Strong middle class won’t weaken race-based parties, says analyst

 

Those who become middle-class by their own efforts will favour multiracial parties, but not those who benefited from race-based policies, says an analyst.

PETALING JAYA: Race-based parties will continue to dominate Malaysia’s political arena even if the middle class grows and becomes stronger, says political analyst James Chin.

Chin said some of the purveyors of racial or religious-centric politics come from the upper and middle class segments of society, even beyond Malaysia.

“They use it to keep themselves in power and they are the ones who have made their political parties more racial and religious-based,” said Chin, a professor at the University of Tasmania

“In fact, if you look at studies done on polarisation in politics in the United States, it is the middle, middle-upper class who are creating this polarisation,” he told FMT.

Chin’s remarks were in response to comments by Subang MP Wong Chen that people tended to vote for multiracial parties as their incomes increased and they moved into the middle-class bracket. Wong said there would be no end to prominence of race-based parties until the middle class becomes stronger.

However, Chin said a stronger Malay middle class did not abate the rise of political Islam in Malaysia over the past 30 years alongside the nation’s economic growth.

Another analyst, Azmi Hassan of Akademi Nusantara, said Wong’s statement would largely be true for middle-class folk who achieve that status through their own tenacity and hard work.

However, the same could not be said of those who move up through the government’s race-based policies, he added.

“If they achieve their high-income, middle-income status through their hard work, then the tendency that they will vote for a multiracial party, instead of a race-based one, is very, very high. Their mind is not constrained by government subsidies or government quotas.

“But if they achieve their standing via government policies, then they tend to believe that government policies have helped them. So the tendency of them voting for a multiracial party is quite low compared to the first group,” said Azmi.

He said communalism had been ingrained in national politics for many decades, and that the problem was how politicians used racial or religious issues to canvass for votes.

It was for that reason that parties which brand themselves as multiracial, such as PKR and DAP, cannot go it alone.

“They need to work in a coalition. PKR and DAP, for example, need to work with Amanah, and now Umno to achieve their target. So there’s quite a long way to go before multiracial parties become the norm of the day,” Azmi said. - FMT