By Peter Sibon
KUCHING, May 28: Malays in Peninsular Malaysia will continue to dictate the political bearing of the country as they form the majority in 57 per cent or 128 out of Parliament’s 222 seats, opines Universiti Putra Malaysia political scientist, Prof Dr Jayum Jawan.
As such, he pointed out, the non-Malays have no bearing on any political processes in the country.
“The non-Malays have no bearing in these political processes because the Chinese have only 37 majority seats (sic) in the current 222-seat Malaysian Parliament while the Malays in Peninsular Malaysia have 128 majority seats (sic) out of 222 seats in the Malaysian Parliament.
“And 128 seats alone can determine the government, with or without the support from Sabah or Sarawak or the combination of both Bornean regions,” Jayum asserted here today.
He also highlighted that both Sarawak and Sabah have a combined total of 56 seats — Sarawak with 31 and Sabah with 25.
“In Sarawak there are ten (10) Malay/Melanau majority seats (sic), ten (10) Iban, Chinese (6), Orang Ulu (2) and Bidayuh (3) while in Sabah, the Chinese has three majority, non-Muslim (9) and the Muslim have 13 majority seats (sic),” he added.
As for the Indians, Jawan highlighted, they do not hold majority in any Parliamentary constituencies, but for certain seats in Peninsular Malaysia, Indian voters make up about 20 per cent of the total voters.
However, he described the current political situation in the country now as worse than in 1969 which was tainted by the 13 May incident and marked by racial riots.
“Malay political power is very volatile because many Malay groups have emerged and are hungry at the prospect of snatching power from each other.
“Before, it was just Umno (United Malays National Organisation), but now there are many Malay groups. Unfortunately for non-Malays, all these groups have the same agenda i.e. Malay-centric government and policy.
“The difference will be in how they word their goals and objectives that would appeal to Malays in the first instance and hopefully will appeal to non-Malays as well,” he opined.
Jayum expects that the current political instability in the country will continue until the next general election.
“And if the coming general election does not produce a clear-cut winner with enough majority on their own as did Alliance and BN (Barisan Nasional) in the past, political instability will continue to characterise Malaysian politics because there is generally a low level of integrity and honour among elected representatives who would not think twice about jumping ship,” he added. — DayakDaily
