Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

Posted: 13 May 2013 03:07 PM PDT

I will conclude with three suggestions. First, in general, urban chauvinism should be avoided and resisted by all parties — politicians, pundits and especially thoughtful scholarly analysts. Simplistic portrayals of a rural-urban divide and denigration of "uninformed, uneducated" rural folks should not pass for intelligent analysis.

Eric C. Thompson, The Malaysian Insider

As pundits and political analysts dissect the outcome and meaning of the 13th general election (GE13), one prominent explanation for the results has been a supposed gulf between urban and rural voters. As one online commentator put it:

"The urban-rural divide was clear. Pakatan won votes from all races and religions in the urban areas while BN retained their rural base. It is an election result between urban and rural, West Malaysia versus East Malaysia, between the better educated, better informed versus the lesser educated and lesser informed."

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal's (Asia Edition) front-page story of May 8 described the result by stating:

"…the vote was heavily split between Malaysia's thriving cities, which largely voted for opposition parties, and rural, mostly ethnic-Malay areas that threw their support behind Mr Najib…"

The idea that the GE13 vote reflected a divided society, split between urban and rural inhabitants, has been echoed through many other online and print forums. It is a simple — and simplistic — explanation for a very complicated electoral result. And it reiterates a politics of urban cosmopolitan chauvinism that I have observed in Malaysia and elsewhere, dating to at least the 1990s.

The last and only time I have been in Malaysia on Polling Day itself was in 1995, now nearly two decades ago. That was a year when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Barisan Nasional were riding high on the pre-1997 economic boom, before Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's dismissal from Umno and subsequent "Reformasi" movement. In the process of following that election — among other things, attending and collecting cassette tapes of PAS ceramahs — I observed the particular ways that the figure of "orang kampong" (villagers) was dealt with in the elections (Thompson 2013).

Dr Mahathir, at least since the publication of "The Malay Dilemma" (1970), had championed a distinctively urban-oriented path to economic development and prosperity. Rural Malays, in Dr Mahathir's published opinion, were (quite literally) inbred and backwards. The early 1990s catch-phrase and concept of the "New Malay" (Melayu Baru) reiterated the idea that the only way for the Malay race to succeed would be through urbanisation ("membandarkan Melayu") and championing of a new breed of Malay entrepreneurs (Muhammad 1993).

In that climate, PAS positioned itself as the champion of kampung folk against an urban, corporate ("korporat") Umno elite. While Umno and by extension Barisan Nasional (BN) held certain rural "strongholds," it was by no means seen as a rural-based party. If anything, supposedly conservative, rural kampung folk were seen as the backbone of the PAS electorate — with overwhelmingly rural and conceptually remote Kelantan cast as ur-PAS territory.

Now in 2013, the rhetoric of rural-urban difference is cast very differently. Post-election analysis suggests that urban areas support progressive change while rural voters are stuck in old habits, clinging to patronage politics. In its most provocative form, as suggested by the first quote above, the country is divided between urban, better educated, better informed voters and rural, less educated, less informed ones.

Such rhetoric is both misguided and wrong. It is misguided, as far as opposition aspirations go. It is wrong in so far as it reiterates stereotypes of rural backwards and rural-urban difference in a Malaysia where substantive rural-urban difference is fast dissipating. With regard to opposition aspirations, there is a serious danger that the rhetoric of urban chauvinism may become entrenched among activists — particularly those affiliated with PKR.

PKR has sought to challenge Umno as a "centrist" force in Malaysian politics. PKR takes a moderate line vis-à-vis the role of Islam in politics and society, in contrast to PAS. And it has sought to avoid association as a party championing communal, racial interests, in contrast to the DAP, which despite efforts to the contrary is seen as a "Chinese" party. PKR's problem is that it is seen as a party of urban, elite, intellectuals, mainly interested in contesting Umno and BN hegemony, not for the sake of the rakyat (ordinary citizens) but as one urban elite group (the Anwaristas) trying to wrest power from the Umno old-guard.

Rather than simply casting the rakyat who live outside of urban centres as foolish dupes of BN, the better question to ask is: what, if anything, did Pakatan Rakyat (PR) offer to rural citizens of Malaysia? An examination of the PR and BN election manifestos is revealing. The BN, among other things, states explicitly what they have done for those living "luar bandar"; in particular the thousands of kilometres of roads stretching throughout the country.

By contrast, the PR manifesto is very thin when it comes to plans or promises to non-urban constituents. While, on the one hand, it speaks explicitly to taxi drivers and other urban interest groups, the only rural constituents that the PR manifesto addresses directly or in any detail are Felda settlers, who make up only a small part of the rural Malaysian electorate.

READ MORE HERE

Why PAS lost Kedah to BN

Posted: 13 May 2013 02:27 PM PDT

BN state communications chairman Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah claims that the people are fed up with PAS who didn't deliver when they were running the state.

By Azli Jamil, FMT

The people's disillusionment over the bickering PAS administration, a well-managed campaign by Barisan Nasional and the Mukhriz Mahathir factor, are the main reasons why BN won Kedah back from Pakatan Rakyat in the 13th General Election.

BN walked away from a successful campaign with wins in 21 out of 36 state seats and 10 out of the 15 parliamentary seats in the state. By comparison, BN only managed four parliamentary seats and 14 state seats in the last GE.

"The people are fed up with PAS who didn't deliver when they were running the state," BN state communications chairman Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah told The Malaysian Reserve yesterday. "People were not impressed with what PAS had done when it was in power."

"Now BN will do its utmost to deliver what it promised in its AkuJanji manifesto. People of Kedah also felt that PAS needed to prove that they were capable and not only to rely on their name.

"Kedah is not like Kelantan. We are more flexible and people are not too fixated on PAS," said a Kedahan politician who declined to be named.

He said many Kedahans are also proud that the state has produced two prime ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman and Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who are both from BN.

During its five year administration of the state, PAS did not do its cause any favours by frequently providing fodder for the newspaper about mismanagement, internal strife and disunity even within the state government.

Mahathir's son, Mukhriz, giving up his parliamentary seat to contest and win the state seat of Ayer Hitam was also seen as a factor which swayed voters because he is seen as able to attract big projects to the state. One day before GE13, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak announced that Mukhriz would be appointed mentri besar if BN were to win Kedah.

Posted: 13 May 2013 01:27 PM PDT