Privileged Status at Risk, Malays Protest After Election Losses

Chanting “Long live the Malays!” several hundred members of Malaysia’s largest ethnic group gathered Friday on this largely ethnic Chinese island, defying a police ban on protests and raising tensions after sharp electoral losses by the country’s Malay-dominated governing coalition.

Newly elected state governments have moved rapidly to abolish some of the long-held privileges of ethnic Malays. Those efforts have challenged the core of Malaysia’s ethnically based political system and inflamed Malays’ sensibilities. Before elections last Saturday, Malays dominated politics through the country’s largest party, the United Malays National Organization, known as U.M.N.O.

The opposition parties that beat the governing party and its partners in five states say the nation’s affirmative action program for Malays should be based on need rather than ethnicity. But the opposition, too, is struggling to contain fissures along ethnic lines as a Chinese opposition party competes with its Malay counterpart.

The affirmative action program, more than 35 years old, gives Malays benefits like discounts on new houses and 30 percent quotas in companies’ initial public offerings.

“I don’t think many people have bothered to investigate the details of the policy itself,” said Tricia Yeoh of the Center for Public Policy Studies, an independent research center in Kuala Lumpur, the capital. “But it’s an affirmation of their identity in the country, of their significance and their worth.”

Demonstrators here on Friday chanted “Allahu akbar!” — “God is great!” in Arabic — and vowed to return for more protests. They were dispersed by riot police officers. Nasarudin bin Mat Nor, 70, a retired teacher who took part in the protest, said, “If there is no help for the Malays, they will get poorer.”

Malaysians are split as much along religious lines as ethnic, with Muslim Malays governed by a separate legal system. The protest Friday immediately followed Friday Prayer at a mosque. But the election showed that the Malays are also divided between educated, wealthy and often urban Malays and poorer families in the countryside.

“U.M.N.O. is going to go through some sort of consolidation,” said Ibrahim Suffian of the Merdeka Center, an independent polling agency. “A lot of people are looking for someone to take the fall for the results.”

For the first time since independence from Britain in 1957, the governing coalition has lost control of Malaysia’s largest and wealthiest states, including Penang, Selangor and Perak.

The governing coalition, the National Front, won slightly more than 60 percent of the seats in the federal Parliament, down from 90 percent of the seats in the 2004 elections.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has vowed to stay, but is under pressure to quit. Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is from the same party, called Friday for Mr. Abdullah to step down.

Mr. Abdullah came to power in 2003 promising to end corruption and make government more accountable. But scandals, rising prices and protests by ethnic Indians over religious freedom and income inequality caused his popularity to fall. (The New York Times)

***** Firstly a 35-year-old policy should not still persist with the word 'new'. It is basically a bloody OLD policy which has been diverted from its its initial goal and now serves as a convenient conduit for amassing wealth for ruling party cronies.

Secondly it was a mistake for Lim Guan Eng to have mentioned about the NEP so early into his term. Perhaps he should have exercised some patience and restraint and not given space for sore losers to capitalise on this emotive issue.

Thirdly I don't believe that the so-called gathering was a spontaneous reaction to his statement, but the dirty work of the cunning dalang2 in Putrajaya, ably assisted by some lowlife in Penang Umno.
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