Forum sees risk of Umno doubling down on communalism

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno may start down the path towards more blatant racial politics and possibly explore stronger cooperation with PAS in a bid to regain its lost power, an academic told a forum yesterday.

William Case, a professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus, presented this as one of three possible negative outcomes that may not yet be apparent with the euphoria of Pakatan Harapan successfully forming the new government.

“Most dangerously, Umno does not grow more reformist, but instead becomes much more aggressively nativist, and starts now to try to energise new support through new and much louder and much more aggressive appeals to the Malay community,” he told the forum today when touching on the hypothetical scenario.

Case said the Malay-based Umno could even partner Islamist party PAS to tap on right wing populism to win back power.

There are already signs of this. One Umno leader expressing intent to contest for the party's presidency has proposed unification with the Islamist party with the professed aim of “saving Islam”.

“It may even team up with PAS and it could start to embark on a programme of right wing populism. There's nothing strange about that in today's world because it's happening everywhere.

“I can imagine in my darker moods that Umno together with PAS reverting to something like that, a kind of right wing populism strategy, that who knows can bring it back to power whether through the ballot box or through other means,” he added.

Earlier in the forum, Case noted that the Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition had in the 14th general elections used its “standard” approach of consolidating support from rural voters — who typically include their Malay base.

“Forget the Chinese, forget the secular Malay middle class, forget the urban voters,” he said of the coalition's approach, noting that BN was confident that its strategy together with its “electoral manipulation” would help it win power again.

The two other possible scenarios he outlined were a possible backlash from the country's “elites” if Pakatan Harapan was to be too eager by carrying out reforms “too far, too fast”, as well as a situation where PH falls apart due to infighting and fails to deliver on its promises of relieving Malaysians' economic burden.

Case was part of a panel discussion titled “Malaysia's Democratic Wave: Expecting the Unexpected” which was held at Universiti Malaya.