Nizar: The Malays are back with us

Perak's former chief minister says that PAS is gradually reeling in the Malay votes there.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malay majority areas in Perak have been fierce battlegrounds for BN and Pakatan Rakyat for the past three years.

With most of the 24 marginal state seats located in these areas the Malay electorate’s support is vital for the opposition coalition to reclaim the government that it lost in February 2009.

Pakatan suffered not only an excruciating handing back of the state to BN but also a sharp blow to the reputation of its menteri besar, Nizar Jamaluddin, who was scorned as a “DAP puppet” and a “traitor” to the Perak sultan for refusing a royal order to vacate his post.

Pakatan scrambled to get back on its feet but a year later Nizar admitted that both he and the coalition were unable to enter remote Malay areas where they most needed to set the record straight.

At the time Pakatan gauged that its popularity among rural Malay voters had dipped 7-8 percent from the 40 percent it had enjoyed in the previous general election.

In February last year PAS state treasurer, Abdul Rahim Ariff, was quoted in a Wikileaks report as saying that if elections were held there and then the Malay votes would split evenly between Umno and PAS unlike in March 2008 when there was a clear swing of Malay votes towards PAS and PKR.

But the tide appears to be changing yet again. In an interview with FMT last week, Nizar said that PAS’ steady groundwork is paying off with Malay electorate support flowing back in its direction.

The Bukit Gantang MP and his party have finally broken the seal on the doors into Felda and Felcra  where they are going all out to keep it open.

“There is a taskforce within PAS and PKR focusing solely on Felda issues and working closely with the Felda central committee,” Nizar said.

“We’ve been working on six Felda sites so far and are slowly inching deeper into the region. And what we’ve found is that the objection towards PAS isn’t as strong as before.”

Three elements lie behind this shift. The first is the relationship PAS has forged with the second generation of Felda settlers who are currently living outside their settlement and exposed to news sources beyond the mainstream spectrum.

“These youth are those who are bringing back our messages to their parents and convincing them to take a different point of view,” Nizar said.

The second element is the redemption of PAS and Nizar’s image through the re-telling of the coup d’etat through Pakatan’s eyes.

“Umno’s justification was that I represented a Chinese government and it would retain a Malay one,” Nizar stated. “Remote Malay village communities agreed and condoned Umno’s actions.”

“Over time they forgot about it but we have been reminding them through VCDs, flyers and ceramahs. And when we explained it in their language they began to understand. So this issue will continue to be the prime agenda of all our ceramahs.”

The third element is a bonus delivered by BN through the recent NFC feedlot scandal with which many Felda settlers can comprehend and identify. And this, Nizar stated, has “tremendously boosted” Malay support for PAS.

He has nevertheless warned his compatriots against basking in overconfidence particularly when BN’s top guns are making frequent descents upon the state.

“(Prime minister) Najib (Tun Razak) has been spending a lot of time in Perak and (deputy prime minister) Muhyiddin (Yassin) is there twice a month,” he said.

“Four federal ministers were transferred to Perak last month where they gathered 12,000 civil servants for a ceramah in Kuala Kangsar. There is money being thrown around but I believe that the people will take it without giving their votes in return.”

Nizar added that PAS has also learned from its past mistake of neglecting to assure the Malays that their interests wouldn’t be upstaged by those of the non-Malays.

The Malays community forms 54 percent of Peraks electorate with the Chinese at 32 percent and the Indians at 13 percent.

PAS’ provision of new hectares of land to Chinese communities, schools and associations was understandably met with unhappiness by the Malays who felt that their rights and privileges were being by their new government. This further convinced them that only Umno was able to protect their interests.

“At the time we only had Barisan Alternatif and we built a state government based on which party won the most seats,” Nizar explained. “And since DAP won 18 seats most of the cabinet members represented the party.”

“But we now have an understanding within Pakatan of the importance of a balanced government. We have felt the negative implications of not showing a fair distribution among the communities and will now work on creating a balance based on racial composition.”