Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s recent use of increasingly strident race rhetoric is standard practice for Umno when faced with troubled times, say political commentators.
Political scientist Dr Farish Noor said Umno playing the race card was nothing new, and followed a pattern where the party would amplify parochialism whenever it was not strong enough to fend off challenges from the opposition or there was an internal leadership crisis.
“This use of ethno-nationalist discourse has always been part and parcel of Umno politics since the 70s,” Farish told The Malaysian Insider.
He also said the deputy prime minister’s constant harping on issues calculated to appeal to Malay voters was consistent with the historical role of his position as Umno deputy president.
“There’s always been this history of this double act in Umno... It’s not even a new script,” Farish pointed out.
He said that Umno has to have two faces, with the prime minister acting as a “bridge-builder” to the non-Malays and the world while his deputy was responsible for unifying the party.
Farish pointed out that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim played a similar role as Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s second before his fall from favour in 1998.
Najib and Muhyiddin’s (left) seemingly opposing voices fit a long-established Umno mould. — file pic
“Anwar’s task in the 80s was simple — to promote Umno’s Islamic credentials and to harass PAS... [while] Dr Mahathir sold the idea of a developed Malaysia abroad,” he said.
“We can go back and read all their speeches. Anwar was doing then what Muhyiddin’s doing now.”
Farish added that this arrangement was likely to persist for the foreseeable future, citing Umno’s “institutional inertia” and resistance to change.
“If Muhyiddin became PM tomorrow, he would need someone to play the role he’s playing now,” the political scientist said.
Monash University Malaysia political scientist Dr James Chin argued that this “division of labour” between Najib and Muhyiddin showed that Umno had not learned anything from its disappointing performance in Election 2008.
“They still think they can talk to different communities using different media,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
“The new media operates totally differently — it operates in all languages. It doesn’t matter if you speak it in Tamil like Samy Vellu or in Mandarin like the MCA... You can’t specify your message to one particular ethnic community anymore.”
However, Chin said the party will continue to tell Malays to unite under Umno or lose the Malay state they claim the Malay nationalist party had successfully built since 1969.
“It is consistent with the overall product that they’re selling, which is ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ (Malay dominance),” he said.
He also said the stark warnings issued by Umno in recent weeks laid the ground for the coming general election, which he claimed was just around the corner.
“They’re just positioning themselves [for the general election],” Chin said.
“The general election is crucial for Najib. If he loses further ground then Umno will only allow him to stay for one term. If he manages to win big, then he’ll be there for at least two terms.”
Merdeka Center director Ibrahim Suffian concurred with Farish’s assessment that Muhyiddin’s recent dire warnings to Malays was business as usual.
“I’m not sure if there’s anything new there,” he said of Umno’s attempt at conflating Malay political and economic well-being with Malay unity.
“Ethnic unity in times of economic uncertainty strikes the strongest chord.”
Ibrahim also identified the Najib-Muhyiddin double act as an attempt to strike a balance between its non-Malay supporters and investors, and its Malay-centric support base.
“The results of [Election] 2008 have prompted them to address the grievances of the minorities but they’ve realised a lot of the changes... are uncomfortable to their base,” he said.
“They have to keep the base.”
However, the pollster argued that while Umno’s rhetoric struck a chord with many working class and lower middle-class Malays, there was still a disconnect between the party’s words and the situation on the ground.
“Part of the rhetoric doesn’t meet the reality they (the Malays) are confronted with,” he said, citing rising inflation as well as the lack of job opportunities and access to government assistance for urban Malays.
“Malays living in urban areas generally fall out of the ambit of government assistance,” Ibrahim added.
While he admitted that it will be hard for Umno to keep to race-based politics while leading a multi-ethnic coalition, Ibrahim nonetheless defended the Barisan Nasional (BN) solution as having the potential to occupy the centre ground of Malaysian politics through “best compromises”.
“It (the coalition) is supposed to bring moderation and I think that’s how it was designed by the country’s forefathers.”
“What becomes a problem is when representatives from one group see themselves as having greater rights than others,” Ibrahim said.
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