The unjust and inhuman treatment of Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim has split the Malay vote. Mahathir is courting the minorities like never before. Indian votes will not matter much as they make up less than 10% of the population so it is the Chinese that Mahathir is courting on to help retain his grip on power. But how reliable are the Chinese as swing voters? Can the BN depend on them to swing the seats to their favour and retain their 2/3 majority?
If indeed the Chinese vote massively for BN, they will be swing voters in many of the Malay dominated seats where the Malay vote is split almost 50-50. The urban seats where Chinese dominate will also be go to BN. With this scenario BN can easily retain their 2/3 majority.
No doubt the UMNO and the supine, robotic MCA leaders will try to frighten the Chinese to vote BN with the old May 13 bogeyman and by playing in their fears of an Islamic State. In fact Ling Liong Sik has been going round warning of such a dire scenario, never mind that PAS is not contesting enough seats to change the constitution which will be required for an Islamic State. Just a while ago on the 26th of October, the government propaganda paper New Straits Times ran a prominent article on the horrors of May 13 in a bald-faced attempt to frighten the Chinese and Indians. Expect more such yellow journalism when the election approaches.
But trying to stampede the Chinese to vote BN by playing on racial and religious fears is to underestimate the maturity of the Chinese electorate. Most Chinese do not believe that the BN government will be toppled by the opposition so fears of an Islamic are irrelevant. As for the May 13 incident, this dead horse has been trotted out election after election with no evidence of Chinese voters voting en bloc for BN out of fear. Chinese are astute enough to know that the social-economic factors which triggered racial riots 30 years ago no longer exist. The huge gap in economic prosperity between the Malays and the Chinese existing in 1969 fanned Malay fears that loss of political hegemony will retard their growth. Also in those days there was no alternative party to represent Malay rights other than UMNO so UMNO's election setback was considered disastrous. But now Malays in the urban areas are richer than Chinese and UMNO is no longer seen as the only party capable of safeguarding Malay rights with PAS and Keadilan in the wings.
In fact, past voting pattern shows that Chinese have never voted en bloc for BN. Ling Liong Sik and many other MCA leaders traditionally had to depend on the Malay vote to win their seats, contesting from safe Malay dominated areas. Non-Malay votes have always been split with more voting opposition than BN except for the last election when many voted for BN in the heady days of vibrant economic growth. Before the 1995 elections, urban areas where Chinese predominate were considered DAP strongholds with 60% of Chinese voting for opposition. The 1995 election was an upset with more Chinese voting for BN than against BN causing DAP seats to plunge from 20 to 9. This should be viewed in the light of the surging economic boom prevailing in1995. A booming economy is certainly not a good time for opposition. Chinese like other races like to maintain the status quo if things seem to be going well. Also by then, election gerry mandering had sidelined most of the Chinese vote.
The coming elections will be interesting. Do Chinese support MCA? As a Chinese myself and in touch with the sentiment of many other Chinese, I must say a resounding NO! I've never met a Chinese non-MCA member who supports Ling Liong Sik. They may exist somewhere but all those I've come across in the course of daily life have some choice abusive words for this hypocritical leader whose main driving force is to serve himself. Also, those Chinese who join MCA have invariably viewed it as a vehicle for economic riches, not out of a desire to serve the community or represent the Chinese. Small wonder that Chinese view MCA as a party of self-serving, money-grabbing men who would not stick out their necks one inch to fight for Chinese rights with Ling Liong Sik as their prime example.
But having said that, some Chinese will still vote for MCA candidates out of desire to retain the BN government due to a fear of change. It is certainly not out of consideration that MCA can or will protect their rights. The Chinese opinion of MCA is indeed abysmal. Small wonder that MCA politicians have to resort to fear and blackmail to campaign for votes for they can promise the Chinese community nothing in the way of rewards.
Events over the past few years will persuade fence sitters among the Chinese to vote opposition. Corruption, economic abuses, erosion in Chinese education, the economic downturn, the JE crisis, injustice on Lim Guan Eng, the attempted bank merger, the complete subservience of MCA to UMNO, Ling as a parrot non-leader, Ling's billionaire son...all these have seeped deep into the Chinese psyche and caused great resentment and discontent. However the Anwar issue does not carry much weight as most Chinese view it as a Malay quarrel.
With the split in the Malay vote, how will those MCA politicians who used to seek re-election from Malay dominated areas fare, notably Ling Liong Sik who will once again be contesting in Labis, Johor? Chinese in rural areas have no love for BN and are more inclined to vote opposition, but their votes have previously been inconsequential due to the overwhelming Malay majority. But now with the sea change among the Malays, it should scare them shitless. They may well lose their deposits and that would be poetic justice for those Chinese hypocrite leaders who choose to fish for Malay votes to retain their seats while shamelessly claiming to represent the Chinese.
In the urban areas, Chinese voters are ambivalent. Many Chinese are sick of the gross corruption, injustice, abuse of power and moral bankruptcy of the BN government, but some are willing to overlook the deep faults for the sake of stability and what they believe would be continuing prosperity. The latter category are mainly those in running successful businesses and view BN as an icon of stability to continue their materialism. But the booming economic conditions of the mid-nineties no longer exist and many Chinese businesses are still suffering with the effects of the recession despite strident claims of economic recovery. This will swing many to vote opposition out of plain frustration and a perceived lack of assistance from the government. There is yet another ace for DAP in that many Chinese, especially well-educated middle-aged folks have become aware and disgusted by the gross abuses and injustices of the regime, a situation helped no doubt by the proliferation of the Internet and Astro. They will vote against government to give the opposition more voice and strength to act as a check and balance. So it looks like DAP may win back many seats in the urban areas this time around, but results are difficult to predict.
How will the fact of 680,000 new voters arbitrarily prevented from voting by the BN subservient Election Commission dragging their feet affect the outcome? Most of them are young voters who have been spurred to register in a bid to exercise their democratic right. Based on population density, 70% are Malays and 26% Chinese. The young Malays are a loss to the opposition as being politically aware and with a sense of fairness and justice over the Anwar issue, they may be expected to vote Keadilan or PAS. But the young Chinese are a loss to MCA. Many of them are politically ignorant and concepts like social justice, judicial fairness and clean government are obscured in their pursuit of materialism and worldly success. They think no deeper than their jobs and their plans to buy a house or a car and they will vote MCA on the contention that "if it ain't broke, why change it?" They are unable to see secondary and indirect effects of corruption and abuses on their future prosperity not being able to delve deeper than their shallow materialism.
So it now appears that the wheel has come full circle and MCA leaders who rightly seek support from the community they claim to represent stand a better chance of winning their seats while the self-serving ones who stand from Malay areas look like they will be wiped out. This is natural justice as representing the Chinese via the Malay vote is a license to oppress, erode and subjugate the rights of the Chinese community whom they disdain to seek support from. With Ling showing the way, no wonder MCA has been dominated by UMNO in the last decade and so completely subservient to UMNO in the last 5 years that Ling does not dare utter a single statement in cabinet meetings or parliament in defense of Chinese rights. More than that, he has been reduced to a servile lap-dog frantically spewing out fawning praise for the Prime Minister's every public statement. So hated by the Chinese is Ling Liong Sik that he would be committing political suicide to seek re-election in a Chinese area and so he must take his chances in Malay majority Labis.
So the notion of Chinese as swing voters is illusory. Chinese have always been ambivalent in their support for BN. Some want to maintain the status quo, fearing that change will affect stability and prosperity. Others vote opposition to represent their rights. The last few years have seen the emergence of a third category who will vote against BN because they are sickened by the economic and judicial abuses. Unlike the first category, they think deeper and are frightened by the size of the billion ringgit corruption knowing that the prosperity of the country cannot be sustained by such gross abuses. Just like the Malays, the Chinese vote is split. Flogging a dead horse like May 13 or harping on Islamic fears is the politics of desperation by MCA and UMNO politicians who have lost their moral right to govern.
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