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Malaysian Elections: National Front Wins, UMNO loses

The Prime Minister planned to celebrate yesterday's general elections, convinced of doing better than in 1995. He did, if you compare the 1995 and yesterday's election results; but when he dissolved the House, he had 168. The National Front was returned in 149 parliamentary constituencies, but it was a celebration he would rather not have had. The Chinese swing, pronounced in Sabah and Sarawak, was so complete that the opposition did not have a chance. But that Chinese support came with a near total alienation of the northern Malay cultural heartland. It is all but wiped out in Trengganu and Kelantan, with the ground shaken in Perlis, Kedah and Pahang. The Malay ground, shaken since the affair of He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost last year, went against him, taking as casualities four cabinet ministers, six deputy ministers, one minister-to-be, one chief minister, several state executive councillors. So complete was the Chinese swing towards the National Front that the DAP's key leaders, including Mr Lim Kit Siang and Mr Kapral Singh, lost both parliament and state constituencies. The Chinese aggressiveness within the National Front would not now have a rational response from the opposition.

Trengganu, with its oil riches, now has Tok Guru Haji Hadi Awang, the PAS ideologue, as mentri besar. The National Front, especially, would have to whistle for their support in Kelantan and Trengganu. His own choice of successor, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, is the sole National Front and UMNO representative from Kelantan. PAS officials told me before the elections that Tengku Razaleigh would be allowed to win to narrow the distance the state administration has with the palace and to ensure a Kelantan prime minister. That option is probably gone for now. The current deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, can be expected to continue, especially with his other challenger, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, near fatally wounded by being returned with a miniscule majority. Pahang, where the National Front was returned bruised and battered in all 11 parliamentary constituencies, also saw the loss of eight state assembly constituencies to the opposition for the first time; three state executive councillors were among them.

The sharply reduced National Front majorities amidst the runaway victories is not about to go away. Just about every other seat is now a marginal seat. With the Malay ground not with it, if it does not reform, it can run into more difficulties than it bargained for. The loss of the Malay cultural heartland is frightening. The silent majority, yes the same evocative phrase Richard Nixon used to justify his continuance in power, from the Malay heartland does not support him or UMNO. The political and cultural polarisation with the Chinese backing the National Front and the Malays PAS, with the ground inbetween all but destroyed, is similar to what happened in Iran in the early 1960s after the Shah of Iran exiled the Ayatollah Khomeini to Iraq. The ground between the two extremes has all but disappeared. So, you now have the Chinese-based Malay-controlled National Front government pitting against the Malay-backed PAS, with no gradations in between. It does not augur well for Malaysia or the National Front if this confrontation proceeds along these lines. The National Front's problems has an added factor: how to protect the Chinese support by giving the contracts it once reserved for its cronies, courtiers, siblings. Like the Shah did in Iran, Dr Mahathir Mohamed would have to act to please his backers amidst Malay anger, this time within a theocratic framework.

The Prime Minister's uneviable task, therefore, is to tighten the hatches, coldbloodedly and brutally prune his cabinet and state executive councillors to prepare himself for the pressures ahead. For too long, key leaders were chosen by osmosis and musical chairs, a patronising reward than commitment. In this context, he debased and devalued the institutions of administration and governance so much so that when the Anwar imbroglio skewered the Malay ground last year, he could not respond at will. The Anwar sodomy trial is postponed sine die. It probably would not resume so soon now. The Prime Minister must now appear as a witness. He cannot afford to in front of the UMNO branch and division elections due in February, and the UMNO supreme council elections in June. With the financial skullduggery he and his administration induldged in these past years about to create mayhem on the political scene, he is caught with having to buy his way with irresponsible expenditures while trying to keep such institutions as the IMF and the World Bank from stepping in and destroy his rationale for governance once and for all. Especially when the Malay rational voice has all but disappeared. The Prime Minister's miscalculations reduces politics to a contest between secular Islam and theocratic Islam, with the non-Malays, especially the Chinese, having no supporting role in any capacity. That is the reality of what the tenth general elections foretell, not the massive majority the National Front wrought. The day would soon come when he would wish Mr Lim Kit Siang and Mr Karpal Singh had not been defeated.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my