E Contrario

Today (4 Sept 2006) a journalist from Sin Chew Jit Poh interviewed me on the latest controversial exchanges between Gerakan and Umno.

Ultimately the brawl is motivated by Umno’s ambition to grapple the position of Penang chief minister from Gerakan. Gerakan is accused of neglecting Malay interest in Penang. Naturally, Gerakan denied the charge and reproached Umno for fanning racial sentiment.

However, Gerakan’s reaction to Umno is not less racial. Its leadership too seized this opportunity to drum up Chinese solidarity. The BN ruling coalition basically refused to thrash out the problems; rather this has been turned to a conflict of Malay versus Chinese. Evidently both Umno and Gerakan found mutual interest to play up racialism. Gerakan is making use of Umno’s challenge to muster support - to defend ‘Chinese’ chief minister - for the last bastion of Gerakan political survival.

We must fault Barisan Nasional for bringing our nation to this tragic state of affairs today. BN has created a highly racially charged political discourse, in which the merit of the issues is often lost in these racial colour-coded arguments. Every BN party depends on “racial mobilization” to stay in power. Whenever there is a crisis, each party will resort to rally and consolidate their respective ethnic community.

Backed by powerful media propaganda machinery, the ruling elite could imbue racial antagonism in a very short interval. It is not always easy for the grassroots community to resist these forces of racial mobilization.

The talk of ‘losing’ a Chinese CM infuses a sense of threat to political security among the Chinese community. Gerakan earnestly appeals to Chinese to fight for the retention of the only remaining Chinese power base in the ruling formula.

This form of political posturing repeatedly contradicts and undermines the progress of our nation towards a mature non-racial society. Should one be awarded power purely based on one’s ethnicity?

One could not help asking why Gerakan has to desperately play a racial card to cling to power. To me, the real question is: has Gerakan any legitimacy left to stay in power?

Putting aside ethnic bias, and we should cold-headedly examine how credible is the record of CM Koh Tsu Koon? Most Penang residents, regardless of ethnicity, would probably consider his leadership mediocre, weak and ineffective. To quote Mahathir’s words, it is a “half-past-six” state government.

Majority of Chinese in Penang may even say under Koh Penang economy and quality of life has deteriorated substantially. There is a widespread nostalgia for those who feel business now is tougher than the years when Lim Chong Yew was in power. There are also a lot of complaints over the services provided by the state government. Further the Party is also unable to provide a developmental direction to revive the economy from continual decline.

By diverting to focus on Umno attacks, Gerakan could dodge criticisms over its poor performance. As election is approaching, Gerakan’s tract record will soon be judged in the ballot box. Go by the current public mood, voters are likely to send a strong signal of dissatisfaction.

Gerakan is currently unable to offer new vision. It is pathetic that there was no discussion of transformation or reforms in the party with the leadership change. The recent Gerakan General Assembly, delegates spent most of the debating time on rowdily condemnation of racialism. PM’s son in-law Khairy Jamaruddin again became a fitting target of attack. Another mutual convenient, Khairy of course loves this, as this made him a “Wira Melayu”.

Gerakan has been in bed with Umno for more than 30 years, are Gerakan leaders naïf as if they only discovered Umno’s racism yesterday. Gerakan is a partner of Umno; in every election since 1971 Gerakan campaigned backing Umno. Who can we blame if Gerakan willingly and consistently accepted the domination of Umno and its power sharing formula?

The key issue now is that the power sharing power is in crisis. If Koh Tsu Koon were to vacate the CM post, there is no satisfactory process for the selection of next CM. In the state assembly, Gerakan is a minority party. The party is one seat less than Umno. MCA is only two seats behind Gerakan. In fact Gerakan only occupies less than one third of the state assembly.

At present, Gerakan rules the state by the virtue of historical legacy. There was no renewal of mandate since 1969 General Election. Thus it is holding on to the state power only with the consent of other coalition partners. Unless Gerakan could demonstrate its legitimacy to rule come directly from the voters (for example, like Pas in Kelantan), it is hard to justify why other parties should preserve this old formula.

Moreover, this power sharing arrangement is not a common democratic practice. Many in BN are aware that the prescription is outdated. The delineation of power inherited from a fading historical memory is no longer adequate to resolve ever-increasing problems of governance in the state.

One also cannot blindly deny the existence of destitution in Penang. Malaysian capitalist model of economic development favours the rich and disadvantages the poor. The product of such development is that rural folks, squatters, farmers, small vendors, fishers, workers, and other categories of the poor are continuously marginalized. No doubt a large majority of these suffering masses are Malays.

Data also clearly show that many Malay small landowners lost their traditional land to infrastructural, industrial and commercial projects. Some were classified as squatters, eventually uprooted and heaved into crammed and inadequate public housing. In a short 30 years, nearly the entire Penang agricultural population ended up as low wage factory workers.

True, this process of marginalization is happening everywhere. It is not unique in Penang. However BN has cultivated a fertile market for racial rhetoric. Lim Keng Yek said it all. His counter argument revealed the true attitude behind the flimsy façade of BN unity. Keng Yek said how can we complain that Malay marginalization in Penang is due to unconcerned ‘Chinese’ leadership. If this is the case, one should blame the ‘Malay’ Menteri Besar for problems of Chinese new villages in other states.

Hello, Keng Yek, this is exactly what happened on the ground. Chinese in Perak new villages will attribute their problems to the Malay politicians. This sentiment is even encouraged by MCA or Gerakan (MIC too) to budge their responsibility as ruling parties. There was no sense of collective responsibility. MCA or Gerakan often complain that they are unable to claim more rights for Chinese because their hands are tight. They will be even more disadvantaged if their Chinese votes diminish.

So, the typical line from MCA and Gerakan to the Chinese is that: if you want more rights give us more votes, more seats. The lines written in the invisible ink say: Chinese need Chinese YB to defend their right vis-à-vis the (Malay-dominated) government.

Honestly, Gerakan leaders are equally guilty in implanting such attitude. One can only expect Umno has no qualm in disseminate similar racial hostility among the Malay community toward the Chinese political leadership.

I never have any illusion that Umno would ever be transformed into a progressive liberal minded political party. It is hypocritical for Gerakan to criticize Umno racialism but continue to harvest votes for Umno.

By hook or by hoof, Umno will definitely take over the state by next general election. Gerakan cannot place their hope in Pak Lah to save them. After all, Pak Lah’s own son in-law is spear-heading the campaign to unseat Gerakan CM. As we have witnessed the PM is too weak and powerless to check the onslaught of ethnic and religious radicalism within Umno.

In any case, Gerakan must accept its own weakness is the cause for its inevitable downfall in Penang. The communal division in BN has restricted the emergence of teamwork in governing leadership. State Exco, in all BN-ruled state, basically carve out the citizens into several racial blocks, and demarcate the welfare of each ethnic community to their respective communal parties. It is assumed that the problems of Chinese citizens will be dealt with by MCA, Indian by MIC, Malay by Umno and so on.

Gerakan claims to be different from these single ethnic parties in BN. The Party maintains that it adopt a multi-ethnic outlook. Yet in Penang, the same racial formula applied. Gerakan simply hands over the Malay representation in the state government to Umno. There is no excuse, after ruling for more than 3 decades, Gerakan has failed to develop a genuine multi-ethnic leadership. Otherwise, instead of ??, Gerakan should have appointed a Malay deputy CM from its own party. Then nobody could accuse Gerakan for anti-Malay.