ELECTION WATCH (23): Sound the Reformasi Whoops of Joy

OR weary sighs, that's all to be decided by YOU -- THE "V"OTERS -- and we shall know by midnight.

IF PKR supporters like Desiderata can see the party win more than the FIVE it did it 1999, then there is ground and cause for HOPE.

If PKR wins from 6 to 10 parliament seats, it's Cause for OPTIMISM and CELEBRATION.

If PKR tops the 20-seat mark championed by its Leaders to motivate the soldiers for the battle that is GE2008, then the Winds of Change will take on the force of a Typhoon come 2012/2013 to overthrow the failed coalition that is Barisan Nasional, essentially dominated by UMNO for the past 11 General Elections.

Desi waits with quiet optimism from 7.00pm till midnight voices beckon.
I will then adjourn for R n R n R.
Take a HiAtus for weeks, months...?
Look me up in mazy, hazy and crazy PeytonPlacesque Furong or
rendezvo'e wit' me in Haiti. Timbucktoo or Timbuckt'ree.

Meanw'ile, mGf, take caresz,
GBless!

p
e
A
c
e

Chow!

Desi, knottyaSsusual
11.59am Polling dae
I did my byte 2 hours ago.

At 12.19PM, Desi stole this Snippet from Mkini:)

Popular blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s predictions (according to his intelligence agency source): Kelantan, Terengganu, Perlis, Kedah and Penang will all fall to opposition today. On the last count, the opposition may win up to 90 seats in Parliament. In 2004, the opposition won 21 parliamentary seats.

At 1.13PM, Desi picked up an AFP report that Mkini featured:)


BN's last-ditch bid to counter opposition
Mar 7, 08 4:57pm

The Barisan Nasional coalition made an all-out push today on the eve of elections to counter a resurgent opposition which hopes to deny it a two-thirds majority for the first time.

Political observers said the coalition that has ruled for half a century is rattled by signs that minority ethnic Chinese and Indians will defect to the opposition led by charismatic former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim.

Newspapers linked to the government, which is dominated by Muslim Malays who make up 60 percent of the population, splashed front-page warnings that the minorities could lose their voice in the multi-ethnic coalition.

"I do not want to form a government that is made up of only one race," Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said of the indications that the Chinese and Indian parties in the BN coalition could be hit tomorrow.

"I hope the status quo is maintained in the interests of all."

Pollsters are tipping the opposition to claim about a fifth of the seats in the new 222-seat parliament, doubling its presence but falling short of the 75 it needs to break the majority that allows the government to amend the constitution at will.

The Merdeka Centre research firm said the three opposition parties could seize about 40 seats, mostly to the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party and the Islamic hardliners PAS.

Abdullah's government has mounted a savage attack on Anwar in recent days, in what observers said was a sign his PKR party is posing a real threat by appealing to voters of all races - a first in Malaysian politics.
Reaching out to all races

"Anwar has done a good job in terms of being able to organise a national campaign," said Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia expert at Johns Hopkins University, who is here for the elections.

"PKR as a party is trying to reach across the races, and long term that potentially gives it the power to be able to govern."

Anwar and other opposition leaders have been drawing big crowds at political rallies in Kuala Lumpur, campaigning on issues like high inflation and rising crime rates which resonate with voters.

More than 10,000 Malaysians of all races braved the pouring rain to gather in Lembah Pantai in Kuala Lumpur last night to hear Anwar speak, standing transfixed despite the thunder and lightning.

"You can cheat as much as you want, but you cannot change the will of the people," he roared, drawing chants of "reformasi, reformasi", the battle cry that emerged after his 1998 dismissal and jailing.

Meanwhile, Abdullah is attempting to shore up support from minorities concerned over the rising "Islamisation" of Malaysia and decades-old discrimination policies that favour Malays.

"The tone is becoming increasingly defensive," Welsh said. "They've moved from trying to focus on their rhetoric, to attacking the opposition, which shows a real sense of concern."

May not be a fair fight


Opposition parties warn that the polls may not be a fair fight, saying they are concerned over fraud including phantom voters and manipulation of postal votes in tightly contested seats.

Steven Gan, founder of online news portal Malaysiakini, said activity on the site had risen dramatically in recent months after unprecedented protests by ethnic Indians.

"I think that definitely you can sense there is a heightened interest, but whether this will be translated into votes is another issue," he said.

A notable battle in the campaign is in Kelantan, the only state the coalition does not hold and which it is hoping to snatch from the Islamic PAS, which has ruled there for 18 years.

"We think we will win by a comfortable margin," said Awang Adek Hussin, who is leading the BN charge to retake impoverished Kelantan, with promises of billions of dollars in investment and infrastructure.

- AFP

At 1.33PM, I picked this up from malaysia-today.net. See, I work vely de heart for my ER and nyet no one was generous to write me that check for 20million! I think I will continue to work vely the hard2 like one 27-year-old and become a billionaire in two long years. Then I will do the R n R n R n R (See four Rs, sei liau-liau!): EAT, DRINK, Be Merry and Enjoy Permanet Hospitality at SerembanGeneral.

Watch out for race factor in Malaysia's polls today
Posted by Raja Petra
Saturday, 08 March 2008


By Shahirah Mahmood & Mohamed Nawab Mohd Osman, For The Straits Times

THE 2008 Malaysian general election will determine the future direction of the country's politics.

Disputes over ethnic and religious issues have not only exacerbated existing fractures within Malaysian society, they have also eroded support for Barisan Nasional (BN) among Chinese and Indian voters. It is a foregone conclusion that the Umno-led BN government will lose a substantial majority of Indian and Chinese votes.

Umno seems to have emerged as the bastion of Malay and Islamic ideals and practices. This has come at the expense of the ethnic minorities, thus risking Umno's chances of retaining the support of many Indian and Chinese voters. Controversies surrounding the burial rights of M. Moorthy, Ms Lina Joy's conversion from Islam and the recent proscription of the usage of the term 'Allah' among Christians have raised fears among non-Muslims. They are concerned syariah law will encroach into civil law and threaten religious freedom.

In response to these developments, non-Malay and non-Muslim groups have got together to demand that the government protect non-Muslim rights. A case in point is the demonstration organised by the Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf) demanding that the government protect the welfare of the Indian community.

Chinese and Indian voters, especially in the urban areas of Penang and Selangor, are likely to vote for the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). Having struck a deal to avoid three-cornered fights to bolster their share of votes, both DAP and PKR appear as viable multi-ethnic alternatives for the disgruntled Chinese and Indian communities.

The growing demands for rights by ethnic minorities may result in Umno strengthening its support among Malays. This would be a logical supposition, except that the sentiments and affiliations of Malay voters are becoming more complex.

The vote today may in fact herald this complexity. The Bersih rally demanding electoral reform a few months ago and the dissatisfaction over judicial appointments that the 'Lingam tapes' instigated reflect how Malay-Muslim urbanites have become disenchanted with Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's promises of reform.

Such Malay grievances have provided leverage for the PKR's campaign. Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was instrumental in bringing together people of various ethnic and religious backgrounds for the Bersih rally. This has encouraged Malay-Muslim voters who want to move away from ethnic-based politics but are still hesitant to vote for a non-Malay-led party. This is where Datuk Seri Anwar's popularity and appeal to a wide segment of society may come into play.

Significantly, he has been the middleman between DAP and PAS. If as a result PKR is able to galvanise enough support for its agenda, it will transform Malaysian politics in a significant way. It would signal that Malaysians - Malays as well as non-Malays - are amenable to non-racialised politics.

It is interesting in this context that Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) has decided to leave its Islamic state agenda on the back burner. The softening of its stance on this issue and its promise to establish a negara kebajikan (welfare state) may be viewed as strategic moves to capitalise on the ethnic minorities' discontent with the ruling coalition.

But the party has also made a concerted attempt to de-couple religion from ethnicity, a relationship enshrined in the Malaysian Constitution which stipulates that all Malays must be Muslims. Since it took a religious turn in the early 1980s, PAS has regularly condemned Umno's brand of racial politics as assabiyah (tribalism), which it deems unIslamic. The argument is that Umno, by conflating the notion of Malay primacy with Muslim supremacy, has in fact contravened the universal values of Islam - such as egalitarianism, tolerance and accommodation.

PAS thus claims to be more tolerant than Umno of the rights of non-Muslims to build places of worship. In the recent controversy over the usage of the word 'Allah' by Malaysian Christians, the chairman of the PAS Ulama (Religious Scholars) Council, Ustaz Daud Iraqi, took a different position from the Umno-led government.

He thought that it was indeed permissible for Christians to use the word 'Allah'. The fielding for the first time in PAS' history of a non-Muslim candidate, 29-year-old Kumutha Raman, in today's general election is yet another novel move for the party.

PAS is likely to retain control of Kelantan, but its prospects in Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis are unclear. If it is able to improve its support in the Malay heartland, this will give a boost to the professional, moderate group within the party and enable its members to define further the party's future direction.

PAS may then be in a position to usher in a new brand of Islamic piety divorced from the trappings of Malay supremacist ideas that Umno champions. This in turn could lead to a moderation of the party's Islamist commitments and may even see it transform itself into a 'post-Islamist' party similar to Turkey's Prosperity Justice Party.

An erosion of PAS' support in the Malay hinterland, however, will probably strengthen the more radical Islamic voices in the party who now control the party's youth wing and religious scholars wing. This would lead the party to re-emphasise its Islamic credentials and push for the establishment of an Islamic state.

This is an example of how the ethno-religious nature of Malaysian politics may change, depending on the outcome of this election.

On the one hand, a significant increase in votes for the opposition will indicate that Malaysians have become disillusioned with racial politics.

On the other hand, if Malaysians continue to vote along ethnic lines - with Malays voting for Umno and non-Malays rejecting PAS - the country may be further polarised along ethnic and religious lines.

Shahirah Mahmood is a research assistant with the Contemporary Islam Programme in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). Mohamed Nawab Mohd Osman is an Associate Research Fellow at RSIS.