A case of “too little too late”
As a consequence of getting such huge support, the government of the day became so arrogant that some ministers could not even take fair criticism in their stride and acted as if they could never be wrong, since they believed that most people, even the urban ones, were behind them.
Dr Hsu Dar Ren, The Malaysian Insider
Ironically, both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat leaders are happy with the Sarawak election results. The only exception is SUPP but even their own leaders realised their fate long before the election was called.
BN leaders expected the worst. In fact, just a few months ago some of them privately expressed the fear that they may lose more than one-third of the seats. So to them, to be able to secure more than two-thirds, despite losing more seats than 2006, is a good result. The fact that the PM was there the whole week was due to this fear of losing the two-thirds.
PR of course is happy since they doubled their representation, even though it fell short of their one-third target.
The result reaffirms what we knew all along: that the urban votes are now dead against BN, not just the urban Chinese, but urban Dayaks, and in West Malaysia, even some percentage of urban Malays and Indians too.
A reader whom I suspect is a BN member wrote the following comment in my blog when discussing the Sarawak election:
“Just think rationally, if the rest of Malaysia is still with BN, won’t you think Chinese will be sideline even more than before. All the remaining 5 Chinese mayors and all the state ministers post – how many will remain?”
As a former member of a component party, I have heard this sales pitch many times before.
Let us not just argue but look back at recent history.
In 1999, the Malay votes turned against BN because of the Anwar Ibrahim factor, and what saved the day were the Chinese and Indians votes which helped BN to pull through. In 2004, Chinese votes were generally behind BN and Pak Lah, after he uttered the famous (or infamous depends on which side you are on) phrase “work with me, and not for me.” The 2004 election was also the one election where BN won the highest percentage of popular votes ever.
So since 1999 till almost 2006, the Chinese sentiments were with the government of the day. They had a relatively high representation inside then.
What did the urban votes get in return? More racism even to the extent of keris raising, more extremist views ( and more double standards when it comes to uttering extremist views) , more marginalisation, more corruption, more so-called privatisation where billions were lost due to leakages and wastage, more abuse of power by our various institutions to the extent that the ISA was used to “protect” a journalist.
These were real happenings that occurred during the period when the government of the day enjoyed the relatively high support of the urban people
At that time, there were many elected non-Malay ministers inside the Cabinet. The representations were there but things worsened. The perception is that these people talked outside but dared not voice out inside.
The truth is there were actually two types of representations of these component parties inside. One was the quiet type, agreeing to whatever policies being decided, who dare not object very strongly, since many of them put their self interest above all else.
There was another type who spoke out quite strongly inside too, but being a small voice, the voice was totally ignored. The latter was also the one who would not be allowed to rise up to a high position, since anyone who dared to speak out was chopped and sidelined in every component party without fail.
Many a times members of these component parties were told not to rock the boat. In one of the national delegates’ conferences, I actually argued that it was not the members who rocked the boat, it was the ineffective leadership and the “dare-not-voice-out-too-strongly” members who not only rocked the boat but also sank it. The voting patterns of the 308 general election and 416 Sarawak election confirm that what I have uttered is generally true.
So the perception among the urban people is that even with these people inside, their grouses had not been heard.
As a consequence of getting such huge support, the government of the day became so arrogant that some ministers could not even take fair criticism in their stride and acted as if they could never be wrong, since they believed that most people, even the urban ones, were behind them.
It was only after 308, when many of the component parties suffered huge losses and humiliation that the government of the day began to seek change. They were forced to seek change not because they wanted it, but because they knew that if they didn’t, they would get booted out. It became a case of either change or be changed.
