-Dr. S. Ramakrishnan, Former Senator, May 22, 2014.

A year after the most intensely fought general elections in 2013, the Teluk Intan by-election this month represents a test whether the hitherto UMNO/BN’s policy of divisiveness has prevailed or has been discarded.

The battle for Teluk Intan appears to be equally a tough fight for both BN and DAP.

Whenever UMNO faces a tough election against the DAP, it has consistently employed bigotry and race as the central election issue to run down its opponent.

The fight is more intense in this by-election as the DAP has fielded a young Malay girl. This has the effect of putting fear into UMNO which then becomes racial whenever the DAP’s candidate is a brave Malay.

And it becomes even worse when the candidate this time is a young Malay girl educated from the very exclusively Malay centered UiTM.

Any Malay who is courageous and thinks differently out-of-the-box is labelled and accused of being a traitor who is betraying their community.

By fielding a Malay candidate, DAP is challenging the very political divide and segregation that UMNO has painstakingly upheld since independence.

The policy has been re-engineered to perpetuate itself and to stay in power. UMNO is threatened by this multiracial approach by the DAP as the BN’s support has been seriously eroded  since 2008.

They have to face PKR and PAS to retain the Malay heartland rural areas but now the DAP is opening a new front to entice liberal and urban Malay youths. In social media, Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud is well accepted by all races much to the disdain of the elders in UMNO who cannot accept this new revolutionary  development.

Young Malays have supported Pakatan Rakyat during the 2013 general elections. While the people gravitate towards integration, UMNO is for differentiation and against a one and truly united Malaysia which goes against their stock trade of division and exclusivity.

All these show the UMNO/BN days are numbered and the future picture of Malaysia is one without UMNO in power.

Old, Bigoted Policies

The party strives on base tactics by calling others racist but keeps the nation chronically racially divided country.

Even after 57 years of independence Malaysian polity is dominated by race and religion. I wonder how many Malaysians mix with other races in their daily life.

Perhaps, somewhere and at some point, some survey should have been done to know the percentage Malaysians who mix with other races, both in urban and rural areas. The results maybe shocking for UMNO.

On macro scale, all ETP and GTP projects implemented since 2009 are slow and staggering to achieve their targets due to the racially divisive policies of UMNO/BN.

All efforts to reduce corruption, raise the education quality, improve government services and delivery have not yielded any positive results…except in government statistics!

The Teluk Intan by-election is a test whether the majority of Malaysians have accepted the move forward to multiculturalism and a plural society. A win for Dyana Sofya of DAP is a rejection of UMNO’s race-riddled and bigoted politics by Malaysians in general and younger Malays in particular.

Malaysians are already burdened with price increases and can look forward to another round of increase after the implementation of GST next April. The Merdeka Center survey during March 2014, shows that 49% of Malaysians feel that the country is heading in the wrong direction and are unhappy with how the country is managed. Never before such high level of dissatisfaction!

Neighboring countries that were far behind in development are on the fast track to overtake Malaysia in economy and good governance. UMNO/BN led by PM Najib Tun Razak has lost direction to steward this country towards economic growth.

It’s the extremist and UMNO hardliners who seem to be setting the direction and pace towards inclusiveness and mediocre economic growth.

We seem to be running on the spot while others are overtaking us.

Let the Teluk Intan by-election be the referendum on a truly Malaysian Malaysia verses the old and outmoded racially divided policy that has prevailed in the past.