Borneo Post Online | KOTA KINABALU, 03-Oct-2012 : Illegal immigrants or PATI (pendatang asing tanpa izin issues were found to be the most important issue in Sabah that needed immediate attention from the government.

This was mentioned by 53% of respondents of a recently concluded survey of Sabah voters. This expectation was followed by concerns over cost of living (38%), corruption (21%), jobs (13%) and welfare/poverty alleviation (10%).

In the same survey, 54% of the respondents felt that that Sabah state was headed in the right direction, representing a marked 12% decline from an earlier Merdeka Center survey conducted in November 2009 which recorded 66% of respondents saying the state was in the right direction.

The decline in the perception that the state was moving in the right direction could be charted across all major ethnic groups as well as the urban rural divide as follows:

Segment November 2009 September 2012 Variance

Sabah voters overall 66% 54% -12%

Muslim Bumiputera 79% 62% -17%

Non-Muslim Bumiputera 69% 58% -11%

Chinese 35% 29% -6%

Urban 63% 47% -16%

Rural 69% 61% -8%

Among the top five reasons for the decline appears to be the perception that the state remains lagging in terms of economic development and infrastructure, particularly in rural areas as well as cost of living pressures.

The survey also found that a number of respondents cited dissatisfaction with the political leadership as well as the illegal immigration problem.

Those who felt the state was headed in the right direction expressed continued satisfaction at the pace of economic development and the continuing peaceful conditions in the state.

Following on from the PATI issue, the survey found that an overwhelming 87% agreed with the establishment of the royal commission of inquiry into the matter. However confidence in the effectiveness of the commission was more circumspect – with only 54% expressing confidence that the commission will be able to address the problem.

The survey also found that Sabah voters had mixed views as to the motivation behind the establishment of the commission, with 46% expressing that it is “a genuine attempt to address the illegal immigrant problem” while 36% agreeing that it was a “political move to reduce the anger of Sabahans before the election”.

The survey was carried out by the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research between the 6th and 17th of September 2012 to gauge voters’ perceptions of current developments in the Sabah.

A total of 829 registered voters comprising 51% Muslim Bumiputra, 29% non-Muslim Bumiputra and 20% Chinese respondents which was reflective of electoral profile of Sabah were interviewed via fixed line and mobile telephones.

The respondents were selected on the basis of random stratified sampling along age group, ethnicity, gender and state constituency. The poll was jointly funded by Merdeka Center and a regional consultancy firm.

The Malaysian Insider | KUALA LUMPUR, 02-Oct-2012 — The number of voters who feel Sabah is headed in the right direction has fallen since 2009, with the high number of illegal immigrants, poor infrastructure and a lack of development cited as major concerns, a survey released today showed, suggesting a rise in dissatisfaction that could be exploited by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) against Barisan Nasional (BN) for crucial votes in the next general election.

According to Merdeka Center, just 54 per cent of voters polled felt the state was headed in the right direction, a marked decline from a high of 66 per cent in a previous survey conducted in November 2009.

A whopping 53 per cent of voters surveyed listed the illegal immigration problem as the most important issue being faced in the BN stronghold state, justifying Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s (picture) recent decision to set up a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) to investigate the matter.

But the continued decline in optimism among voters will be of major concern to Sabah state leaders and Najib.

“Among the top five reasons for the decline appears to be the perception that the state remains lagging in terms of economic development and infrastructure particularly in rural areas as well as cost of living pressures,” Merdeka Center said.

“The survey also found that a number of respondents cited dissatisfaction with the political leadership as well as the illegal immigration problem.”

Those who felt the state was headed in the right direction expressed continued satisfaction at the pace of economic development and the continuing peaceful conditions in the state.

The survey found that an overwhelming 87 per cent agreed with the establishment of the RCI into the matter.

But Merdeka Center pointed out that confidence in the effective of the commission was more circumspect — with only 54 per cent expressing confidence that the commission will be able to address the problem.

The survey also found that Sabah voters had mixed views as to the motivation behind the establishment of the

commission, with 46 per cent saying it was “a genuine attempt to address the illegal immigrant problem” while 36 per cent agreeing that it was a “political move to reduce the anger of Sabahans before the election”.

A 2010 census of Sabah’s population showed an extraordinary 390 per cent increase from 636,431 citizens in 1970 to 3,120,040 citizens in 2010 ― more than double the national population growth of just 164 per cent.

Of the 3.12 million Sabahans today, reports have estimated that 27 per cent are foreigners.

The survey was carried out by the Merdeka Center in September. The poll was jointly funded by Merdeka Center and a regional consultancy firm.

The Malaysian Insider | KUALA LUMPUR, 03-June-2012 — Malaysians have grown more racial since the 2008 general election, Penang Barisan Nasional (BN) chief Teng Chang Yeow has said, refuting claims that the electorate is now ready to accept non race-based politics.

The Gerakan secretary-general pointed out that as a multiracial party, it had found it tougher to speak on non-racial topics over the past few years, pointing to the slew of racially-charged incidents in the country after the last polls.

He added that after the polls, more race-based bodies like Malay right-wing group Perkasa had mushroomed, adding to the already heightened state of racial tension in the country.

“I don’t think Malaysians have moved away from race-based politics. After 308 (Election 2008), we found that it was tougher to talk about non-racial issues.

“Look at the issues brought forward today — it is more racial today than it was in the past.

“You see, there is even the establishment of groups like Perkasa… this is not healthy for the politics of Malaysia, for the country’s nation-building,” he said during a recent interview withThe Malaysian Insider.

Teng pointed out that he was even finding it hard to spread the sentiment of multiracialism within Gerakan, even though the party is not race-based.

He explained that members often raise a hue and cry when there are suggestions to appoint non-Chinese leaders to top posts, rendering the party’s claim to be multiracial as mere rhetoric.

He said only some 15 per cent of the party’s about 400,000 members are non-Malays, which is a far cry from Gerakan’s key objective to be a “Malaysian party”.

“Gerakan has to do so much more than what it is today. There have been rhetorics (sic)… but it won’t get us anywhere.

“Gerakan leaders and members must accept the fact that we need to recruit more non-Chinese members to strengthen the party’s ideology,” he said.

“Every now and then, when we want to put up candidates of other races than the Chinese, there are bound to be leaders questioning why we should give this or that to a particular race — it is not healthy.

“They cannot run away from the reality that we are not a Chinese or Malay party… we are a Malaysian party. Many fail to look at that,” he said.

Teng added that Gerakan should no longer use the excuse that it needs time to morph into a more multiracial party, pointing out that the party has had well over 40 years to do this.

“This is no longer a time to discuss but a time to implement,” he said.

Reports of racial and religious conflicts in the country had increased significantly after the landmark Election 2008 — the stiffest contest in Malaysian history.

With the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) losing its customary two-thirds hold on Parliament and four state governments, many political leaders appeared to have retreated into racial silos to drum up support.

This has been attributed to the rise in ethnic tension here, leading to numerous cases of racially motivated incidents that have hit media headlines over the past few years, including the 2010 bombings at several houses of worship, the Shah Alam cowhead protest, the controversial raid at the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) here, claims of Christians proselytising to Muslims and the government’s confiscation of Malay language bibles.

In one recent incident earlier this year, even Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak found himself at the centre of a religiously-motivated controversy when Muslim clerics expressed their disdain over his decision to attend Thaipusam celebrations at Batu Caves.

A Merdeka Center poll in June last year found that only 66 per cent of respondents said ethnic relations were “good” — a 15 per cent decline from the 78 per cent who said the same five years ago.

The opinion researchers also found that just over a third believed that there was “sincere and friendly ethnic unity,” down from 54 per cent five years ago

Reuters | KUALA LUMPUR, 3-June-2012 – Ethnic Chinese voters, upset over policies that favor majority Malays, have become increasingly alienated from Malaysia’s ruling coalition, raising the risk of racial polarization and a slowdown in the pace of reforms.

Support for Prime Minister Najib Razak among Chinese voters plunged to 37 percent in May from 56 percent in February, a survey by the independent Merdeka Center showed on Friday. It found 56 percent of Chinese were dissatisfied with the government, compared to 30 percent of Indians and 23 percent of Malays.

Recent state and by-elections underline the trend. The main Chinese party allied with the ruling National Front coalition in eastern Sarawak state lost 13 of 19 seats it contested in local elections last year and the opposition won a by-election in the same state in 2010 largely thanks to Chinese backing.

The Southeast Asian nation’s 6.5 million ethnic Chinese turned heavily to the opposition in 2008 polls, handing the National Front, which has ruled uninterrupted since independence from Britain in 1957, its worst election showing.

Malaysia has seen ethnic Chinese voting with their feet, leaving the country for better prospects aboard including to neighbor and rival Singapore, in a troubling brain drain of talent and capital. “Malaysia needs talent to meet its goal of becoming a high-income country,” the World Bank noted in a report last year. “But the problem is that talent is leaving.”

With elections likely later this year, the government has failed to reverse the tide with voters such as Jack Gan, who complains he had to study much harder than his ethnic Malay peers to get into one of the country’s top universities.

“I’m used to the lifestyle here but I don’t like the government and the policies,” said the 24-year-old law student, referring to decades-old affirmative action policies that favor Malays in education, business and employment.

Government efforts to appeal to minority Chinese and Indians were “just propaganda, not a policy,” he added.

MALAY CHAUVINISTS

Chinese disillusionment is straining relations within the ruling coalition, complicating Najib’s efforts to reverse the shocking losses four years ago. Najib has rolled back some repressive security laws in an effort to appeal to middle-class, urban voters but his reforms have not gone far enough for many Chinese.

The main ethnic Chinese party in the ruling coalition, whose parliamentary seats were halved to 15 in 2008, says it won’t accept any cabinet posts if it does worse this time, raising the prospect of a government dominated by ethnic Malays.

The trend risks deepening racial fault lines if, as some analysts expect, the lead party in the coalition, the United Malays Nationalist Organisation (UMNO) effectively “gives up” on the Chinese vote and focuses on championing Malay rights to secure support in rural areas.

Some analysts think Chinese voters could be shooting themselves in the foot if a weak showing by Najib in the election hands power back to right-wingers within UMNO and puts the brakes on his reform program. The three-party opposition alliance is seen as unlikely to win enough seats to form a government.

“The concern I have is that it is going to be a coalition of one (party) plus a few others who are not as strong as they are,” said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, the head of Malaysia’s Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs. “It’s going to be a very imbalanced mix in the new coalition that will be formed.”

The prime minister is stuck on the horns of a Malaysian dilemma: He has promised to reform the 40-year-old affirmative action program for majority Malays that has long upset Malaysia’s minorities; yet to do that he needs Chinese electoral support to strengthen his hand against Malay chauvinists in his party.

MIDDLE INCOME TRAP

In the past, the National Front could rely on sizeable support from the Chinese community, who control most of the country’s wealth despite making up only about a quarter of Malaysia’s 28 million people. But that support – forged through cozy business ties and strong government support for a separate, Mandarin language school system – has frayed in recent years as Chinese frustration with slow progress on reform has grown.

Malaysia’s Chinese, many of whose ancestors came to the country in British colonial times, increasingly lead separate lives from Malays, attending separate schools, speaking Mandarin and socializing with friends from the same race.

“We are not integrated, sadly, and I think it’s going to take a long time before we can integrate because economically we are compartmentalized,” said Razaleigh Hamzah, a long-serving UMNO member of parliament and former finance minister.

The Chinese account for many of an estimated one million people who emigrate annually, a “brain drain” driven by a lack of education and job prospects that is eroding Malaysia’s competitiveness.

Malaysia had been among the best performing economies in the world over the past 50 years under the National Front, which transformed a poor, colonial plantation economy into a modern, middle-income country. Per capita GDP has reached $8,100, almost doubling each decade.

But economists now warn Malaysia has fallen into a “middle-income trap”, in which a country is unable to make the next leap to developed nation status — Malaysia’s stated goal by 2020.

Domestic investment has struggled to recover since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. Foreign investment, which powered the earlier decades of growth, has stagnated. And the affirmative action policies, aimed at helping Malays better compete in the economy through educational and ownership quotas, have become an impediment to growth by not fully exploiting the human resource potential of the Indian and Chinese minorities.

Critics say the privileges, which include requiring companies to employ at least 30 percent Malays, have also scared off some foreign investors who think it represents too much government interference in the economy.

Najib has tried to unite the country with a highly touted program called “1Malaysia”. His efforts, however, have often been undercut by his own party, whose conservative wing has dug in its heels over protecting Malay privileges.

The government says it has reached out to Chinese under Najib, increasing funding for Mandarin schools and for lower-to-middle income Chinese communities.

“The government is continuing to implement measures under the transformation agenda and all Malaysians – including the Chinese community – stand to benefit,” a government spokesperson said.

Nevertheless, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), the main Chinese party in the coalition, could see its seats slashed again in the coming election as it pays the price for corruption scandals in the ruling coalition and perceptions it has failed to defend Chinese interests, analysts say.

PENANG PULL FACTOR

One factor driving Chinese voters from the ruling coalition is they now have a viable alternative following the opposition alliance’s unprecedented takeover of five state governments in 2008, including the northwestern coastal state of Penang, one of Malaysia’s biggest manufacturing hubs.

“A major pull factor is that the DAP is a much stronger party now – it is able to capture the imagination of Chinese voters,” said political analyst Ong Kian Ming, referring to the Democratic Action Party, the opposition’s ethnic Chinese party.

Penang’s Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng is a veteran of Malaysia’s hardball politics: He spent 18 months in detention from 1986 under the draconian Internal Security Act (which Najib had repealed) and a year in prison for sedition for making allegations against an UMNO state leader.

He is credited with cutting debt and attracting a flood of high-tech investments into Penang. Ethnic Malay businesses still get the lion’s share of state contracts, Lim says, but his move to make all public tenders open through a computerized system has cut down on the cronyism that annoys Malaysians of all races.

“We have broken the myth that Malay contractors cannot compete on the open market,” said the 51-year-old Lim, whose father Lim Kit Siang has been a party leader since its beginnings in the 1960s. “It goes to show that Malay contractors can compete. It is only UMNO cronies who cannot compete,” Lim told Reuters.

After taking over in 2009, Najib signaled he would take a bolder approach on dismantling affirmative action. In 2010 he introduced the “New Economic Model”, with poverty and income, not race, as the main criteria for getting help, and calling for less government interference in the economy. But so far the model has been short on policy implementation with little change to the core privileges that often benefit well-connected Malays more than the poor and have been blamed for fuelling cronyism.

Najib’s defenders say he is hoping a strong electoral mandate will strengthen the reformist wing of UMNO — but he will need Chinese support to make that case.

MCA leader Chua Soi Lek acknowledged the party leadership had been too “low profile.” But he told Reuters Chinese voters risked losing influence over policy and ushering in a less business-friendly government if they turned their backs on his party.

“The message to the Chinese community is to choose wisely. We are a business community. The wrong choice of government and everybody suffers but it will affect the business community … more than everybody else.”

Free Malaysia Today | KUALA LUMPUR, 02-June-2012 : Malay support, key to a stronger mandate in the upcoming polls, remains firm with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak which could be enough to bolster his chances of winning bigger in the national elections.

Pollster Merdeka Centre released yesterday a survey indicating an increase of 5% in Malay support from 74% in February to 79% in May, with the majority of the support coming from the lower-income group.

It shows support from this lower income group, who forms the majority of the voters and are predominantly Malays, rising by 4%, a back-to-back increase as shown by the last survey conducted by the same polling house.

The data was gathered just after the Najib government gave out cash to the poor under the BR1M project – and amid a national scandal involving a federal minister’s family – which again lent credence to suggestions that rice bowl issues would precede others in the contest for votes.

The recent announcement of a minimum wage policy could also add to the prime minister’s growing popularity among the poor.

Right direction

This means that Najib has been shooting in the right directions – rolling out the correct policies that can be traced back to as early as Budget 2012 – to woo the electorate in Barisan Nasional’s bid to restore its two-thirds parliamentary majority.

But leaving out the middle class in the last budget may have backfired as the May poll showed a significant dip in support from the middle-income group. It could also suggest that Najib’s political reforms may not have the desired impact.

The survey showed a 2% decrease of households earning RM1,500 to RM3,000 from March, while households earning RM3,000 to RM5,000 revealed a staggering 18% drop.

Analysts say Malaysia’s middle class is increasingly critical of the government and this could influence the dipping support as data were gathered just after the Bersih 3.0 violent poll reform rally took place.

Police allegedly used excessive force to disperse a peaceful assembly that later turned violent and left scores, including media personnel and police officers, injured. Bersih has a largely middle-class following.

Middle-class budget

A separate Merdeka Center poll after the protest showed that 92% of Malaysians want shortcomings in the country’s electoral rolls fixed before the election. The survey also found that only 44% of respondents were confident of a free and fair election process.

But this could easily be undone with a pro-middle class 2013 Budget that Najib said will be tabled on Sept 28. His announcement suggested he could be calling for national polls just after tabling the budget.

Najib, the country’s sixth prime minister, said next year’s budget will focus on “quality and balanced growth”.

A similar tactic was used by then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad during the 1999 political upheaval following a split in Umno after he sacked then deputy prime minister and current opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

He tabled what was said to be a “sweetener budget” on Oct 15 and went on to dissolve Parliament on Nov 11. BN went on to win with a landslide victory.

The Malaysian Insider | KUALA LUMPUR, 01-June-2012 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s approval rating experienced a marked decline among Indian and Chinese voters just weeks after a tumultuous Bersih 3.0 rally, a recent survey has shown.

A Merdeka Center Survey, carried out between May 10 and 18, found that 72 per cent out of Indian voters were satisfied with Najib as prime minister — an eight point drop from February this year.

It also found that Chinese support from the PM had dropped 19 points from a 56 per cent in February. Only 37 per cent from this segment polled now supported Najib.

Malay voter support for Najib, however, experienced a four-point increase, from 74 per cent in February to 79 per cent in May this year.

A total of 1,019 registered voters — 59 per cent Malay, 32 per cent Chinese and 9 per cent Indian —were polled three weeks after the April 28 Bersih rally that took place here.

Both the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) have gone through great pains to shore up non-Malay voter support ahead of an expected election, which must be called before the middle of next year.

But the findings of the last Merdeka Center suggest that BN’s support, especially among the Indian community — traditionally pro-BN — is slipping way.

The racial overtones of the protests against Bersih-co chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreevenasan had even prompted an MIC minister to defend the former Bar Council chief. Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam had said Ambiga should be protected and her rights respected despite having views contrary to the government’s on electoral reforms.

The survey also found a four-point increase support for the PM among households earning less than RM1,500 a month, rising from 78 per cent in February to 82 per cent last month.

The April 28 Bersih 3.0 rally that saw tens of thousands gather at six different locations before heading to Dataran Merdeka was peaceful until about 2.30pm when Bersih co-chairman Ambiga asked the crowd to disperse.

But her announcement was not heard by most of the crowd who persisted to linger around the historic square, which the courts had already barred to the public over the weekend.

Just before 3pm, some protestors breached the barricade surrounding the landmark, leading police to disperse the crowd with tear gas and water cannons.

Police then continued to pursue rally-goers down several streets amid chaotic scenes which saw violence from both sides over the next four hours.

Several dozen demonstrators have claimed that they were assaulted by groups of over 10 policemen at a time and visual evidence appears to back their claim but police also point to violence from rally-goers who also attacked a police car.