The 12th General Elections is over and MCA, MIC and Gerakan have been given a hard message by the communities they purport to represent. But the message is not for them, it is for Umno and the message is that if MCA and MIC continue to be treated as underlings who are to be shouted down if they speak up, they will be no use to Umno in future elections.
But will Umno change? In my opinion, ‘no’. Umno will probably be thinking of ways to threaten and deceive the races to vote for BN. Fortunately, threats of racial strife no longer work as the ghost of May 13 seems to have been laid to rest forever after the result of this election.With widespread use of the Internet, deception by the controlled mass media is less and less effective.
All along, racial politics has kept BN in power as BN represented the only de facto ‘multi-racial party’ which all races can vote for. BN is, of course, not a multi-racial party at all but a collection of racial parties. It does not work when one party in the coalition has dominance over the others.
It means that the community rights of the subservient parties will not be looked after. The premise of more representation in the government for more support from the community is false as more representation without the power to speak up means nothing.
What helps Umno time and again is the voting along racial lines. Chinese will not vote for PAS and Malays will not vote for DAP. So a mixed seat actually helps BN. A study showed that the Election Commission has been gerrymandering to create more mixed seats which are easier for BN to win and they are preferable to Malay majority seats which can go to PAS.
However, the rise of a true multi-racial party in PKR which is acceptable to all races has thrown a spanner into BN’s works. No longer can the BN depend on the safety of mixed seats. It's unclear how the political landscape will shape out but PKR will have to take the lead.
The rise of PKR with a strong, charismatic leader is a new dawn for Malaysian politics and may herald the beginning of the end of BN hegemony.
