Abdul Hadi Awang, Harakah
One issue being played by the media owned by UMNO is Pakatan Rakyat’s allocation of 90 seats for DAP. This is aimed at ensuring Malay voters stay with UMNO despite increasing doubts about the latter’s ability to govern the nation alongside its allies.
This is especially so since the entry into PAS of former UMNO members and top government officials who are transparent and honest. Having said that, some in the Malay community remain in the dark about the political landscape and are blind to recent developments in the country.
Studies have shown that DAP’s strongholds are in areas with non-Muslim majorities, and not in Muslim majority seats, and realistically, the party could win no more than 50 seats. Its strength was such that in past elections, MCA, MIC and Gerakan had been forced out of several parliamentary seats, while permanent removed from power in Penang. Shaken by that turn of events, UMNO had to resort to undignified schemes to cling to power, even if it means sacrificing its religion and race which it claims to uphold.
Out of the 222 parliamentary seats, DAP can win about 50 seats, and as such it is unlikely to play a leading role in Pakatan Rakyat. The rest of the seats are distributed in the predominantly Malay east-coast among PAS, PKR, and UMNO. At the national level, DAP is bound by the constitution - the very constitution that UMNO and BN have trampled on in the past - which includes the status of Islam as the federal religion.
Anyone who has studied recent trends in the election would conclude that UMNO is a secular party whose aim is the preservation of power and who lacks any real agenda to defend Malay rights, let alone Islam. Its leadership has betrayed its real political agenda; not only has it ignored the Malays cause despite the ‘special privilege’ rhetoric, it has also shown willingness to pawn Malay seats in order to save its allies MCA, MIC and Gerakan.
A deeper investigation into UMNO’s past behaviours during elections would confirm this. Many mixed seats with Malay-Muslim majorities have been turned over to MCA, MIC and Gerakan in UMNO’s efforts to cling to power. Even when there are other Malay Muslim alternatives in the form of PAS candidates, UMNO would attempt to buy off Malay voters to channel support to MCA and Gerakan.
In the meantime, it resorted to adding seats at state and federal levels. This increase in seats however is restricted to UMNO’s strongholds, involving a blatantly unfair redelineation of election boundaries particularly in the east-coast states. As such, we see areas bigger than Melaka and Perlis, consisting of more than 80,000 voters, have seen no redelineation exercise for decades. In Johor, Sabah, and Sarawak on the other hand, more seats are being added and given to MCA, MIC, Gerakan and other UMNO’s allies.
UMNO’s allegation that DAP will take control of the national leadership if BN loses in the upcoming election is outrageous, and goes on to show its willingness to employ racial tactics and provocations to secure victory, even if it means irreparable damage to racial unity in a community as diverse as ours.
What we should be seeing is Malay-Muslim empowerment and political enlightenment. Instead, the mainstream media are abused to retard the Malay people’s progress.
In the past, UMNO failed repeatedly to offer any example of Islamic leadership and has even tarnished Islam’s image through blatant corruption. Injustice to the people, bribery, the use of arbitrary power, scandals involving leader are but only some examples. What is left is a nation destroyed by years of money politics and blatant abuse of the media.
By playing God, UMNO has violated rights as enshrined in the constitution, including its abuse of federalism when Pakatan Rakyat came to power in Kelantan, Kedah, Terengganu and Perak. In fact, the Federal government’s treatment of these predominantly Malay states is worse than the treatment meted out to other states, such as Penang and Sabah when its ruling party defected from BN. Yet, UMNO claims to be the guardian of Malay rights against the onslaught of DAP.
The backwardness of the Malays has been due to UMNO’s actions. As it fought for wealth, Malay-Muslim communities in the west-coast as well as in Borneo are left weak politically and economically. The Bank Bumiputera episode under UMNO’s ‘supervision’ is one sufficient example of how UMNO neglects its own cause. It has also undermined the Malay language. Consider for example when the Malay name for Bank Pertanian was changed to Agro Bank, or when Malay captions in advertisements are smaller than the English captions?
UMNO becomes the ‘guardian’ of the Malays come every election season. Today, money politics is rampant, before, during and after elections. This was not the case during the time of Tunku Abdul Rahman or Tun Abdul Razak.
Many senior civil servants who long to see a better management of the country’s resources have now joined PAS in our efforts to eject UMNO out of power.
At the same time, we have seen encouraging development with the non-Muslim communities; their vernacular media are more reliable than the openly biased mainstream media. This has contributed to the increase in non-Muslim support for PAS.
PAS appeals to all Malaysians, especially to Malay Muslims, to rethink their loyalty to UMNO, and to give their mandate to PAS and PR to lead and realise the dream of a welfare state that is just to all.