WHO’LL THEY VOTE FOR?
Voters will want a wakil rakyat who is attentive to Malay interests, resolve bread-and-butter issues and sensitive to race sentiments
SEMENYIH, named after a word in Negri Sembilan dialect which means “hidden”, has arguably lived up to its name for first-time travellers to this small town in Hulu Langat.
It takes about an hour from Kuala Lumpur, through the smooth lanes of the North-South Expressway before exiting at the Kajang Selatan toll plaza.
Before you know it, you will find yourself in a traffic gridlock at the town’s main artery, aptly named Jalan Besar, which means “main road”.
It is flanked by banks, clinics and hardware stores.
Semenyih is reminiscent of Rahang town in Seremban in the 1990s; old, mossy structures sandwiched between modern counterparts.
Semenyih is the sixth constituency to undergo a by-election since the 14th General Election (GE14), after its 57-year old assemblyman Bakhtiar Mohd Nor of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia died of a heart attack on Jan 11. Bakhtiar had secured a comfortable 8,964-vote majority for the state seat, defeating Barisan Nasional, Pas and Parti Sosialis Malaysia.
Semenyih has 54,503 registered voters, comprising 53,520 ordinary voters, 951 early voters and 32 absentee voters, according to the Election Commission. Malays form the major voting bloc at 68 per cent, followed by Chinese (17 per cent) and Indians (14 per cent).
It has 23 district polling centres, with at least 12 Malay-majority areas, including Kampung Tanjung, Kampung Baharu Semenyih and Kantan Permai. But due to the upcoming contest between at least two Malay-majority parties and the current political landscape, will the community remain collective in its decision?
Voting trends are commonly influenced by bread-and-butter issues, general policies as well as race sentiments, particularly in several demographies such as Semenyih.
Halimah Abdullah, a 58-yearold who sells Malay cakes near Jalan Besar, believes Malay interests and Islam are at the heart of every Malay there.
“Even if you don’t pray five times a day, I believe that the community will wholly agree that our interests and the sanctity of Islam as a way of life, should be upheld. You can be from any party but the Malays here should be reassured that nothing can come between them and Islam,” Halimah said, gazing at a billboard showing the Selangor menteri besar next to a slogan “Membangun Bersama Islam” (Growing with Islam).
What was conveyed by Halimah represents the importance of looking into the majority’s sentiment, political analyst Associate Professor Dr Awang Azman Awang Pawi said.
“Malay interests and Islam remain an important context to be considered by political strategists. The community is sensitive to topics such as the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination and the race issue from the Seafield temple incident.
“Other factors that can influence voting trends are public service and job opportunities. Yes, there is physical development taking place here. But most of the jobs offered by the progress, say, for example the flourishing of the
WITH 68 per cent of the constituents in Semenyih being Malay, the by-election on March 2 will be spun by Umno and Pas as the key to their strategic return to power by 2023 or earlier; as and when the 15th General Election is held.
Pakatan Harapan, which lost the Cameron Highlands parliamentary by-election, should be on its toes in every sense of the word.
To begin with, PH is now the ruling coalition. Although it was Umno and Barisan Nasional, indeed, Pas, that broke Putrajaya completely, devoid of any political capital the ramparts of BN and Pas have nothing to lean on, except to subject PH to this constant tirade that it has broken every single electoral promise.
This is false association and accusation, to say the least. Why? Hasn’t PH put the kleptocrats in Malaysia either on the run, in hiding, or faced with the almost certain likelihood of a full conviction across the board one day?
This in itself was the major redemption of PH, and a new Malaysia, without which the democratic transition of May 9, 2018, would not have happened to look into the sky-rocketing debts of the country.
At US$250.6 billion (RM1.2 trillion) and counting, which is almost 80 per cent of the gross national product, yet with no certainty of how many governmentlinked companies (GLCs) there are, many of which continue to rot from a worsening balance sheet, how can the old Malaysia be better than the one that is under PH?
But there are three reasons why Malays have not been forsaken, and the identity politics with which Malays are closely identified with — Islam.
FIRST, weren’t BN and Umno, with the support of Pas, the ones that had Malaysia entwined with Goldman Sachs? Goldman Sachs, which is heavily influenced by the Israeli lobby of the United States, has tried to wash its hands of any financial indemnity to Malaysia by merely issuing an “apology”.
Umno and Pas cannot be freed from the guilt of association with Goldman Sachs and/or Israel. They worked with the likes of Jho Low, in turn, Hollywood, another entity heavily under the influence of Israeli interest, to whitewash their own commercial misdeeds from 1MDB to many mini 1MDBs. Is this what Islam teaches ? No. Islam has always insisted on truth and justice. Yet, Umno and Pas have time and again skewered its central message.
SECOND, not only will PH not be forsaking Islam, indeed, it is trying to make sure the entire economic and political ecology is sufficiently clean to allow the pristine values of Islam to emerge. Only when the universalism of Islam is permitted to don a key role will the statecraft of Malaysia be among the best in the world.
Take the economic crisis that hit Turkey between September and the end of last year, for instance. It has withstood the trials and tribulations of a financial crisis precisely because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stood firm.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad may not have been able to produce an instant economic miracle, but then no one can when the Sino-US trade relationship is spiralling downward out of control. Thus, the key rests with maintaining stability.
THIRD, while PH has stopped digging Malaysia into a debt trap, Pas and Umno, even MCA, appear bent on the East-Coast Railway project, which costs a whopping RM100 billion and more. How can this make any sense?
Thus, Semenyih must be seen for what it is: the “decision day” for Malaysian voters, predominantly the Malays, to tell Umno and Pas that their politics of baiting the rakyat with trinkets, tokenism and tonnes of racial and religious verbiage are over.
Let’s send a strong and clear signal that Semenyih is not proPH but pro-new Malaysia in spite of the imperfections of the current coalition.
Better a coalition that is clean than one that is constantly scheming with various shenanigans to come back into office, without anything to offer.
Umno and Pas cannot be freed from the guilt of association with Goldman Sachs and/or Israel.
The writer is Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia supreme council member and chairman Strategy and Policy