By Farish A. Noor

As the broken remnants of the Barisan Nasional recuperate and recover what is left of their shattered pride, it would be prudent to take a step back and look at some of the factors that have certainly contributed to the dismal showing the BN component parties and the UMNO party in particular.

It is clear to many that this election was, in some ways, a singularly unique event in the same way that the 2004 elections were special. 2004’s election results could be read as a collective sigh of relief on the part of the Malaysian electorate after twenty years of rule under the Mahathir government, which witnessed a host of controversial incidents ranging from the BMF scandal of the early 1980s all the way up to Ops Lalang in 1987. The enormous mandate given to the Badawi government was a sign that the public was thirsting for change and that they were no longer willing to live with the modes of governance and politics that we have all grown sadly accustomed to for lack of a choice…

This time round, the electorate has once again spoken to signal their utter disillusionment after it became painfully evident that none of the reform policies foregrounded by the Badawi team were ever going to come true. Instead this had been an administration long on gimmicks and novelties, but short on substance and delivery. Was it necessary to send a Malaysian astronaut to space on a Russian craft, to make the vain boast that a Malaysian citizen had been there and done that? If this was meant to assuage the anger and frustration of Malaysians who lived in estates and poorly-run low-cost urban housing, it certainly had the opposite effect of driving home the point that this administration was out of touch with reality and totally disconnected with the needs and wants of the people.

But vain boasts notwithstanding, the Badawi government suffered its long-overdue shock due to the vain boasts of some of its leaders and spokesmen. Here is it worth noting the effect that UMNO’s own overheated pyrotechnics had on the sentiments and sensibilities of a significant section of the Malaysian public; namely the non-Malays and non-Muslims of the country. In particular we are referring to the repeated assertion on the part of some hot-headed UMNO leaders who continued to harp on about the notion of Malay dominance in a racially and religiously diverse and plural society. Read the rest of this entry »