MAHATHIR TERKIAL-KIAL MENCARI SOKONGAN

Pengulas: Kapal Berita

Perhatikan banyak ungkapan 'ramai analis' yang disebut di dalam rencana Reuters yang dikepilkan. Saya mengambil beberapa hujah penting dalam rencana ini sambil menokok tambah sedikit komen:-

1. Nampak sangat Umno cukup bimbang... ia semakin malap sejak Lunas.
2. Umno gagal memberi penerangan atau rakyat sudah tidak mahu dengar penerangan umno yang membosankan
3. Umno terlalu banyak mengaibkan orang.. Ku Li dengan tengkolok dan Anwar dengan s*d*m*.
   
4. Umno menggunakan komposisi 55% melayu, 30% cina dan 10% india di negara ini untuk menggapai sokongan melalui isu perkauman.
5. Kebiadapan Mahathir terhadap Suqui menyebabkan orang Cina marah.
6. Isu Suqui sengaja ditiup untuk meraih sokongan - umno mahu melayu berpeluk dengannya - malang nya alangkah busuknya bau!
7. Mahathir sudah desperate... dia sanggup bermain api perkauman untuk menagih sokongan.
8. Ramai rakyat tidak percaya Anwar bersalah. Anwar 'dibunuh' demi nafsu politik Mahathir.
9. Mahathir telah merosakkan keharmonian kaum di negara ini. Sewajarnya dia berterima kasih orang cinalah yang memenangkan BN pada pemilu lepas.
10. Mahathir marah (di bulan puasa..hmmmm) kerana tewas di Lunas, sekarang dia membakar dengan deras. Tetapi dia sendiri yang akan lekas hangus nanti.
11. Isu Sekolah Wawasan turut menyebabkan BN hilang sokongan orang Cina di Lunas.
12. Seperti biasa Mahathir asyik menyalahkan pembangkang sahaja...
13. Pemuda Umno gagal berperanan di Lunas dan mereka juga punca BN tewas di Lunas. Gambar Aziz mengherdik Suqui meroskkan segala.
14. Pindaan perlembagaan dalam parti umno tidak menarik minat rakyat untuk menyukai umno semula.
    
15. Akar umbi begitu kecewa dengan kepimpinana.. tetapi hanya mampu diam kerana bimbang ditekan.
    
16. Tidak ADA orang dalam Umno yang dapat meniup pembaharuan. Yang ada hanyalah orang yang pandai MEMBARUAKAN Umno selama-lamanya.

ANALYSIS-MALAYSIA'S MAHATHIR STRUGGLES TO FIND RIGHT PITCH

Wed, 20 Dec 2000 07:01:48

By Simon Cameron-Moore

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Struggling to win back favour with the Malay majority, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad now has to do the same with Malaysia's ethnic Chinese community, whose support handed him election victory just a year ago.

Some political analysts in Malaysia say his attempts so far seem to be digging him deeper into trouble with both communities, rather than solving the problem.

Mahathir, who turned 75 on Wednesday, is ensconced at the head of a coalition with a comfortable majority and elections four years away. By rights, he should be more relaxed.

But his ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) is increasingly worried about its inability to counter the inroads into the Malay vote made by the active Islamic opposition.

That accounted for Mahathir's recent staunch defence of special rights and privileges for Malays after a Chinese lobby group called Suqiu (pronounced Soo-chew) said it was time to end the affirmative action programmes favouring Malays, which were introduced in 1971.

Keeping harmony in a society made up of 55 percent Malays, 30 percent Chinese and 10 percent Indians has been founded on the need to lift the economic standing of the Malays by giving them greater access to education and jobs.

The ferocity of Mahathir's rejection of Suqiu's proposal to move toward a greater meritocracy angered a lot of Chinese.

Analysts and opposition politicians said while ethnic sensitivities are ever present, there are no explosive tensions right now and the controversy appeared to be politically contrived, but not well enough to win ground for UMNO.

Veteran leader of the opposition Democratic Action Front Lim Kit Siang believes the "very synthetic" way the issue snowballed reflected Mahathir's problems with trying to keep Malay support. "To shore up his position he has countered by attacking the concerns of the Malaysian Chinese," Lim said.

LATE APOLOGY

The opposition Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), led by Muslim clerics, previously appealed mainly to rural Malays but is now winning votes in urban centres, capitalising on widespread unease at the imprisonment of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim for 15 years.

Despite the court guilty verdict, some Malays continue to say the charges of corruption and s###my, and the severity of the sentence were politically motivated to remove Anwar as a rival to Mahathir.

UMNO could counter PAS by adopting more Islamic policies, but that risks a backlash from the other communities. So instead it is seeking to burnish its image as a champion of Malay rights, political analysts say. But that may not work.

"By playing the Malay card the prime minister has read the situation wrongly, he is alienating the Chinese while he cannot redeem himself with the Malays," commented a local political analyst, who requested anonymity.

Not content with saying Suqiu was as bad as the communist rebels of the 1950's during his National Day speech last August, he said it again this month. This is strong wording in the context of the bitter fight against communism at that time.

For good measure, he also compared Suqiu with a shadowy Islamic cult, Al-Ma'unah, whose members are standing trial for waging war against Malaysia's king after an arms heist last July.

Mahathir subsequently apologised if he had caused any offence to Malaysian Chinese at large, but damage was done.

"He has been undermining the most solid vote bank he had in the last election without getting any benefit from it," a senior western diplomat told Reuters.

Mahathir has also been impatient over vocal Chinese suspicions that an education project to bring together schoolchildren from different ethnic backgrounds was aimed at eroding their language and culture.

SMARTING FROM DEFEAT

The defection of Chinese voters during last month's by-election at a constituency in Mahathir's home state led to defeat at the hands of an opposition party led by Anwar's wife, and underlined the political problem facing UMNO.

Mahathir accused the opposition of running a misinformation campaign to exploit ethnic and religious issues.

"A more confident government would have written off a by-election defeat as a protest vote. But this really caused quite a shock," the diplomat commented.

UMNO knows it has to work harder to reach out to the divided Malay community, and has made more effort in the past year.

The UMNO youth wing has become less centralised, and more active throughout the country, and there is a drive to recruit more young women to the party's ranks.

Legislators are also spending more time with their constituencies.

But analysts report frustration, and internal party infighting because of disappointment at the lack of fresh faces selected to fight last year's election.

Meanwhile, disenchanted Malays and younger UMNO members wonder where the reformist thinking will come from that could save the party's longer-term political future.