GE13: REFSA chooses transformation

By Teh Chi-Chang, Executive Director | 25 April 2013
refsa.org

On Sunday, May 5, Malaysians go to the polls.  For the first time in our history, in the 56 years since Merdeka, we have a real choice in choosing who to grant the privilege of governing us. Which coalition will you choose? The incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN), which is the only federal government that all of us have known so far? Or the young upstart Pakatan Rakyat?

We at REFSA have made our choice. We choose transformation. We choose Pakatan Rakyat.

Read more:http://refsa.org/comment/ge13-refsa-chooses-transformation/

Vote to ensure a better Malaysia

Press statement of Group of Concerned Citizens on the General Election
CPI ASIA

We are a group of Malaysians from diverse ethnicities, religions and backgrounds including military, academic, business, professional and the not-for-profit sector. We have been drawn together by our love for our country and our concern that this general election may see further setbacks in our aspiration for a better society. 

Malaysians need a better government and good governance, especially in these tumultuous times of heightened racial discord and religious hatred and extremism. 

If we succeed, we can be a modest example for the rest of the world in the way we tackle our racial and religious differences and in our resolve and actions to ensure social justice and the fair distribution of the wealth of our land. 

Past governments and politicians have too often failed us by abusing the public treasury for private gain, by concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few, and by debasing our democratic rights. For some years now, we have been one of the top countries in the world in terms of illicit outflows of money. 

According to Global Financial Integrity, the total 10-year estimate of financial outflow for Malaysia was RM871.4 billion for 2000-2010. No country in the world can afford such a high level of capital flight.

The coming elections provides us an opportunity to exercise our individual and collective right to decide on who will lead this country in the next five years and manage our finances, economy and society in a fair and just manner. If we choose badly we will have only ourselves to blame.

We wish to share with voters in this election pamphlet, which is being disseminated throughout the country, our concerns as well as our position on the principles and values that can propel our country towards that better society that we seek and which all Malaysians deserve and can be proud of. We believe that most Malaysians share not only these concerns but also our expectations of the high moral and ethical standards from the parties and politicians that will soon come into power. 

We hope that this election message – a non-partisan one – will be etched in the minds and memories of those who will shortly take political office as well as of all voters so that the promise of moral and good governance is in the forefront of national priority, not just during the election campaign period and particularly on election day but every day during the next four or five years. 

Other citizens and civil society organisations wishing to endorse this or a similar message are free to adopt or adapt it, and disseminate in their own names.

http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/04/23/vote-to-ensure-a-better-malaysia-2/

Malaysia’s Multi-Ethnic Coalition Near Collapse

by John Berthelsen
Asia Sentinel
05 April 2013 

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.”

From fixed deposits to kingmakers

By Oh Ei Sun | APRIL 09, 2013
The Malaysian Insider

APRIL 9 — Malaysia’s coming general election, widely characterised as a potential “watershed” event, will see many first-time voters play a decisive role in determining which way the country will go. Will they vote to retain the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition or opt for the opposition alliance, Pakatan Rakyat?

Carrying a critical weight in the outcome will be the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.

Out of the 222 seats in Parliament, more than a quarter are in Sabah (with 25 seats) and Sarawak (31), leading some to label these states as kingmakers in the polls that are expected to be closely contested.

In Peninsular Malaysia, any potential loss by BN of its predominantly non-Bumiputera seats can be counterbalanced by gains in predominantly Bumiputera seats. This would give a net election result in Peninsular Malaysia like that in 2008, when BN only narrowly surpassed Pakatan. Had Sabah and Sarawak not brought in the 56 seats then, there could have been a change of government in Putrajaya.

THE SWING PHENOMENON

Sabah and Sarawak enjoy special rights distinct from other Malaysian states, such as state controls over immigration and land matters, as enshrined in the Malaysia Agreement of 1963 when Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore formed Malaysia supposedly as equal partners.

The ties between the federal government and the two east Malaysian states were sometimes strained in the initial decades after the formation of Malaysia, as each side manoeuvred and tussled over rights and privileges in a new federation.

But as the state governments of Sabah and Sarawak have almost always been formed by BN component parties, the past few decades witnessed no serious contestations in federal-state relations.

This has in part led to the two east Malaysian states being hailed as fixed deposit states for BN, having consistently delivered the bulk of their parliamentary seats to the ruling coalition.

While the majority of the east Malaysian parliamentary seats are likely to return to BN in the coming elections, changes in popular sentiments and heightened awareness of popular rights could translate into an increase in the number of swing seats.

In other words, the slim voting majority could sway to either side of the political divide — what with the Lahad Datu episode throwing into the pot a new factor in unpredictability. It remains to be seen how this swing phenomenon will impact federal-state ties.

SARAWAK AND BN

In Sarawak, the chief minister, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, has been in power for more than 30 years. Under his rule, Sarawak remains the only BN-controlled state government that is not dominated by Umno, the largest BN component party nationwide.

In fact, Umno does not even have a political presence in Sarawak.

It is widely understood that the political arrangement between Taib and Umno — and by extension, between Sarawak and the federal government in Putrajaya — is such that as long as Taib consistently delivers Sarawak to BN, his administration is given virtually a free hand to deal with state matters.

But the 2011 Sarawak state election saw Pakatan make significant political inroads, scooping up 15 (or 21 per cent) out of 71 state assembly seats. It is likely that in the upcoming general election, many non-Bumiputera and non-Muslim Bumiputera seats can be swung. As such, Sarawak BN should not count, as it did in the past, on the once almost-ironclad victories in these seats.

Assuming BN is retained as the federal government with a reduced majority because of fewer seats won in Sarawak, this would mean that Taib — and Sarawak BN — can still play the role of kingmaker. But the smaller number of parliamentary seats would mean fewer bargaining chips for Sarawak when it comes to dealing and negotiating with the federal government.

In such a scenario, Sarawak would need to play its political hand shrewdly after the polls to safeguard its rights and privileges.

SABAH’S COMPLICATED POLITICS

Sabah presents a slightly different scenario. Its government is dominated by Umno, and while the chief minister, Datuk Seri Musa Aman, has been in power for 10 years and has his own clever ways of preserving state rights and privileges, many political matters ultimately still have to be referred to the federal level.

The political dynamic in Sabah is such that political and often ideological delineation among parties or coalitions is not as marked or rigid as in Peninsular Malaysia or even Sarawak. For example, it would not come as a surprise at all to ordinary Sabahans if elected representatives from whichever camp choose to cross over to the winning side for reasons known only to themselves.

Indeed, the crossing of party lines by elected representatives is both frequent and commonplace in Sabah, but this does not seem to tarnish in the slightest the reputation or electability of the representatives. Musa has led Sabah BN to two overwhelming election victories at both federal and state levels, but defections from BN over the last few years have eroded the number of BN seats.

In recent years also, sentiments over state rights or state sovereignty have reportedly been on the rise in Sabah.

But these have been overshadowed by the recent intrusion into Sabah by southern Filipinos and the consequent need for national unity in times of distress. In any case, the state opposition, which continues to be caught up in internal disagreements over the allocation of seats, has yet to fully capitalise on any changed sentiment.

Ultimately, federal-state relations between Sabah and Putrajaya are unlikely to be strongly affected one way or the other in the near future, as the state winner will still have to work with the federal government for development needs in the state.

In the coming general election, Sabah and Sarawak are no longer fixed deposits for BN; they are poised to assume their crucial roles as kingmakers. This will inevitably alter their bargaining positions in the contest of federal-state relations, with the states hoping to secure a more equitable footing.

Assuming it is returned to power, it will be interesting to see how an Umno-led BN will deal with the changed landscape. — Today