Asia Times: Government wins skirmish in battle for Malay votes


	April 5, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Government wins skirmish in battle for Malay votes
By Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia - Malaysia's ruling coalition has received an important psychological boost over the opposition Islamic party PAS in the ongoing battle for Malay support by winning a state by-election in central Pahang state.

The Barisan Nasional (National Front) won with a 1,963-vote majority, bagging 58.5 percent of the valid votes cast for the state assembly seat of Sanggang. That was a 3.8 percent improvement in support from last November's general election result for the same seat and a morale booster for the ruling coalition's lynchpin, the United Malays National Organization (Umno). Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in power for 19 years, drew comfort from the Sanggang result, his first test of popularity since last November's general election.

But despite the win in the by-election, which assumed enormous psychological importance, doubts linger over the extent of Malay support for Mahathir's party, Umno, which holds its party assembly next month.

During last November's general election, the ruling coalition won 56 percent of the popular vote nationwide. But in parliamentary seats where ethnic Malays formed more than two thirds of voters, Umno only received 49 percent of the popular vote - a far cry from the 62 percent it scored in 1995.

In Pahang, a state PAS is now eyeing, Umno's popularity in Malay-dominated parliamentary seats dipped from 69 percent in the 1995 general election to 53 percent last November.

In Sanggang, a slightly less Malay-dominated state assembly seat in Pahang, Umno won 54.7 percent of the votes last November. Though the Umno candidate improved on that to make it 58.5 percent this time, it's still far less than the 70 percent Malay support that the party used to command in Pahang.

What Sanggang shows is that Malays continue to be evenly split since the ouster of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. It is perhaps too early to say if that represents a permanent shift in support away from Umno or a temporary swing. The opposition attributed Umno's improved performance in Sanggang this time to money politics and extensive use of state machinery that it was unable to match. Mahathir says it did better because the party was able to explain itself more effectively to voters.

The election outcome also reveals glaring weaknesses in PAS's approach to the campaign. Though the opposition Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front) parties cooperated strongly, it was perhaps PAS policies in neighboring Terengganu and Kelantan, both states that it controls, that left it vulnerable to ruling coalition attacks.

Over the last couple of weeks, the Terengganu government stirred controversy when it announced moves to make it compulsory for working Muslim women in the state to wear headscarves and for men and women to queue separately at shopping complex counters.

The tudung (Muslim headscarf) ruling drew a wave of protests from non-Muslims, women's activists and pressure groups mostly from outside the state. It also put PAS's coalition partners in the Barisan Alternative (Alternative Front) in a defensive position. Commentators said such personal matters should be best left to the individual. The tudung directive, said political analyst Maznah Mohamad, demonstrates that women are ''easy subjects of control''.

Since taking over Terengganu and retaining control of Kelantan, PAS has courted the non-Muslims. It lifted a 10-year old ban on pig slaughtering imposed by the previous Umno-led administration and promised to favourably consider applications to build non-Muslim houses of worship. It has also reached out to non-Muslims through a series of talks jointly organized with its coalition partner, the multi-ethnic Democratic Action Party (DAP), which is ethnic Chinese-based.

PAS's attempts to woo the non-Muslims stem from a realization that the opposition Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front) needs majority backing from all ethnic and religious groups - not just the Malay-Muslims - if it wants to capture the federal government in the next general election. The party had made a major concession when the opposition Barisan Alternatif drew up a common manifesto for last November's general election that made no reference to PAS's ''Islamic state'' goal.

But the tudung directive and the loosely enforced separate male-female queues ruling set back recent efforts at drawing non-Muslim support for PAS. The pro-government mainstream media splashed reports of the latest moves on front pages, giving PAS bad publicity at a time when it could have done without it. Similar negative publicity surrounded Kelantan's implementation of the rulings after PAS captured the state in 1990.

''The women here (in Terengganu) are comfortable with the ruling, but you 'paper people' make a big issue out of it,'' Terengganu chief minister Abdul Hadi Awang told the independent cyber newspaper Malaysiakini.

The PAS newspaper Harakah reported Abdul Hadi as saying the state would not use the law to enforce the ruling but would instead hold talks with employers to explain the ruling for Muslim female employees. He said the emphasis would be on ''motivation'' and explanation.

Maznah says the tudung ruling is unnecessary as ''more and more Muslim women are already willingly wearing the head-scarf as their commitment to Islam.'' She pointed out that the overall Koranic principle is upholding modesty. ''However, this virtue cannot simply be reduced to the wearing of the veil or the scarf over the head,'' she said.

Sanggang shows that PAS and the Barisan Alternatif will have to be more sensitive to public opinion if they want to make further inroads. PAS had captured swathes of Umno-held territory in last November's elections, winning a significant portion of Chinese support.

But if the opposition hopes to make further headway, PAS in particular will have to start appealing to more Chinese Malaysians and liberal Malay-Muslims and shed its conservative image. Umno meanwhile has been given a temporary respite.

(Inter Press Services)

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