Forthcoming Malaysian general election, poll on May 5

[callippo]

this should really have a thread about it as an interesting international news story that might just become a very big one in the days and weeks ahead.

 

here is an Economist background article going over particularly one of the main issues facing the country.

 

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21576654-elections-may-could-mark-turning-point-never-ending-policy?fb_action_ids=3091032690129&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=scn/fb_ec/a_never_ending_policy&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

 

you might think that Malaysia is a far away country of no relevance at all to the UK, however it is a former British colony and further, one in which Sheffield has a definite link in the form of many Malaysians who have studied and are living and studying here right now. Sheffield Uni at least at one time took out full page adverts in Malaysian newspapers promoting itself as a study option for Malaysians, many of whom - as the Economist article mentions - are desirous of getting a foreign education especially after 9/11 when for a lot of them the prospect of going to the USA to study, was closed off.

 

the ruling coalition has governed the country without interruption since independence, in 1957. Last time, in 2008, they lost the two thirds majority they had had before. Although latest forecasts suggest that they will hold on to power by a small margin, if perchance they lose or if it comes very close, people fear a repeat of the 1969 riots and state of emergency and suspension of parliament that followed another closely fought election back then. In the past few years, there have been sporadic outbreaks of violence and demonstrations by minority groups of Malaysia's multi-ethnic and multi-faith 'rainbow' protesting against what many of them think of as being their status as 2nd class citizens. Nothing really deadly, but the potential for violence is definitely there.

 

watch this space.

[johncocker]

yes it'll be interesting ,

the current ruling parties are highly corrupt, and I think the people in Malaysia see the blatant, arrogant practice and have enough of it. What I am afraid of though is the opposition coalition is made up of 3 different parties with 3 different goals. The most scary of them is the Islamic party PAS. One of their goal is put the hudud law, islamic laws on crimes, adultery etc. If they come into power, the first agenda will be just that. Their claim is that it will apply only to Muslims. .I'm based down in oz and the S.China sea most of the time And I don’t think Australians want to have another Islamic state as a neighbour .

 

btw

I notice the smearing of opponents as pro-Jewish seems to be a feature of their political discourse.

[callippo]

yes there is a rather bizarre strand of antisemitism over there, bizarre because the former Malaya Jewish community ceased to exist years ago and almost none of them have ever met one. Mahatir Mohammad's comments in his infamous antisemite speech in 2003 are well known. Some years ago, I was walking in the Bukit Bintang area of Kuala Lumpur when, to my surprise I overheard a young couple having a heated argument in Hebrew as they approached. They must have been Israelis travelling on foreign passports. I am not Jewish or Israeli but I have spent enough time there to recognise Hebrew language, or even Hebrew accented English, when I hear it spoken. It is not a good idea to speak Hebrew in Malaysia or Indonesia. Many Muslims take Arabic language lessons and Arabic characters even appear on the money. The languages being quite close, somebody might easily recognise it while passing, like I did. However this would not have been all that likely in a Chinese area like that. But I still put my finger to my lips and said shhhhhhhh to them with a wink, which made them stop and smile. But they took the hint and continued walking up the hill, only this time in silence.

 

---------- Post added 04-05-2013 at 20:49 ----------

 

the polls open in a few hours. According to opinion surveys, the opposition has been gaining on the government during the campaign. It looks like it really will run close to the wire.

 

 

Malaysia Election Is Too Close to Call

 

http://www.nytimes.c...wanted=all&_r=0

 

 

 

KUALA LUMPUR — Millions of Malaysians will go to the polls on Sunday to decide what appears to be the most closely contested election in their country’s history — the results of which will either see a continuation of decades of leadership by the current government, if likely in a weakened state, or the first-ever handover of power.

 

While both Prime Minister Najib Razak’s governing National Front coalition and the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s three-party People’s Alliance are publicly expressing confidence in victory, independent analysts said the race remained neck-and-neck as the 15-day official campaign period nears its end on Saturday. “Going by conventional wisdom, the government has the advantage, but the opposition could pull off a surprise,” said Ibrahim Suffian, director

of the Merdeka Center, an independent polling organization. “It’s within the margin of error.”

 

 

The campaign has been marred by violence, opposition claims of possible vote-rigging by the government, a cyberattack on a leading online news service and even a dispute over whether the ink that will be applied to voters’ index fingers to ensure they only vote once can be easily rubbed off.

 

 

 

Analysts say that Malaysia’s 13.3 million registered voters have been given a stark choice: the continuation of a political and economic system based largely on race, by a group that has firmly held power since the country’s independence in 1957, or a completely new direction with a combative but untested opposition promising dramatic changes. “It’s either to accept that we need to mature as a country and support reform, or be stuck in the old ways of semi-authoritarianism, controlled media, an economic policy lacking in transparency and using the old race-based economic policies,” Mr. Anwar said in an interview.

 

 

Mr. Najib has countered with a “stay the course” argument, touting political, social and economic changes and saying that the government’s policies have maintained Malaysia’s status as a stable, modern emerging country with Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy. “That is why the opposition’s call for reform has had a poor response from the people,” Mr. Najib said during a campaign rally this week in the northern state of Terengganu. “Which is better: street demonstrations or respecting the law? Which is better: sowing discord in the community or inculcating good moral values?”

 

 

 

The governing coalition is led by the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, the party of Mr. Najib. He is the son of a former prime minister and is seeking his first mandate since taking office in 2009. During Malaysia’s last national elections in 2008, the National Front suffered its worst performance since 1957, losing its two-thirds majority in Parliament as well as control of five state assemblies. Mr. Anwar is a former senior UMNO leader and deputy prime minister who was ousted in a power struggle in 1998 with Mahathir Mohamad, who was then prime minister. He was imprisoned from 1999 to 2004 after

convictions on sodomy and corruption charges that he claimed were politically motivated. Mr. Anwar has accused Mr. Najib’s government of authoritarian leanings, turning a blind eye to corruption by officials and politicians from his coalition, and continuing to play race-based politics by giving preferential economic treatment to ethnic Malays, who account for around

60 percent of Malaysia’s 29 million people.

 

 

He also said the government’s refusal to give him more than 10 minutes of airtime on state television and its decision to give cash handouts to poor families ahead of the election campaign were desperation tactics. “They refuse to acknowledge and learn, and they are resisting change,” Mr. Anwar said. “Look at Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, they are far ahead. Even Myanmar, where the opposition can have a say on television during election campaigns.”

 

 

 

Koh Tsu Koon, a cabinet minister and senior member of the governing coalition, countered during an interview that Mr. Najib has scaled back longstanding affirmative action policies and instituted serious political changes, including the abolition of the Internal Security Act, under which suspects could be detained without trial, and the ending of a state-of-emergency ordinance put in place following race riots in 1969. He also said the government’s revamped anti-corruption polices had reduced graft.

 

 

The National Front has been handing out a 23-page government progress report at campaign rallies noting that Malaysia had 5.6 percent growth in 2012, that its gross national income grew 41 percent in the last three years and that the country ranked 25th in the latest Global Competitiveness Report. “And they are saying the government is corrupt, bankrupt, incompetent,” Mr. Koh said of the opposition People’s Alliance. “Come on, we are not perfect, but we have done well by any standard.”

 

 

The highly emotional election has been marked by several incidents of campaign violence, according to Human Rights Watch, the international group based in New York. It said in a statement released Thursday that attacks had been carried out by supporters on both sides. There have also been cyberattacks against both pro-government and opposition Web sites, and against online news services including Malaysiakini, a popular site that is critical of the government.

 

 

 

On Thursday, Mr. Anwar said the government may have helped to fly more than 40,000 “dubious” voters to key states to bolster its chances of winning. The government has denied the allegation, saying it has traditionally helped Malaysians working in the country’s eastern states on the island of Borneo to return to their home regions to vote.

 

 

 

But on Friday, local election groups said there was evidence some of those flown in were foreign nationals, including from Indonesia and the Philippines. Ambiga Sreenevasan, chairwoman of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, said the number of people being flown in is far greater than any possible number of registered Malaysian voters going home. “We know the playing field for this election has not been level,” she said. “The election should not be stolen from the people. The wish is that it’s the true will of the people that should prevail in these elections, but the fear is that it may not.”

 

 

 

Control of the 221-member Parliament may come down to a small number of seats where the margin of victory in each could be a few hundred votes, Mr. Koh said. The governing coalition won 140 seats during the 2008 election, while the opposition took 81. The governing coalition’s core voters are rural Malay Muslims and rural indigenous people in Borneo, which translates into large numbers of seats because of the way district boundaries are drawn, Mr. Ibrahim said. In 2008, the National Front won only 51 percent of the vote, but that translated into 63 percent of the seats.

 

 

 

The People’s Alliance also has support among ethnic Malays and a huge advantage among Chinese voters, Mr. Ibrahim said, while the Indian vote will likely be split or slightly in favor of the governing coalition. Young Malaysians could also influence the outcome, he said, because they have been more responsive to the opposition’s campaign messages than older voters have been. About 2.6 million of the country’s registered voters were too young to vote in the last election. Bridget Welsh, an associate professor at Singapore Management University who follows Malaysian electoral politics, said that whoever wins is likely to have a weak majority given that the race is so close, but that a narrow victory would leave Mr. Najib in a particularly tenuous position. “The way the election process is going so far, it will weaken him because a lot of people will see the way he carried out the campaign negatively,” she said. “If he gets over 130 seats, he should withstand challenges from within UMNO, but it will be different with the public in determining if that’s really a true victory.”

[newsnelec]

A political transition is likely to happen which may change the fortunes of Malaysia.