The boys say they can handle it
|
(Asia Sentinel)
One if Anwar wins, the other if Najib does
For the first time ever, according to sources in Kuala Lumpur, the
Royal Police have formulated two contingency plans for the night of
Malaysia's 13th general election, expected to be on April 27 or after.
The first, a source said, is "how to whisk the Prime Minister from the
Putra World Trade Center where the Barisan Nasional is holding its
election night celebration, back to Sri Perdana, the Prime Minister's
residence, safely in the event that the Barisan Nasional loses, or if
there is trouble." The second, the source said, is how to bring
Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim from his home to the palace to be sworn
in if the opposition were to win.
Implicit in both of those plans are questions whether there will be violence started by the losing side.
Both plans are unprecedented because there has never been a time in the
57-year history of the country when anybody thought the opposition might
actually win. It still may not. But the fact that the plans are in
place is an indication that even the police think the election is too
close to call.
A call to ACP Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf, the assistant director of management
for public relations at the national police headquarters at Bukit Aman
in Kuala Lumpur, to ask about the plans went unanswered.
"How it will pan out is something else - whether Anwar is allowed to be
sworn in if he wins, etc." a source told Asia Sentinel. "But the fact
that they have these contingency plans in place would suggest that
despite the confidence shown by Najib and UMNO leaders, it is going to
be a very close race."
Other sources say that the mood inside the "war room," or election
headquarters at the United Malays National Organization is brimming with
confidence. "I don't know why," an independent source said. "They must
know something."
Both the Barisan Nasional, or national ruling coalition, and Pakatan
Rakyat, the three-party opposition coalition, have been campaigning
feverishly for months. However, a number of factors are strongly in
favor of the Barisan, particularly in the way the districts are laid
out. The below chart of previous elections, prepared by Greg Lopez for
the New Mandala website, based at the Australian National University's
College of Asia, shows that since the country became a nation, the
Barisan's popular vote has always run well below the number of seats it
captured in Parliament.
Even though it only won 50.14 percent of the votes in the 2008 national
election to the opposition's 46.41 percent, the Barisan managed to
retain 63.1 percent of the seats against only 36.9 percent for the
opposition. In 1969, the year that disaster struck in the form of
murderous race riots, the Barisan actually gained only 49.3 percent of
the popular vote against 50.7 percent for the opposition, but it still
won 66 percent of the parliamentary seats against 34 percent for the
opposition.
The districts haven't been reapportioned. So in order for the opposition
to actually take control of the Parliament, it probably must win a
substantially larger number of the votes.
Source: Greg Lopez, New Mandala
|
If that were to happen, it would be a landslide of epic proportions.
In order to attempt to stop it from happening, the Prime Minister Najib
and the Barisan Nasional have poured an estimated US$2 billion into what
a cynic might describe as outright bribes to the electorate - much of
it in the form of cash handouts but more in mortgage relief, salary
raises for the military, civil servants, employees of the judiciary and
just about anyone else remotely connected with government, including
4,000 workers of the national energy company Petronas, who received
RM1,000 cash bonuses when they showed up at a rally put on by Najib and
the forces of the Barisan.
Against that, and against an undeniably healthy economy that is
delivering 5.6 percent economic growth, the Barisan is faced with the
outright collapse of the component parties, the Malaysian Chinese
Association, Gerakan, and the Malaysian Indian Congress, which most
observers believe won't get more than a handful of sets in Parliament,
and which means that UMNO will probably end up governing the country by
itself.
The two opposing sides expect to closely split the 165 parliamentary
seats in Peninsular Malaysia. The two East Malaysia states of Sabah and
Sarawak and the federal territory of Labuan control 57 of the total 222
seats. The common wisdom is that if the two sides are deadlocked in
Peninsular Malaysia, the two states hold the key to the future for both
opposition and Barisan. Both of the current governments are believed to
be in control of enough votes to win their respective statehouses.
Most political observers believe that given the shifting loyalties in
the two states, the parties will be open to the blandishments of the
competing Barisan and Pakatan in the form of promises of Increased
royalties from oil and timber, and increased development for both
states, which are the poorest in the country, for whichever side the two
choose.
But in the past few days that has been complicated by renewed
allegations of huge scandals on the part of both chief ministers, Abdul
Taib Mahmud of Sarawak and Musa Hasan in Sabah. An NGO, Global Witness,
staged a filmed sting on Taib's representatives in which it was alleged
that the Sarawak chief received billions of ringgit in kickbacks over
timber and land deals that have denuded the North Borneo state. Musa as
well has been named as having deposited millions of ringgit in Swiss
banks through nominees.
That raises the question whether Anwar and his three component parties,
who have campaigned for years on a reform platform, can actually do
business with the two scandal-scarred ministers and their parties in the
wake of the election.
The Barisan also faces the headwinds of some truly massive scandals
which have been the focus of widespread reporting in the indefatigable
internet press, which largely forms the opposition press, since the
mainstream media is owned by all three of the major political parties.
Two of those scandals have resulted in trials that continue at the
moment, including corruption in the construction of the Port Klang
multimodal port, which could cost as much as RM12.45 billion if the port
is forced to default on all of its loans, which appears possible.
Ling Liong Sik, the longtime former head of the MCA, is on trial in a
Kuala Lumpur Courtroom now over the affair. In another case, which has
gained the name "Cattlegate," in which the husband of the former head of
the women's wing of the party, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, then Malaysia's
minister for women, family and community development, has been accused
of misusing huge amounts of money from a loan to set up the National
Feedlot Corporation, a scandal-plagued scheme to slaughter as many as
60,000 cattle annually but fell far short of that goal.
Flanked by the movement's old-time activists, former Hindraf information chief S Jayathas (left) said Waythamoorthy must decide within 48 hours.
Hindraf had also engaged Pakatan Rakyat previously, but talks broke down after PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim (right) declined to endorse the movement's blueprint, insisting that they had already been incorporated into the Buku Jingga on a non-racial platform.
Jayathas
said Hindraf belonged to the entire Indian community, and Waythamoorthy
should not unilaterally steer it in the direction of Umno.
“Now many people who were directly involved in the case have admitted to new evidence,” Tian Chua (left in photo) said during a press conference today.
