Malaysia’s Coming Elections: Between Change and Inertia

(source: othermalaysia.org)
by Farish A Noor

And so, with the dissolution of the Malaysian Parliament on Wednesday, Malaysia is heading to the elections once again. The precise date of the 12th General Elections of Malaysia is yet to be known, but it is clear that this will be one of the more hotly contested elections that Malaysia has witnessed.

Over the past two years alone a string of controversies have stirred the Malaysian public’s interest in the goings-on in the corridors of power in the country: The highly publicised case of the murder of a Mongolian model has dragged many a famous name (including that of politicians) into the limelight; the revelation of irregularities in the appointment of senior judges has brought the judiciary into close focus; the destruction of a number of Hindu temples has aroused the anger of many Malaysian Hindus; while the plethora of on-going marriage and divorce cases between Muslims and non-Muslims has added to the widening of the gulf between the religious and ethnic communities in the country.

What is more, the spate of public demonstrations – many of which took place in the capital Kuala Lumpur – would suggest that sections of the Malaysian public are more politically aware and politically literate than before. The BERSIH campaign calling for free and fair elections, for instance, was a movement that is rooted in Malaysia’s civil society and which cut across the racial, ethnic and religious divides which have always been the salient markers of the Malaysian political landscape. Conversely the demonstrations organised by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) would suggest that communitarian and sectarian political remains a defining factor of Malaysian politics until today.

All eyes will now be on the administration of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who faces the tough prospect of retaining the public’s support for a second term.

Badawi came to power following the resignation of former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad, who led – and in many ways transformed – Malaysia for more than two decades. In the immediate aftermath of Mahathir’s unannounced resignation that stunned the nation, Badawi was chosen as his successor. Yet when Badawi came to power with an enormous mandate in the elections of 2004 (with one of the highest approval ratings ever given to any Malaysian leader) he promised a wide range of reforms that included the promise of greater accountability, transparency and a thorough overhaul of some of the key institutions of government including the civil service, judiciary and police force.

Four years on, there seems to be the widespread perception that the Badawi administration has failed to deliver. Despite earlier promises that the long-standing cases of alleged corruption and nepotism between government and the corporate sector were to be resolved, no major cases have been dealt with until now. Instead the Malaysian public has been witness to a number of embarrassing revelations about the murky dealings within the governmental system instead.

Another area where Badawi seems weak is his stand on Islam, which was encapsulated in his vision of a modern, progressive, ‘Islam Hadari’. While admittedly Badawi has expressed the keen desire to see Islam understood and practiced in a universal, inclusive and tolerant manner, the realities on the ground would suggest that the religious authorities in the country have not taken heed of any of the universal principles he has espoused all along: The seizure of Bibles by Malaysian customs officers, the activities of the morality police that spy on the private lives of Malaysians, the banning of books that are deemed ‘a threat’ to Islam and Muslims, etc. have all prompted Malaysians to ask: ‘What sort of modern, progressive Islam is this?’

But Badawi’s greatest challenge to date has been the pervading presence of his former mentor Tun Mahathir himself. More than the danger of increased communitarian and sectarian politics, more than the challenge of a resurgent Islamic party (PAS) waiting to regain control of the Muslim-majority states, more than the challenge posed by the new generation of politically-conscious urban civil society activists and dedicated professional classes; it is the dominating presence of Tun Mahathir that looms over the Badawi government at the moment.

When Badawi promised a new era of transparency and openness, many observers of Malaysian politics noted that this was a departure from the ways of the Mahathir administration. To some extent it has to be said that Malaysia’s civil society and media have indeed opened up, with issues being discussed in the public domain as never before. But this has also incurred a cost to the Badawi government, and it has irked those who were more comfortable with the ways of the Mahathir era when governance was strictly a top-down unilateral process with less public participation.

The down-sizing of several mammoth projects that were initiated during the Mahathir period, the revelation of corruption and abuse of power dating back to the 1980s, the attempt to introduce some degree of accountability to the workings of the police and security forces; etc have been seen as a means of overturning many of the developments made during Mahathir’s time. The former Prime Minister has further upped the stakes by publicly stating that Badawi was perhaps not the best man to replace him, and to suggest that Badawi may eventually be a ‘one-term’ Prime Minister.

This, then, is one of the core issues that is really being fought out in the coming elections of Malaysia. While the Badawi government is pressed to take on the opposition parties and to address a host of demands from a wide section of Malaysia’s now vocal civil society, the real – and perhaps only – threat to Badawi’s position in power comes from the old guard of the ruling elite and governmental system itself, who do not relish the prospect of real, long term institutional change, reform and modernisation. The 12th General Elections of Malaysia will therefore determine whether the reform process continues, or whether institutional inertia will win the day.

Indian Mutiny

(source: The Economist)

A hitherto quiescent minority loses faith in the social contract

SOME devotees had been fasting for weeks and shaved their heads. The most zealous pierced their cheeks with skewers or attached large wooden icons to their bodies with dozens of flesh-piercing hooks. On January 23rd tens of thousands of ethnic-Indian Malaysians gathered at the Batu Caves temple outside Kuala Lumpur to celebrate Thaipusam, one of Hinduism's biggest festivals. In past years more than a million have turned out. This year, although ministers and pro-government newspapers denied it, the crowd was much thinner. Many Malaysian Indians seemed to have answered a call for a boycott, amid rising anger at the way their minority—around 8% of the country's population—is treated by the government.

Three days earlier the prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, had sought to appease Hindu anger by promising that Thaipusam would henceforth be a public holiday in the capital of the Muslim-majority country. He announced this at a gathering of around 15,000 Malaysian Indians, hoping to show that he still retains their support, despite the emergence in the past year of a radical protest group called the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf.

Last November Indians gathering at the Batu Caves on the eve of a Hindraf street march were trapped when the temple's managers—said to be linked to the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), part of Mr Badawi's ruling coalition—locked the gates and called the police. In the disorder that followed, many were arrested. Even so, the next morning at least 10,000 took part in the Hindraf march, which the police broke up with tear-gas and baton charges.

In the 50 years of peninsular Malaysia's independence from Britain, the ethnic Indians have been more quiescent than the richer, better educated and more assertive ethnic Chinese, who make up about one-quarter of the population. Under an implicit “social contract”, the two minorities, mostly descended from migrant workers, were given citizenship in return for accepting that ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups, together known as bumiputras (sons of the soil), would enjoy privileged access to state jobs and education. All the races have done well from strong economic growth since independence. The Indians and Chinese suffer even lower poverty rates than the bumiputras. But whereas the majority population have, with official help, started catching up with the Chinese in the property and shares they own, the Indians still have few assets (see chart). Often they are stuck in rented homes and low-skilled urban jobs.



The Indians' sense of missing out on the good life has helped to feed their mood of grievance. But what has most fuelled their anger in the past few years is a feeling that “creeping Islamisation” threatens their religious freedom. The issue that triggered Hindraf's formation, according to N. Surendran, one of the group's leaders, was the demolition of a number of “unauthorised” Hindu temples by local governments, often by state workers who were Malays and thus Muslims. The big rally in November came a few weeks after a temple in Shah Alam, west of the capital, was demolished just before Divali, another important Hindu festival, despite the temple committee's pleas to delay its destruction for a few more days.

Many of the threatened temples were constructed by migrant workers in colonial times, without formal permission, on plantations or by roads and railways built by the migrants. Now this land is being redeveloped. Hence the drive to demolish them, says A. Vaithilingam of the Malaysia Hindu Sangam, the main association of temples. The authorities could try harder to resolve disputes, he says, but they are too anxious to please rich developers.

The heavy-handed response to Hindraf's protests has served to make things worse. Five Hindraf leaders have been detained without trial under a colonial-era security law, and were said to have gone on hunger strike late January. Hindraf denies the government's charge that it has links to Sri Lanka's rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

With an election expected shortly, Mr Badawi has sought to soothe ethnic Indian anger. Besides declaring Thaipusam a holiday he has promised a cabinet committee to look into poverty among all races. But he may also calculate that the unnecessarily harsh treatment of Hindraf will win his party votes among hardline Malays. If so, he risks helping the extremists on each side peddle the dangerous myth that there is a zero-sum game between the races—and that the way to win it is to take to the streets.

A Letter from a HINDRAF well-wisher

by Jane

My husband, kids and I were at the Subramaniam Temple , Port Kelang for Thaipusam (23.01.2008). As in previous years, we would have gone to Batu Caves , except this time around we decided to support the protest against The Batu Caves Temple Management by not patronizing their organization. The celebrations that was the grandest to date at Port Kelang deserves a whole piece of its' own.

What was really an incredible experience for my family and I, was something else that was happening at the temple grounds. To the right of the temple proper was a podium with banners of pictures of the HINDRAF leaders who were in ISA detention. The banners proclaimed in English "HINDRAF Peaceful Assembly Struggle" and "Release Our Leaders". Having seen quite a number of youths and elderly people with an orange T-Shirt and scarf emblazoned with 'Makkal Shakti (People's Power) on them at the celebrations.

I assumed the podium was a place about the ongoing protests of the Indian community in the country. Some were sleeping and others seated. Those seated were quite. They were neatly dressed but looked drained. But what was going on was something more significant, emotionally powerful and almost groundbreaking in Malaysian history. Some In front of the group were a few young men in the orange "Makkal Shakti' T-shirts selling car stickers and being spokespeople for what was going on. I could see everywhere the youths with Makkal Sakthi T-Shirts are serving foods, provide drinks, cleaning temple compound, controlling traffics and etc.



Looking at these people I felt a sudden sense of wanting to do something but not knowing exactly what. As we stood there near the podium we could hear people offering donations. These were politely refused by the young men. They said that they were protesting and praying and not for money. Wow! What a wonderful team with marvelous co-ordination and dedication.

It was from these men that we found out that the people on the podium were on a hunger strike. From the 20th of January 2008 which was 3 days ago. They would fast until the 25th. Some of them it seams had to take some water occasionally. Two of them had been admitted to hospital. We were informed that there was a doctor on standby to monitor the situation. We (my husband and I) froze completely when we were told that the fast was a peaceful protest against the detention of the HINDRAF leaders under ISA. I started crying first. I told my husband that suddenly I felt so helpless. It didn't take my husband's eyes long to fill up with tears.

My mind was filled with questions of who were these people who decided to leave their families and sacrifice their health to stage this fast. They looked like people that I see everyday. But they were special. These were people who had made a physical, mental and emotional commitment to a cause that me and my circle of friends just talk about. My colleagues and friends, we talk a great deal. We talk and discuss about the nuances and undercurrents of Malaysian politics and about the motivations of HINDRAF.

My husband and I realized that we would be going back to our home after a couple of hours. We would be going home to a good hot meal and shower and probably catch a nap before the evening was up. But the people at the podium would still be there: hungry and thirsty and worn out, for a cause.

As we introduced our son and daughter to one of the protesters, he hugged them and simply said "Hey, it's for you and your future we are doing this for." As we left, we thanked the protesters for what they were doing with a "Makkal Sakthi Spirit".

Hindraf takes cause to the UK

(source: Malaysiakini)
by K Kabilan

The Hindu Rights Action Force’s (Hindraf) international campaign for the release of its five leaders detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) continued to gain momentum with a successful peace protest held in London on Feb 1.

More than 200 people from all around the United Kingdom had gathered opposite the official residence of the British prime minister at No 10 Downing Street, holding placards showing support for Hindraf and its detained leaders.



Hindraf’s chairperson P Waythamoorthy, presently in exile in London, also participated in the gathering and delivered a speech outlining Hindraf’s struggle. The peace protest was organised by HindrafUK.


Organiser Rajah Thavalou said that the crowd was more than what he had expected.

"It was a successful event where we received a very good response from the international media," he told Malaysiakini.

Rajah added that a six-member delegation was allowed at the end of the protest to submit a petition to the UK government.



The group also submitted a similar petition for the president and prime minister of India, and chief ministers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to the Indian High Commission in London.

He added that their demands included the immediate release of P Uthayakumar, M Manoharan, R Kenghadharan, V Ganabatirau and T Vasanthakumar who were detained on Dec 13, 2007 under the ISA for allegedly being a threat to national security.

Impose sanctions

The protesters also urged the UK and the Indian government to impose sanctions and embargoes against Malaysia.

"And especially in India, we want the Kerala state government to withdraw from participating in the proposed RM1.5 billion township project with the Malaysian government and companies," he added.

He said that the protesters also want the Malaysian government to grant equal rights to Indian Malaysians and to stop demolishing Hindu temples.

Previously, as part of Hindraf’s international campaign, the movement had organised similar peace protests in Canada and India.

When contacted, Waythamoorthy said that he was glad that the international Indian community was showing unity for the plight of their ‘brothers’ in Malaysia.



He also said that he was happy to hear both Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his deputy Najib Abdul Razak admitting that the Indian community had some legitimate grouses.

"But strangely the prime minister has incarcerated the five messengers of truth. It makes no sense when he acknowledges the veracity of the neglect of Indian Malaysians but he sees it fit to imprison the very five who conveyed this messages," he said.

Waythamoorthy added that if Abdullah was sincere in his intention to improve the social, economic, educational and cultural conditions of the Indian community, he should then immediately release the Hindraf leaders.

"Their continued detention will not assure the remaining Indians in Malaysia that the BN government is honest about addressing the grievances of the ethnic Indians when the proponents of the concern are continued to be unjustly and inhumanely detained," he added.

Motion in Scottish parliament

Waythamoorthy also said that as part of his international campaign to gain support for Hindraf, he has managed to enlist the assistance of a Scottish parliamentarian to lodge a motion in the Scottish parliament.

Following that, a motion was lodged at the Scottish parliament yesterday by the Conservative MP for Highlands and Islands Jamie McGrigor, asking the UK government to make representations to the Malaysian government to press for the early release of the Hindraf five.

The MP said that he was concerned that the five were arrested and detained without trial.

He further "notes that these arrests come on top of other actions taken by the Malaysian government to curtail the human rights of the minority Indian Hindu community in Malaysia including the freedom of religion".



Hindraf came under fire from the Malaysian government after it organised a massive rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25, attracting some 30,000 ethnic Indians who protested against their sidelining as a result of state policies.

Following that, the government first attempted to curb Hindraf’s influence by charging its keys leaders with sedition and eventually detained five of them under the ISA.

Waythamoorthy managed to escape arrest by flying out to India first, and then to the UK, to garner international support for the movement.

Rising to challenges or denial?

(source: Malaysiakini)
by Lim Teck Ghee

The past year has been a tumultuous one for Malaysians. Despite the economy doing well with booming oil and gas revenues and soaring primary commodity export values, and the achievement of a milestone as the nation reached its 50 anniversary of attaining independence, the mood of the country has turned somber, and amongst some segments of the population, sour and negative.

Increasingly, many observers are becoming pessimistic at the prospect for future peaceful development and steady progress if current trends in the country continue. This picture of a country racked in anxiety and dissatisfaction on many aspects of nationhood that neighboring countries feel at greater ease with - or take for granted - runs counter to the official depiction of a harmonious and unified multi-ethnic and multi-religious country that the government and its supporters are keen to convey to Malaysians and the rest of the world.

What has gone wrong during the past year, and where is the responsibility for the fault lines that have widened on key aspects of the country’s fragile social cohesion? On the religious front, concerns over an increasingly assertive and illiberal Islamic state system intruding into the religious rights and freedom of other faiths have been steadily increasing amongst non-Muslims.

In late 2005, the public’s attention had been riveted on the case of mountaineering hero, Moorthy, a Hindu who was converted to Islam literally on his death bed and - against the wishes of his family - was buried as a Muslim. The Lina Joy case saw an attempt by an ordinary citizen wishing to exercise her right to conversion from Islam to Christianity reflected in the removal of her Islamic religious affiliation in her identity card finally rejected by the country’s highest court of appeal.

The handling of both cases by the authorities only served to aggravate already mistrustful relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, especially Hindus and Christians. It also seemed to mark a decisive encroachment by Muslim zealots on the secular character of the country’s constitution and signaled the increasing willingness of Umno, the ruling party, abetted by its supporters in key institutions such as the judiciary and bureaucracy, to use the religious card to ensure continuing political support from the Malay/Muslim population.

On the racial front, it is not surprising that the most significant event of the year was sparked by the rising sense of religious (and racial) marginalisation and discrimination felt by some segments of the population. What is perhaps surprising is that this particular event took so long to materialise.


Communities displaced

Amongst the various minority ethnic and religious groups in the country, no other community (apart from perhaps the Orang Asli and other smaller non-Bumiputra indigenous minorities) feels a greater sense of being neglected and left behind in the country’s progress than the Indians. Despite the one-sidedness of the official statistical system in focusing on bumiputera poverty and bumiputera lack of participation in the modern sectors of the economy, there is sufficient quantitative and qualitative evidence to show that poor Indians (and possibly those from the middle-class too) are falling back in key aspects of economic and social life.

A recent report to the Government containing proposals for the Ninth Malaysia Plan had identified the plight of low income Indians as one of the main issues that needed urgent attention by the authorities.

In analysing the lack of effectiveness of government measures and earlier plans to address the socio-economic problems of the Indian community, it is noted that these problems are rooted in the displacement of the community from the plantation economy. These plantation communities, scattered all over the country, earned low wages (although above the official poverty line), lived in poor conditions without adequate facilities, experienced low levels of health care and had their children educated in poorly equipped Tamil primary schools.

Government rural development programmess in the 70s and 80s never reached them or provided assistance to small token numbers. Though the government regularly promised that specific strategies would be adopted to improve the livelihood and quality of life of the plantation population, little was done to improve their lot.

Despite the country recording impressive economic growth in the last four decades, the largely Indian plantation communities were not only left behind but had become victims to the overall national development. Over 300,000 Indian poor had been displaced after the plantations that traditionally provided them modest livelihoods were acquired for property and township development or changed hands in other ways in the last two decades.

When evicted from the plantations, these workers not only lost their jobs; they also lost housing, basic amenities, socio-cultural facilities and their community support system built up over a long period of time. Another significant blow was the loss of access to plots of vegetable farming and cattle grazing land allotted by the companies to workers to cultivate and supplement their modest incomes.

Unprecedented public rally

It was not unexpected therefore that these people would face difficulties and hardship in negotiating the transition from the plantations to urban living. The displaced plantation communities, with few skills and little savings, have swelled the ranks of urban squatter settlements and the urban poor.

Most of these communities have began and ended in lower rung jobs, competing with foreign migrant workers for meager incomes. Despite the very large number of Indians involved in this involuntary stream of migration and full awareness by the authorities of the traumatic impact of their displacement – it has been known for some time that suicide rates are the highest amongst Indians and that many Indian youths have turned to gangsterism - little has been provided by government in terms of concrete assistance in the same way that the Malay poor has been targeted.

The combination of socio-economic exclusion and deprivation together with repeated disrespect of Hindu religious rights by state authorities in demolishing Hindu temples and shrines (many of these temples and shrines were set up during pre-independence days on private plantation lands which had since been transferred to state ownership) has become a powerful rallying point for Indian activists who have lost faith with the MIC.

Banding themselves in an organisation called Hindraf this - until recently virtually unknown - organisation appears to have precipitated a chain of events that has had the greatest political impact during the year.

Despite Hindraf cranking up the pressure internationally, the authorities continued to pay it little attention. This failure to appreciate the gravity of the situation and the deep sense of discrimination and marginalisation amongst poor Indians quickly changed when Hindraf called for their rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25.

The dramatic police crackdown on the Hindraf rally - and its aftermath in the use of the draconian Internal Security Act to imprison the five leaders of the movement indefinitely without due process - is now part of the political lore of the country. I

Its ripple effects, however, are already visible and are likely to continue for some time. In particular, the ability of the movement to bring together as many as 40,000 supporters (thousands more from other states and outside Kuala Lumpur were prevented by police road blocks from reaching the rally) in defiance of a legal order is unprecedented in the recent history of the country.

Government lambasted

The official view continues to be of a small group of political malcontents and mischief-makers using race and religion to whip up popular sentiment for issues and causes that have little or no basis in reality.

This, however, is being contradicted by the extensive damage control campaign that the government and its supporters have mounted since the rally.

Although the Barisan Nasional has attempted to provide the impression of a closing of ranks on the prime minister’s decision to crack down on Hindraf and his warning on the use of state force and power against dissenters, there is a considerable body of opinion within the ruling party itself that the government has over-reacted.

Prominent Umno backbencher and Kota Baru Member of Parliament Zaid Ibrahim – who also runs one of the biggest legal firms in the country – has argued that demonstrations should not be treated as a challenge or threat.

He further argued that although he did not agree fully with Hindraf’s demands, the government had indeed failed to address issues such as the series of religion-related controversies involving converts, demolition of temples and the perceived Islamisation policy.

A leader of another component party of the BN was even more forthright. In his scathing public statement entitled ‘Discrimination from Womb to Tomb’ S Paranjothy – the Gerakan Youth deputy chief - criticised the government for its policies towards the Indian community.

Pointing out that Indians form the most neglected group in economic terms, he lambasted the Government for treating them ‘as fourth-class citizens’ and pointedly stated that ‘where the Indians predominate over their fellow Malaysians is mostly in prison, violent crimes, gangsterism, suicide and social ills [as] government policies have failed to improve (their situation)’.

It may be too early to gauge but one of the most important outcomes of the Hindraf incident to date is the way it has opened the public space to close examination of the ideology of Malay dominance (Ketuanan Melayu) and its equivalent Islam-dominant ideology in the religious sphere, and the impact of these divisive policies on the rights of minorities.

Already, Indian NGO groups in a rare meeting with the prime minister following the detention of Hindraf leaders have requested the government to establish a Department of Non-Muslim Affairs that can take up the religious grievances of non-Muslims and help them overcome the obstacles they face from a Malay/Muslim dominant polity and bureaucracy that appears unable or unwilling to exercise fairness in protecting the basic religious and civic rights of the non-Muslim minorities.

What is clear – even if the Hindraf rally had not taken place - is that present mechanisms for non-Muslim concerns and grievances are totally inadequate. After initially indicating that the government would consider the establishment of the department as part of the civil service machinery, the prime minister has since back-tracked and argued that the existing BN structure is adequate in dealing with the religious and socio-cultural concerns of non-Muslims.

The larger ripple effects of the Hindraf protest campaign will probably not be discernible until the results of the country’s elections – expected as early as March 2008 - are tallied and its impact on Indian and other voters in the country assessed.

The political ramifications of the BN losing the Indian vote in the coming elections are not likely to be calamitous in view of the BN’s stranglehold on most Malay majority areas and the nature of rural-urban weighting in the national electoral system which guarantees a disproportionate importance to rural voters compared with their urban counterpart.

At the same time, the opposition parties are well aware that although there is no single parliamentary or state assembly constituency where the Indian voters constitute the majority of the electorate, they know that Indian voters represent over 10 percent of the electorate in 62 Parliamentary constituencies and 138 state assembly constituencies and they will play an important factor in determining the electoral outcome in these areas.

According to DAP’s Lim Kit Siang, the Indian voters will be the ‘kingmakers’ in 28 Parliamentary and 78 state assembly seats in Peninsular Malaysia since they constitute more than 15 percent of the electorate. They can exercise a decisive influence as to who wins or loses in these constituencies.

Royalty speaks up

During 2007, too, support for more openness in the political system and for the authorities to pay greater heed to the many contentious issues of good governance came from an unlikely source - the Malay rulers.

The lead in the emergence of a more engaged monarchy in the affairs of the nation can be attributed to Sultan Azlan Shah, the Sultan of Perak and his son, Raja Nazrin Shah, the Raja Muda.

Sultan Azlan Shah called for major reforms to the judiciary in view of reports of disturbing events touching on the integrity of its members. This call for reform from a Ruler, who had spent a great deal of his life in pivotal positions in the Malaysian judiciary and was in a unique position to assess its qualities and shortcomings, has undoubtedly been a major factor in the government finally giving in to the public outcry for a royal commission to investigate the Lingam Tape incident.

The Raja Muda has been even more forthright than his father in sharing his views with the public on a wide range of contentious and sensitive subjects, including racial polarisation, religious tolerance, corruption, good governance, the independence of the judiciary and the need for the government to deal with problems through dialogue and negotiation with key stakeholders such as enlightened social movements.

The simmering sense of public outrage during the year - cutting across ethnic and class lines – in fact had culminated just a few days before the Hindraf rally in the largest anti-government protest in more than a decade.

An estimated 20,000-30,000 marchers converged in a march in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 10 to deliver a memorandum petition to the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong on urgent reforms needed to the country’s electoral system to ensure that it did not continue to be unfairly tilted in favor of the ruling party.

The ability of the predominantly civil society organisers to mobilise so many protestors indicates a growing body of citizenry concerned about the integrity and fairness of the electoral process and willing to take to the streets to stand up for their basic rights of assembly and expression.

Challenging the status quo

It could be that the BN leadership may simply ignore the various statements of concern from individual Rulers and members of the royalty on the way the country is being run and their publicly articulated guidance on the need for higher standards of governance and greater tolerance for dissent.

Also, the split within BN ranks may well be contained, given the enormous resources of the ruling party and its tremendous capacity to coopt or coerce dissenting elements into staying passive or compliant within the fold of the system.

The losses that may eventuate from the Hindraf-inspired dissent may also prove to be smaller than expected or even illusionary during the coming elections as the BN’s and Umno’s spin machinery (the latter is especially adept at playing on Malay and non-Malay fears of political instability through the use of the official mass media) goes into overdrive.

Certainly, no astute political observer in the country expects the BN to lose its power and control over the country even if the opposition parties can put up a much better showing than during the last elections.

However, what appears different this time from earlier occasions may be the rise of a formidable body of political and civil society activists no longer isolated by their lack of access to the mainstream media and its under-reporting - or politically-biased reporting - of issues of vital public importance.

Making full use of the Internet surge and the channel of phone text messages to get alternative news and views across, these activists and citizen journalists are adding their voice where it matters and challenging the status quo on an entire spectrum of subjects that resonate with the larger population – bread and butter issues, traffic jams, corruption, abuse of power, and other aspects of daily life and governance.

These dissident voices may be ignored in the short run but it would be a foolish or shortsighted government that fails to recognise the growing public restiveness on the imperfections of the BN system of government and the culture of opportunism, greed and self-aggrandisement that it has spawned in its half-century of rule, and on the need for wide-ranging reforms if the country is to move ahead.