RAVING & RANTING over Allah won't help Umno score Muslim votes - survey

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 — The ongoing dispute over non-Muslims’ right to use “Allah” — the Arabic word for God — is not likely to help the Barisan Nasional (BN) score more points with voters in Kajang, a survey released today showed.

In a Universiti Malaya Centre for Elections and Democracy (Umcedel) survey conducted early this month, 55 per cent of the 576 Kajang voters polled said the “Allah” issue would not induce them to vote for BN.

Only 17 per cent polled said they would be swayed to support BN, which is seeking to wrest back the state seat it lost to the federal opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) last year.

“... if this issue is brought to Kajang, it is not certain that it would be an issue that draws voter support,” Umcedel director Prof Datuk Dr Mohammad Redzuan Othman told reporters here, in explaining the findings.

He added that the results indicated that Malaysians felt the “Allah” dispute creates tension within the country and were not keen to see the issue being used for political purposes.

Despite non-Muslims saying that the Federal Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom protects their use of the word “Allah” in the practice of their own faith, some local Muslims insist that the word is exclusive to Islam.

But in the survey, Malay respondents who said the “Allah” issue would not influence them to support BN stood at 60 per cent, while Chinese and Indian voters who gave similar answers stood at 54 and 36 per cent.

Only 21 per cent Malay voters polled said they would support BN because of the “Allah” issue, while 13 per cent and seven per cent from the Chinese and Indian community said the same.

The Kajang constituency is 48 per cent Malay, 41 per cent Chinese and 10 per cent Indian.

The proportion of the survey’s respondents were matched against the actual demographics ratio — including race, education level, housing area, occupation and income level — of the Kajang electorate in all 16 voting districts,  Umcedel said.

In the same survey carried out from February 14 to 15, those who felt the “Allah” issue would not draw their support were consistently high regardless of residence areas, including 85 per cent in the villages and 65 per cent in high-rises.

The Kajang by-election is set for voting on March 23, with nomination fixed on March 11.

The Catholic Church is appealing the Court of Appeal’s landmark ruling last October overturning a lower court’s 2009 decision that had upheld its constitutional right to use “Allah” in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its weekly Herald.

Malaysia’s highest court, the Federal Court, will hear arguments on March 5 before deciding if the Church is allowed to appeal.

In addition to the Herald, two other cases concerning the use of “Allah” by Christians are pending at High Court level.

The first was filed by the Sabah Sidang Injil Borneo (Borneo Evangelical Church) against the Home Ministry over the confiscation in 2007 of its Malay-language children’s books containing the word ‘Allah.’

The other was brought by Sarawakian Christian, Jill Ireland Lawrence Bill, after the government seized her audio compact discs, which also contain the word “Allah”, in 2008. - themalaymail