The extravagant loss for BN was attributed to Abdullah’s weak leadership, his flip-flop, indecisive, and slow reaction attitude towards decision making, scraping of many mega-projects among them the crooked bridge and the double railway tracking project, failure to deliver his promises of reforms and weed out graft and corruption, increased racial sentiments, UMNO becoming more arrogant and racist, the gagging of the media, the involvement of his son and son-in-law in the distribution of wealth and projects to their cronies, increase in petrol prices and the cost of living, mismanagement of the economy, wasteful spending of tax payer’s money and a decrease in business competitiveness.
The 21st Century
Taking a look back at these events, they all have one thing in common; the crisis are a result of a political, economic, or socioeconomic problem accumulated during the first half of the decade.
As we near the end the first decade of the 21st century, Malaysia once again is experiencing a crisis. On her 51st anniversary “the mother of all crisis” is unfolding before our very eyes. Racial animosity, economic crisis, BN’s dismal election performance, UMNO leadership crisis, opposition take over, judicial independence and reforms, and ISA detention are happening all at once. A 60 year deja vu compacted into one year.
How did it all start? In the beginning of the 21st century, Malaysia was slowly recovering from the 97/98 financial crisis and the economy was growing again albeit at a lower pace than its average 9-10% in the 90s. Politics was relatively stable.
In 2003, Mahathir stepped down as PM and Abdullah was appointed to helm the premiership. He promised to continue Mahathir’s economic policies and called on for ambitious reforms in the country to weed out corruption and give greater independence to the judiciary.
At Malaysia’s 11th general election in 2004, the BN came back with a resounding victory winning 91% or 198 seats in Parliament; the best performance by far for BN.
Just 4 years after a resounding victory, and under the same leadership, something never imaginable had happened. BN only managed to secure 140 seats or 62.6% of Parliament… a stunning loss since 1969. The political tsunami had not only costed the BN its two-thirds majority, it had lost Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor, Kelantan, and Kuala Lumpur to the opposition. On top of that, many top BN leaders and party presidents had also lost their seats to many green horns most notably Samy Vellu and Koh Tsu Koon. So sick were the rakyat of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that they showed their disgust at the polling stations on 8th March 2008.
The extravagant loss for BN was attributed to Abdullah’s weak leadership, his flip-flop, indecisive, and slow reaction attitude towards decision making, scraping of many mega-projects among them the crooked bridge and the double railway tracking project, failure to deliver his promises of reforms and weed out graft and corruption, increased racial sentiments, UMNO becoming more arrogant and racist, the gagging of the media, the involvement of his son and son-in-law in the distribution of wealth and projects to their cronies, increase in petrol prices and the cost of living, mismanagement of the economy, wasteful spending of tax payer’s money and a decrease in business competitiveness.
This was boosted by the fact that he opposition of DAP-PAS-PKR despite their extreme differences in ideologies, had fully cooperated under the leadership of Anwar Ibrahim. A one-to-one match was seen in every constituent. For the first time, PAS supporters campaigned for the DAP, Indians and Chinese were campaigning for PAS, to deny BN its two-thirds majority.
The increase in tech savvyness and increased penetration of Internet users saw the alternative or independent media blossomed with alternative news portals and blogs. The opposition used this to the fullest extent as the mainstream media is biased and controlled by the ruling party. The ruling coalition ignored it entirely. A blunder that they had fully regretted.
Coupled with about 1.5 million young voters who would now have been eligible to vote since the Reformasi days of 98, the BN tumbled. Had it not been for the scrapping of indelible ink, and vote rigging via postal votes, the BN would have been obliterated.
End of Part II
