UMNO President Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak is disrespectful to democracy by blaming the Chinese as scapegoats for BN losing the popular vote to PR, desperate to play racial politics to distract attention from BN’s worst electoral performance in history and dishonest to promote national reconciliation after the elections when both UMNO and Chua Soi Lek is trying to pit Malays against Chinese. If Najib is serious about reconciling all Malaysians he should direct UMNO owned paper, Utusan Malaysia to stop inflaming racist sentiments against the Chinese community.
Umno’s Utusan Malaysia front-paged today the question “Apa lagi Cina mahu (What else do the Chinese want?) in a ferocious fascist and racist attempt to shape the results of Election 2013 as a Chinese-vs-Malay vote. Many analysts have disputed this as a gross distortion of data, as this was more a urban-rural divide between PR and BN.
Datuk A. Kadir Jasin, a former editor of the Umno-owned New Straits Times said BN’s weaker showing in Election 2013 points to a strong wave of rejection from all Malaysians and not just from the minority Chinese. Datuk Jasin said BN lost the popular vote for the first time since polls in 1969 due to a Malaysian tsunami that is centred on the aspiration and new reality, especially among young voters.
The fact is that BN on less seat as compared to 2008 general elections,133(previously 140) federal seats and 275(306) out of the 505 total state seats is a testimony to the drop in popular vote that resulted in PR gaining 270,000 more votes than BN. PR won 89 as compared to 82 seats federally and 230 state seats as compared to 199 seats previously. How can this be a Chinese tsunami in states like Terengganu when PAS won 15 state seats as compared to UMNO’s 17, when more than 95% of Terengganu voters are Malays?
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Professor Datuk Dr Shamsul Amri Baharuddin noted that despite the increase in Chinese support for PR, the political tsunami had also swept with it, the Malay middle-class support, especially in urban areas. The DAP majority increased because of disgruntled Malay young voters’ support, to label racial polarisation is too easy. Two other factors operate simultaneously with race: class (rich-poor, middle class) and spatial (urban and rural). Even Umno supreme council member Saifuddin Abdullah who lost to PAS in the Temerloh parliamentary sea saying he did not blame anyone.
Former Malacca chief minister Datuk Mohd Ali Rustam should realise he lost in the Malay majority parliamentary seat of Bukit Katil because the Malays rejected him. When I was campaigning in Melaka I was surprise at the public disgust with the excessive expenditure in the wedding of Datuk Mohd Ali’s son, attended by 130,000 guests in the largest wedding in Malaysian history.
Instead of trying to behave dishonestly by blaiming the Chinese for BN’s poor performance and desperation in wanting to cover up on why PR is still not the government in Putrajaya despite gaining more votes, Najib should respect the democratic choice of the voters. Najib is not going to win back the Malay votes lost to PR by taking the easy way out to blame the Chinese. The Malay voters who supported PR can see that both UMNO and Chua Soi Lek have no policies except racial hatred, no principles except money politics and putting cronies over the people.
DAP condemns Utusan Malaysia for inciting racial hatred and urge all Malaysians regardless of race and religion to rise and stand together against such irresponsible actions. Clearly Najib is repeating what previous Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad did in punishing the Chinese community after the general elections, when he had openly sought their endorsement and supported during the general elections. If Najib follows what Mahathir has done in blaming the Chinese after elections, then Najib has shown that he just can not be trusted like Mahathir.