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March 8 has changed many things and shaken many old assumptions and perceptions.
Year of political tsunami
by ZainonAhmad
newsdesk@thesundaily.com
THE drubbing that the long-time
ruling Barisan Nasional received
at the hands of the Opposition
on March 8 is still very much the
story of the year. There is a chance
it may also be the story of the
decade, and probably it is going
to be a major landmark in the
country’s political history.
As alluded to by many analysts,
it has fragmented Malaysian
politics. And the two-thirds
majority that the BN had been
brandishing for 50 years as a totem
of its “divine right” to rule may not
be within the grasp of any ruling
group for a long time to come.
March 8 has certainly changed
many things and shaken many old
assumptions and perceptions to
their very foundations. The voters
too have realised the power they
have and are not about to be taken
for granted any more.
It has put out to pasture many
old cows once considered as
sacred and installed new values
once thought unacceptable.
Because of it nothing is likely
going to be the same again.
In fact it is because of it that
Prime Minister Datuk Seri
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
is stepping down, rather
unprecedentedly, a year after
winning a new mandate,
albeit a slimmer one, and
after only about five years in
office.
Perhaps in his memoirs he
will attempt to explain why,
after winning the biggest
mandate in the country’s
history in 2004, he
was given a such a
stinging rebuke
four years
later which
emboldened
his own party
men to publicly
demand his
resignation.
Perhaps
he will also
explain why
he called the
elections one
year ahead of
schedule and
when his
popularity
was at a low ebb following the
massive street demonstrations
three months earlier and the
anger that they generated was still
smouldering.
In the many analyses written
by all kinds of mavens and pundits
– academicians, journalists, think-
tankers and just plain observers
– two considerations seem to
stand out as reasons for the early
polls: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim
and the prospect of a deteriorating
economy.
Some of the writers tried to
present an honest and objective
analysis but others made no
attempt to conceal their sense
of jubilance that the once
mighty national ruling coalition
was snubbed as it had never
been snubbed before. Thus,
some noticeably wrote with a
vengeance.
Few highlighted the fact that
the results took almost every one
by surprise. But the hyperboles
they used to describe what
happened were as if the BN
was already wiped out,
erased.
Elsewhere in the
world such results
would be welcomed
with fireworks,
street-dancing
and all forms
of merry-
making
instead of the
gloom that
shrouded
the
But then so used was BN
to the magic two-thirds
majority for almost half
a century that it became
its own benchmark of
victory. Thus, it is not
hard to see why for
the BN March 8 was a
disastrous outing.
BN still in control after
March 8 but lost its
two-thirds majority in the
Parliament for the first time.
theSun
BN camp in the early hours of
March 9.
It was only eight seats away
from winning two-thirds of the
seats in the Parliament and lost
only five – Penang, Kedah, Perak,
Selangor and Kelantan – of the
thirteen state governments.
Perlis is now a BN island in
the north while the southern
states seemed to have thumbed
their noses at the efforts of the
PKR-DAP-PAS combine, now a
loose Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
Seemingly unfazed were Sabah
and Sarawak whose total seats
now keep the BN from collapsing
altogether at the federal level.
But then so used was BN to
the magic two-thirds majority
for almost half a century that it
became its own benchmark of
victory. Thus, it is not hard to see
why for the BN March 8 was a
disastrous outing.
The opposition parties – for
decades almost despairing of ever
denting the BN carapace – also
saw the results as a rout for the
ruling coalition and used all kinds
of hyperboles to describe them.
“It’s a tsunami,” exulted DAP
strongman Lim Kit Siang.
It is obvious, as pointed out by
the numerous analysts, the BN had
squandered the massive mandate
and the goodwill the voters had
given it in 2004. In fact some said
it was the huge mandate that did
it: make the government arrogant
and complacent.
Because Anwar was not a
candidate at the March 8
polls he was free to move all
over the country to galvanise
support for the Opposition.
The early euphoria generated
by such musical soundbites as
“work with me and not for me”
and “I am the prime minister of
all Malaysians” soon dissipated as
the government’s credibility was
called into question a year later
over what it promised to do but did
not do.
And then came such scandals
as the V.K. Lingam video clip
and the Mongolian Altantuya
Shaariibuu murder and rumours
and blogs of other scandals
including those involving people
in high places. To erode the
government’s credibility even
further was the perception that it
was “closing one eye” to corrupt
practices in the public sector.
And then came the disgust
and anger. If there is one icon to
represent this arrogance and total
disregard for the feeling of others,
including members of non-Malay
BN parties like the MCA and
Gerakan, it is the waving of the
kris at the Umno general assembly
in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and the
accompanying battle cry of
“ketuanan Melayu”.
Indeed the opposition parties
used posters of the arm waving
the kris to great effect
in many non-Malay
constituencies to
whip up anti-BN
sentiments among
the voters. In many
campaign speeches
it symbolised a
rejection of multi-
culturalism and
an imposition of
Malay dominance.
Repeated often
by opposition party
campaigners was
| WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 31 2008
an Umno leader’s statement that
it did not matter if the non-Malays
did not vote for the BN because the
Malays who formed about 60% of
the population would.
A number of analysts
also mentioned the hesitant,
improperly managed and
uninstitutionalised openness of
Abdullah’s administration which
allowed issues to be discussed
and debated in public but were
stopped when they seemed to
threaten and to undermine public
order.
For whatever it is worth
the openness allowed hitherto
sensitive issues to be publicly
aired but by stopping discussion
when things were getting out of
hand the government was seen
as unreasonable and unfair and
succumbing to pressures exerted
by only one section of the society.
For instance, discussions on the
idea of an Inter-Faith Commission
(IFC) were initially encouraged by
the government until protests by a
coalition of thirteen Muslim NGOs
ended it.
The same group of NGOs also
scuttled public discussions on
problems related to conversion
and apostasy sponsored by the
civil society group which called
itself Article 11.
And it was the problems
related to conversion and the
government’s seeming paralysis
and indecision over them that
allowed Hindraf’s influence to
eclipse that of the MIC, a BN
component, among the Indian
voters.
Some analysts also credited the
voters, influenced and egged on
by such organisations as Bersih,
with a new found boldness and
willingness to experiment.
The result was Umno won only
78 seats of the 117 it contested, the
MCA 15 out of 40, MIC three out of
nine and Gerakan two out of 12.
For the first time the opposition
parties, mounting a coordinated
campaign and exploiting all the
issues at hand, managed to win a
total of 82 seats among them in the
222-seat Dewan Rakyat – PKR 31,
DAP 28, PAS 23 and Independent
one.
Also, as the BN is discovering,
the old formula of keeping the
parties together no longer seems
acceptable. The so-called BN
framework is ridiculed, Umno’s
hectoring is openly criticised and
its insistence that certain issues
are not to be publicly discussed
has been ignored.
Such was the loosening of the
“framework” – probably Abdullah
is an inept coalition manager
– that in the recent party election
campaigns of the partners and the
on-going Umno elections, much of
the debates that raged during the
run-up to March 8 are revisited.
Such are the anger and
frustration expressed that a
few parties have openly stated
that they are reviewing their
participation in the coalition. One
small Sabah party has already left.
But many BN leaders are
hopeful that after the dusts of
March 8 have settled, the anger
burning itself out and sanity
prevailed their parties will
coalesced even stronger but on a
new framework.
If Abdullah had called an early
election simply to keep Anwar
out of parliament he must have
discovered that it was a mistake.
Because he was not a candidate
Anwar was free to move all over
the country to appeal to voters to
“vote for anything as long as it is
not the BN”.
And he is now the Parlia-
mentary Opposition Leader.
Abdullah may be right on the
economy though.
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