An opposition parliamentarian worries that the rise of Donald Trump and his race-baiting campaigning which led to a stunning victory in today’s US presidential election will embolden and reinforce the same practice back home in Malaysia.

“While much will be said in the next few days by academics, analysts and pundits to explain Trump’s unlikely victory, my greater fear is what his victory may spell for us in Malaysia,” said Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming in a statement.

Trump’s stunning victory, reminded Ong, was based on a divisive campaign that pits the majority versus the minorities, that made appeals to a narrow base of voters, that compelled Americans to look inwards rather than outwards and that was populist and short of policy substance.