Pseudo Analysis of the GE2008 Result Part I : Personalities

As we slowly understand the implication of the results of the 12th General Election, it's timely to look at the GE in totality from a layman point of view. The usual questions have to be ask, why and what happened that made such a tremendous swing in the vote? What made BN be able to maintain nearly 62% of the House of Representative? What is next after this? So many and more questions will be look into in this series of blogs to understand, at least on my part, the how, why and what of the GE result causes and effects.

I posit that the seed of discontent among the people started gaining momentum way back, prior to the 10th GE. Specifically the sacking of Anwar as DPM. To a lot of youths, especially malays, around that time of the event, Anwar was seen as a standard bearer of Asian modernity and civilization. His sacking created a maelstrom of furies amongst the youth. This reaction was very pronounced within the university youths. At the same time, the ease of Anwar dismissal strike a feeling of discontent and even fear among the urban public. The urban public realised that the sacking of the DPM was a symbol of the corroding state of civil liberties, that were tolerated by the public at large then. While for the non urban malays, Anwar was seen as a beacon of Islamic virtues and his sacking was seen as an attack to such values.

The effect can be seen in the 10th GE, where a lot of the malay votes went with the opposition parties. Though not enough to vote out BN then due to the support of the non malay votes. After the swearing in of Mahathir as PM, he was still shadowed by the visage of Anwar. The issue of cronism and nepotism continues to haunt him until his resignation in 2003. Mahathir understand that he could not hold on to power without severely destroying BN chances of winning the next election. He would still want a BN government that not only sympathize with him but also to to protect him. And so he pass over the baton to Abdullah, a man seen to be an Islamic figure (his father was a religious figure), an ex civil servant, have the support of the major camps in UMNO and have a wife of mix parentage. It was a perfect choice. And this was shown in the 11th GE, where most of the public have a great hope for him and gave BN another chance under a new administration. But bear in mind the youths that supported Anwar around his sacking, they did not become a strong supporter of BN in time of the 11th GE. They just gave a chance for Abdullah to prove that he was different than Mahathir.

Abdullah did indeed proved that he was different, he gave a greater freedom of the press, a greater room for public debate and seem to be more transparent and open than the previous administration. Though at the same time, he was not seen to be able to manage and control such openness and at times was accused of being weak. Especially critical about this were supporters of UMNO themselves. Certain religious and racial issues were not handle fast enough and decision was seen to be arbitrary.

Basically what happened was Abdullah managed to lose the support from UMNO grassroots, the trust of the non malays, and some what betrayed the hope of the malay youths.