BN scare campaign turns Malays against Pakatan

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 - Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Rakyat may have snared close to 50 per cent of the popular vote in the general election thanks to overwhelming support from Chinese and Indians but they still understand this reality – it does not pay to alienate the Malays.

More so Malays who believe that if the PKR-Pas-Umno coalition comes to power at Federal level, their special privileges, the official status of Islam, Bahasa Malaysia as the national language and the status of the Malay Rulers will be dismantled.

For the past few months, Umno leaders have waged a scare campaign warning Malays that Anwar and his colleagues in the Opposition cannot be trusted to safeguard their position, pointing to the former deputy prime minister’s stance on the New Economic Policy and the debate on the social contract.

Publicly, Pakatan Rakyat politicians dismissed the campaign, saying that Malays would be wise to Umno's dirty tricks campaign. But on Sept 8, Anwar, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang and Pas’ Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang signed an agreement to uphold Malay rights as enshrined in the Federal Constitution. This is the clearest acknowledgement by the Opposition that the Umno campaign is having some traction among the Malays.

“We signed an agreement that cannot be changed by any party so there is no truth to claims that Pakatan Rakyat will take away the rights due to pressure from members within the coalition,” Anwar said during a briefing for religious school teachers organised by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) here on Monday.

The four-paragraph letter agreed by the three parties also said that the Opposition leaders rejected narrow-minded race-based politics as it would disrupt the unity and harmony of the community.

Anwar noted that the public, especially teachers in religious schools, should not fear that Pakatan Rakyat state governments would no longer develop Islamic studies in the five states. He also claimed that it was difficult for the state governments to explain such issues to the people as the media would not report accurately the explanations given by Pakatan Rakyat.

In the March 8 elections, a clear majority of Chinese and Indians voted for Pakatan Rakyat. This trend has solidified and in a survey done in August-September, only slightly above 30 per cent of non-Malays polled said that they would vote for Barisan Nasional. The support among the Malays for BN was close to 60 per cent.

In the same survey by the Merdeka Centre, the level of support for Anwar was the lowest among the Malays. Since then, Umno politicians have, on a nearly daily basis, spoken about the challenge to Malay rights, the social contract, the position of Islam and Bahasa Malaysia from the Opposition and certain groups.

They have tried to frame the decision by the DAP government in Penang to have road signs in different languages and a move by Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim to appoint a non-Malay as temporary head of state agency PKNS as proof of a plan by the Opposition to erode the position of Bahasa Malaysia and the special privileges of the Malays.