From Terence Netto
Dr Mahathir Mohamad likes to claim the Malay vote fragmented only after he retired in his first run (1981 to 2003) as prime minister.
That is like saying the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe fragmented only after the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989.
Umno was fragmenting as a consequence of Dr Mahathir’s repression of dissenting voices, following his narrow victory over challenger Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah for the party presidency in 1987.
Likewise, the Soviet bloc was fracturing following the Warsaw Pact’s suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 and the repression of the Prague Spring in 1968.
Common to both phenomena, repression by the hegemon — the Umno head honcho in the one instance, the Moscow politburo in the other — was the factor that led to fragmentation of the Malay vote and the splitting of the socialist bloc.
Mahathir is being crassly self-serving in arguing that the Malay vote was intact for Umno in all the time he was prime minister.
Repression of dissidents was not the only factor that caused the Malay vote, dominantly for Umno for most of his premiership, to splinter soon after his lengthy tenure.
Mahathir’s pivot to Malay dominance in his policies, as distinct to Malay primacy, strained the unity of Barisan Nasional.
It’s effects were to marginalise the non-Malay components of the ruling coalition, such as the MCA and MIC, rendering these parties virtually impotent before their voting blocs.
The fragmentation of the Malay vote in the general elections of 1999, 2008 and 2013, combined with erosion of electoral support for Umno’s ethnic partners culminated in the ousting of BN from federal power in the general elections of 2018 and 2022.
Now, Mahathir wants to weld the Malay splinter parties together after conveniently absolving himself of responsibility for their division.
The ongoing disarray in Bersatu, the political vehicle Mahathir himself created, is a lesson on the fragmentation of the Malay leadership elite caused by the destructive concept of Malay dominance.
Now everyone wants to be prime minister, laments Mahathir about the plethora of competitors for prime ministerial power.
There’s nary a hint from him as to what may have triggered this centrifugal force in the Malay body politic.
It’s Malay dominance with its choice to ride the back of the tiger and its concomitant danger of winding up in its belly.
Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
