CITIES ON BOIL BUT MALAYSIAN PM SET TO WIN

Kuala Lumpur, May 2: Kasthuribai Sattayappan’s teenage son died in January when he was hit by a chair thrown from an upper level of the public housing flats in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

“The lifts don’t work and no one comes to remove the rubbish so they just throw everything out of the window,” Kasthuribai said at the filthy and brokendown apartment block.

The youth’s death brought a wave of outrage over the state of public housing projects in the city’s poorest areas, fuelling urban opposition to Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition ahead of next week’s general election.

Malaysia’s urban population is growing rapidly as people migrate from rural areas in search of better jobs. Many of them blame the government for soaring living costs, decayed public housing, poor education and healthcare, and congested roads.

“People are beginning to vote for other parties because they see that our current government is not leading us toward a better country,” said 27-year-old Leen Low, who moved to Kuala Lumpur five years ago from a semi-rural town.

Despite the growing ranks of angry urban voters, however, Najib is widely expected to win another term in the May 9 election on the back of rural votes and the disproportionate share of rural constituencies in the 222-seat parliament.

Malaysia’s urban population percentage, 76 per cent, is Southeast Asia’s largest after Singapore and Brunei, according to U.N. data. But only 97 parliament constituencies, about 44 per cent of the total, are classified as urban and semiurban, according to political research firm Politweet.org. Reuters