Umno Baru’s hidden agenda

Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
May 20, 2013

When Ahmad Zahid Hamidi – the new home minister – told disgruntled opposition supporters that they should migrate if they were unhappy with the results of GE13, he had unwittingly confessed that Umno Baru has a hidden agenda.

This little-known plan is Umno Baru’s mass immigration policy and is a deliberate ploy fuelled by political self-interests. Asking people to emigrate will ensure that Malaysia is populated largely by Umno Baru-putras and selected foreigners.

Zahid reluctantly acknowledged that the rakyat was disappointed with the rigging of the polls, but at the same time, he revealed the fears of Umno Baru leaders. The cheating did not go as smoothly and secretly as they had intended.

Zahid possesses neither charisma nor intellect. His oft repeated line is for people to shape up or ship out. With each new political appointment, he stuns us with his ability to set new standards for boorish behaviour.

In 2008, he was appointed a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi with a portfolio which included religious affairs and agencies like the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim). He caused controversy when he warned officers that they had to support the government’s policies, or leave.

When Abdullah resigned and Najib Abdul Razak took over in 2009, Zahid was made the defence minister. He invited criticism when he said that the low percentage of non-Malays in the armed forces showed that they lacked patriotism.

Last week, Zahid could not resist baiting the public, telling the people who opposed the results of GE13 to “migrate elsewhere”.

Now, one out of every seven people in the country is a foreigner. If we were to follow Zahid’s advice, this would increase to one in five. This is based upon a population of 28 million, however, none of the rakyat know the true population of the country. The census figures are another of Umno Baru’s dirty little secrets, which they use to exert control over the rakyat.

Zahid has the ability to make remarks without thinking of the consequences. Perhaps his mouth works faster than his brain. On the other hand, his boss, Najib prefers to keep mum when ministers make provocative statements.

A history with Najib and Anwar

The two men – Zahid and Najib – share a long history which started when Zahid became Najib’s political secretary in 1986, but Zahid has also been closely linked with Anwar.

In 1998, Zahid supported calls for the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to curb cronyism and nepotism. After a brief period of incarceration, Zahid claimed that he had been duped by Anwar to challenge Mahathir.

After a much publicised apology to Mahathir, Zahid returned to Umno Baru, presumably with more than just his reputation bolstered.

Malaysia’s youth are not as easily fooled by Umno Baru’s tactics, social networking sites keep them informed and in GE13, they demanded fairness and change.

Influential people like student activist Adam Adli have been threatened with sedition, Seri Setia assemblyperson Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad (left) has been charged with organising a mass rally, and Anwar Ibrahim has predicted that the authorities will be arresting him soon.

Most of us are shaped by our experiences in youth. Friends who grew up with Mahathir claim that the young Mahathir saw a lot of poverty on his rounds as a doctor. He would have known about the economic disparities between the various races, and to be fair, he treated many people without charge.

When he became a politician, Mahathir probably realised that his affirmative action policies could not remain in perpetuity. He knew that as Malays became better educated and more affluent, they would not return to the rural areas.

He understood that as people became increasingly exposed to global changes and opened their minds to different experiences, his affirmative action polices would lose their appeal.

Mahathir (right) knew that if ordinary Malaysians refused to vote for Umno Baru, he would have to bring people in from overseas to address the shortfall.

Our poorer neighbours – Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, Bangladesh and Pakistan – have several million people who would willingly work for longer hours and less money. By giving them jobs and promising them citizenship, they became indebted to Mahathir.

Only Malays may join Umno Baru, and hence only Malays are likely to vote for Umno Baru, so only Muslims who could become ‘instant Malays’ were imported.

Mahathir used these people, in a most evil fashion, to provide short-term economic benefits at the expense of ordinary Malaysians. His desire to give Umno Baru (and BN) long-term political and electoral advantages was even more pernicious.

The difficulty of introducing a Malaysian minimum working wage is widely known. Why would the authorities and employers approve this policy, when laws exist to import cheap labour to depress wages and control the people, the economy and future votes?

Rural folk made vulnerable

Mahathir abused people in the rural areas, as they were more vulnerable. He continued to neglect the rural communities by not providing job opportunities or by depriving them of infrastructure and services.

Many children of Felda settlers are graduates, but they are hampered by a lack of suitable jobs back in their communities and cannot make a valuable contribution to society.

Friends have complained of large numbers of Felda graduates who are unemployed. Some hold degrees in aeronautical engineering which cannot benefit their community, whilst others have complained that some graduates have skills which are not put to good use in their areas.

In the end, the disheartened youth gravitate to the cities, to be followed shortly by the older generation. Then, the rural areas become depopulated, and to sustain the economy, more foreign workers are smuggled in by the authorities.

With more foreigners, both legal and illegal being imported, the Umno Baru vote bank is endless. The migrants provide Umno Baru with votes, they generate production on the estates and boost the economy.

Umno Baru does not care that the urban areas are bursting with displaced Malaysians from the surrounding countryside.

Recently, parts of some cities are also being populated by foreigners. Malaysians have complained about a decline in services provided by hospitals, schools and community housing. The worst places record high rates of crime.

We know that from the 1980s onwards, Indians were displaced from the estates when plantations took over large tracts of land, perhaps, to satisfy Mahathir.

If the import of foreigners is not properly managed in the near future, the remaining Felda settlers and rural Malays will complete the exodus to the cities.

When that happens, and the Malays finally realise that Umno Baru has duped them, the recriminations will begin in earnest and Umno Baru will face a severe backlash from a cynical Malay community.

Then, politicians like Ahmad Zahid will wish that they had acceded to the relatively mild demands of free and fair elections from genuine Malaysians, rather than tell them to migrate.

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MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real-speak’, this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.