The kind of info that's interestingThe lead story in The Star yesterday was on uniformed personnel living overseas (postal voters) who started voting. This is front page news?
Buried deep inside the paper, on page 18, was a thought piece on how UMNO's policies would be affected -- and what would happen to the country -- if non-Malays were to vote overwhelmingly for the opposition, which was predicted to reverse any trend towards lifting NEP special rights. Also in the analysis was a forecast of what would happen if a large percentage of Malays were found to have voted for the opposition -- it was expected to worsen the case for change to the ethnic equation and addressing issues related to religion, even more so than if only non-Malays voted for the opposition. [Lifted straight out of the article word for word.]
Data to illustrate the subject would have been useful, e.g. court cases involving religion -- who the judge was, who the judge is linked to within the prime minister's administration or state political apparatus, if any; arrests involving religion -- or the state of ethnic schools: how many are there; has the number gone up or down; has money been flowing to them or not; who supports them within the administration and who doesn't. It takes time, but it's simple enough to look this stuff up and certainly not impossible.
Buried deep inside the paper, on page 18, was a thought piece on how UMNO's policies would be affected -- and what would happen to the country -- if non-Malays were to vote overwhelmingly for the opposition, which was predicted to reverse any trend towards lifting NEP special rights. Also in the analysis was a forecast of what would happen if a large percentage of Malays were found to have voted for the opposition -- it was expected to worsen the case for change to the ethnic equation and addressing issues related to religion, even more so than if only non-Malays voted for the opposition. [Lifted straight out of the article word for word.]
Data to illustrate the subject would have been useful, e.g. court cases involving religion -- who the judge was, who the judge is linked to within the prime minister's administration or state political apparatus, if any; arrests involving religion -- or the state of ethnic schools: how many are there; has the number gone up or down; has money been flowing to them or not; who supports them within the administration and who doesn't. It takes time, but it's simple enough to look this stuff up and certainly not impossible.
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The Malaysian election is not about empowerment, leadership, teamwork and moving forward. In that sense, it's not interesting. But it's worth paying attention because it's the down cycle for the ruling parties and it's a chance to see if the country cares about the things that are wrong right now: the police are not doing a good job keeping us and our property safe (Sharlinie, petty crime like breaking and entering); racial tension seems to have spiked. Not that it matters other than the novelty of it, but it is also the last election before Mr. Anwar Ibrahim becomes a free man. It would have made a cute story -- if Mr. Anwar was running, who is likely to have voted? How many of them are there?
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