The country’s longest-serving prime minister and one-time mover of Bangsa Malaysia is a fine one to talk. Since 2008, he has been the patron of Perkasa, the right-wing group that fights to preserve everything for the Malays at the expense of others.
For Dr Mahathir and Perkasa, everything is at risk from the non-Malays, although the Federal Constitution already provides safeguards through the Malay Rulers.
In his blog today, Dr Mahathir wrote, among others, “I congratulate the DAP for bringing its racist politics to Sarawak. Before this all races co-operated well with each other for the good of Sarawak. Now we see clearly that the Chinese community in Sarawak has rejected multi-racialism.
“Perhaps the SUPP are at fault but others in the BN also committed many wrong things. But the rejection is almost entirely by the Chinese community.”
In his world-view and through his writing, Dr Mahathir does not believe that people can make up their own minds and decide to vote for whoever they want — the essence of democracy.
Perhaps he does not see that the policies put in place by his administration, such as privatisation, has resulted in endemic corruption, abuse of power and the weakening of the country’s institutions — some of the factors which has caused Malaysians to lose faith in BN.
Dr Mahathir does not lead BN now. It is Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and before him, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Abdullah carried the baggage of Dr Mahathir’s rule but crumbled under the weight of his own unfulfilled promises.
Now it’s Najib’s turn, and his six days for the Sarawak campaign is a measure of what he had to do to counter criticisms against Dr Mahathir’s contemporary, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud.
Yet, Dr Mahathir only sees what he sees.
“I will be called a racist for pointing this out. For more than half a century the races in Malaysia had worked together to build the nation. The world saw stable BN governments with power and wealth being shared by all races quite fairly.
“None of the races got everything that they considered they were entitled to — not the Malays, nor the Chinese, nor Indians, nor Ibans, Kadazans, etc. All had to give up something. That is the essence of sharing.
“Now the DAP has destroyed this power and wealth-sharing formula by separating the Chinese from the rest,” he also wrote today.
Thing is, Dr Mahathir is just not the right person to level any such accusations. When he and others talk about the BN style or formula, what they mean is keeping cronyism and institutional racism entrenched. He is no honest broker in this exercise of dissecting the Sarawak election and its aftermath.
Malaysians have a right to vote whichever way they want. Taib returned 35 out of 35 seats back to the BN. Presumably, there are people happy with his rule.
Yet, there are others who are not happy and want an alternative. Nothing racist about that. It’s simply called democracy — the right to differ, not defer.
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