COMMENT In the past week, two Malay newspapers Utusan Malaysia and Kosmo! chose to have as their headlines controversial statements that could be considered incendiary in reference to the Chinese having rejected Barisan Nasional in favour of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, following results of the 13th general elections held almost a week ago.

Both former and current Prime Ministers Dr Mahathir Mohamed and Najib Abdul Razak have said as much, creating the public perception that this election marked out the stark difference in voting patterns between the Malays and Chinese, especially in the latter's reference to a ‘Chinese Tsunami'.