Is Mahathir on track to win the 14th General Election?

Politically, incumbents may normally win; this has been true for a long time, however, the on-coming Malaysia 14^th general election might shatter the myth as the opposition leader, 93 years old Mahathir is a lot more popular than any other incumbent. 

There is now the more than theoretical possibility that Mahathir will return to lead the country should the opposition win the election. Impossible, though unlikely, but the chances of happening are not exactly slim. We can’t denied the possibility of happening as politics is an art of impossible.

The assumption could not be accepted and rejected sharp by pro-ruling coalition parties and BN as the underlying assumption is identical and false, but why the pro-opposition and most of the grass root voters strongly accept uncritically? 

Although the electoral system makes ruling party defeat impossible, Mahathir former UMNO president and prime minister 22 years in power, now leader of the alliance opposition parties is nonetheless, bidding to oust the incumbent. It is said that he is denounce political correctness.

Ironically, under current political system, it’s believed that the electoral system makes ruling BN defeat impossible although quite a number of the Malaysians are angry with Najib and his administration. Undeniably, BN has control an incredibly strong political machine, with 1.6 million civil servants or about 11 percent of the labor force across the country. 

The Malaysia’s bureaucracy is one of the biggest in the world. The ratio is the highest of civil service to population in the world with 1 civil servant to 19.37 citizens, while Singapore is 1: 71.4 people and Indonesia is 1:110. 

Crucially, it's understandable that the policy of the BN government has always been focused on patronage politics of racial derived from a centralized political system which dispensing largesse from UMNO. In addition, UMNO was also accused to capitalize the distribution of state money through affirmative action schemes to mostly rural Malay base with a significant lump sum siphoned off.

Undeniably, the lack of solution to the long-term negative consequences of UMNO Malay-centrism on Malaysian nation building that led to the poor management of public resources and failure in policy implementation cause the dissatisfaction in the first place.

Despite their unchallenged status, the economic burdens on the middle and lower classes are increasing while the nation is experiencing high economic growth. It make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Malaysia is one of the top 10 countries with the highest student mobility in the world with more than 56,000 students studying abroad. 

Among the students, the government is funding around 7,736 students abroad. The top destinations for Malaysia students go to study are Australia, United Kingdom, USA and Canada. Other non-English speaking countries are Egypt, India, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

Graduates who have studying abroad may well change the way they view all kinds of things which previously might be taken for granted. On top of that, the education helps them to understand besides analyze problems and phenomena from a longer-term worldwide perspective. Moreover, long-term exposure and experience in other culture especially advanced countries may have the tendency to developed the graduates to think objectively regarding own country, tolerate differences and recognize and appreciated diversity.

Undeniably, most of the scholarship recipients look at the government-funded education as a privilege, a right and not a responsibility although the paradox of policies entails major social cost. They have conspicuously failed to look at government policies objectively besides political significant and unintended consequences.

 

Not surprisingly, many of the English educated Malay elite who were successively selected to received western education since independent till now are assessed the government governance and valued the entire demonetization effort to a certain degree is a failure.

The problems of governance that arise in the states governs by UNMO are the repercussion of poor financial management, poor management of public resources and failure in policy implementation by the persons in charge who lack commitment, integrity and the relevant knowledge.

However, it seems almost certain that the poor governance has reached the end of the line, all which is left to the elite Malay community to deal with the long-term negative consequences of UMNO’s Malay-centrism on Malaysian nation building.

Some political observers have been seen over the last decades a gradual increase in the amount of Malay elite and the Malay elite era is emerging. In other words, one huge definite change over last decades has been the emergence of large enough English educated urban middle class Malay elite to contain the heat pulse completely. They appreciated the social stability and cultural pride and believe that only under a reformed system of good governance can bring, instead of acting out of highly augmented fear of economic and the irrelevance of politic as a community. 

In the same time, the Malay policy along ethnic line should never supposed to be the goal in itself as the ultimate purpose of a racial collective is to ensure its own survival. Some political observers believe that the Malay-centric nation building policy requires Malaysian nation building to remain successful.

In other words, it is most likely that the Malay-centric concept should go along with system-centric system which contains broad ethnic diversity where government is relatively capable. Otherwise, the country divides even further rather than unite together. The middle class is either stagnating economically or disappearing while the poor getting poorer and the rich keep getting richer, increasingly, class division and economic disparity becomes an emerging theme as anger mounts. Reforming Malay politics by English educated urban middle class Malay elite that accept multiculturalism seems to be the solution to the existing problem.

 

Unfortunately, it is recognized in greater circles that the opposition coalition is fragile as it is only an election-winning machine. The alliance between the opposition parties precisely turns out to be a marriage of convenience rather than ideological affinity. Lack of underlying comity and ideological affinity to hold the opposition coalition parties together is their contingency dilemma which is the difficult obstacle to overcome.

 

Ironically, issues come and go, but the underlying unease remains no matter how many rebuttal to spine a given issues. However, BN the ruling party is still facing unsolved problems with issues like mega scandal 1MDB, GST, abuse of power, mismanagement, Islamism besides prices soaring. In addition, skyrocketing prices have also made housing a political issue and has really added fuel to the fire.

On the other hand, the young voters needs to be convinced that the opposition can do better than the current ruling BN by lowering the cost of living, job opportunity, tertiary education and non-halal matters and etc. 

 

Ordinary voters have preferences about what the existing government ought to do and elect them and vice versa. However, some of the incumbent’s politicians have lost some votes in recent years; but neither opposition support has high enough to unseat them. 

More often than not, in protesting, quite a number of the voters who decided to stay away and refuse to cast their votes during the election which created the situation that those bad politicians are elected by good people who refuse to vote.

Undeniably, the current electoral system makes ruling BN defeat impossible. In the coming election, the task to defeat becomes even harder as the Election Commission embarks on an exercise to redelineate electoral boundaries, allegedly to dilute the opposition influencing power and given more say to the rural Malay voters, thus made the ruling BN in an even better position than in 2013. 

Contrary to what some have suggested, although most voters are unhappy with the current ruling BN but it doesn’t mean that most voters who will actually cast the vote on Election Day will vote for the opposition. 

Things happen and it matters and people often prefer political positions that advance their own interest. But the things aren’t looking so good for Najib, with a lack of significant achievements and “scandals piling up”, although the economy currently is considered a positive economic.

 

2013 General election saw BN lose its 2/3 majority in parliament along with the popular vote. However, BN maintain its power by gerrymandering.  The nearly 4 years since scandal happened after scandal, relentless crackdown, the fracturing of the opposition caused the long-term decline in public’s confidence in the ruling BN, but BN will still in power.

The real bottom line seems to be that, a lot hinges on issues and events and they are highly uncertain. However, there is some reason to believe that a betting person should regard Najib’s re-elected is more likely than not although his political performance doesn’t tell the whole story. By the same token, incumbent usually win the re-election. Although it has a lot to do with gerrymandering, but studies show that incumbency effects are very real, the incumbent usually wins.

In an uncertain world, the one thing really happen is the incumbent politician usually gets re-elected. This, however, has been true for a long time.

  

On the other hand, research suggests that’s not what happens matter, we tend to base on our opinions on beliefs when presented with contradictory facts, we adhere to our original belief even more strongly. This phenomenon effect is call backfire and it plays an especially important role in how to shape and solidify our belief on highly partisan issues.

The question remains: Can Mahathir capitalize on the BN’s unpopularity and its proven ability to win the coming election?