intentions but has not been strong enough to tackle the huge vested interests in the status quo.

The first to demand Abdullah’s resignation was his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad. But it was during Mahathir’s 23-year rule that the patronage system and abuse of power became institutionalized. The track records of his likely successors in the UMNO hierarchy show that they are even less likely to try to reform the patronage system or address the grievances of the non-Malays. In particular, a murder case hangs  over the deputy prime minister and defense minister, Najib Abdul Razak.

Another danger is that UMNO will now attempt to regain Malay voters by appealing to baser race and religious instincts in order to try to outflank PAS and PKR.

Thus, with these results, it’s possible that Malaysian politics could become even more racially polarized, exposing the divides among the three opposition parties that must now manage to cooperate. That will not be easy given that PAS is a religion-based Malay party, the DAP a left-of-center, mainly Chinese party, and PKR a middle of the road but mainly Malay one.

Much may depend on the skill and ambitions of Anwar. His appeal has been re-established and his party holds the middle ground. But his liberal, multiracial views have at times been at odds with the political rewards of emphasizing an overtly Malay and Islamic agenda.

Beyond the dangers are opportunities. Short-term issues like crime and inflation played a role in the government’s defeat, overshadowing an economy booming on the back of record commodity prices and a surge in government spending. But these cannot explain the size and generality of the swing that occurred everywhere except in the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak – where, ironically, race and religion are not such fraught issues as in peninsular Malaysia.

Among all races, there is now a realization that preferential policies intended to bring the Malays to socioeconomic equality have in many cases just become a way of enriching the UMNO elite. Among all races, perhaps there is also a recognition that government must make more effort to focus on Malaysian rather than communal or religious identity.

PAS, hitherto only in power in poor, conservative Malay Kelantan, will now find itself in government in the richer, more urbanized, states where non-Malays (and foreigners) are numerous. The experience will broaden its outlook, which was already shifting due to the need to increase its appeal to urban Malays, and not to frighten non-Malay voters into taking refuge with the coalition.

It is too early to tell whether there has been a fundamental change in the mainsprings of Malaysian politics. But there is now some prospect that issues other than race and religion will take more prominence; that class, quality of administration and economic issues will play a larger role.

At the very least, the UMNO patronage system, the mix of greed, arrogance and nepotism that comes from 50 years in power, has been undermined by an increasingly aware electorate, now fed news by the Internet as well as the government-controlled media. For that, Abdullah must take some credit. He may have been unable to stop the rot within, but a greater openness compared with the Mahathir era made it easier to expose abuses.

In the coming months Malaysia will be living with more uncertainties: Can Abdullah survive? Can UMNO reform from within? Can the opposition parties now in state government cooperate? It will be unsettling, but it is necessary. The old mold needs to be broken.

Malaysia swings toward change – International Herald Tribune

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wither Malaysia, under BN ?