GE 15: One week out

BN, PN, and PH are all in the race

There is now only one week to go before the people vote. There are many things happening around the country within 222 federal electorates, and 3 state elections. Here is a summary of some of the important happenings:

1.      Campaigns of the major groupings

Asia Sentinel reported from a reliable source within UMNO that jailed ex-prime minister Najib Razak has held out on providing much needed funds to the UMNO campaign, thus starving party campaign operations. Most UMNO candidates are relying upon there own funds to get through, which is expensive, with a single seat requiring much more than RM 2 million.

There is a possible rift beneath the surface, which may influence what happens within UMNO after the election.

In addition, there are reports of sabotage going on within a number of local campaigns from disgruntled supporters. Seats like Arau, Alor Setar, Padang Besar, Tanjung Karang, and Zahid’s seat of Bagan Datuk are examples. The UMNO campaign is not going as smoothly as expected, with UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi looking like a liability. Some believe Zahid may have difficulty holding onto his own seat of Bagan Datuk in Perak. Caretaker prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has become very quiet in the second half of the week.

Anwar believes he can win

Umno’s confidence at the start of the campaign has declined drastically.

Perikatan Nasional appears to be going well, after many believed Bersatu could be almost wiped out in this election. Unlike BN, PN appear to be well resourced in campaigning. Muhyiddin has reframed Bersatu’s narrative as the ‘good Malay coalition’ that will bring honest government. This is appealing and many are now predicting that PN may take a lot of seats within the Malay heartlands.

In contrast, Anwar Ibrahim is displaying classic Anwar rhetoric on the hustings. Some believe they will perform much better than in Melaka and Johor. There has been a lot of disagreement between Anwar Ibrahim and Rafizi Ramli.

It appears, the selection Ramanan Ramakrishnan, over incumbent Sivarasa Rasiah could jeopardize holding the seat against challenger Khairy Jamaluddin of UMNO, displaced from Rembau. Rafizi’s brazen approach has often created friction between PH partners.

Mahathir’s Pejuang and GTA coalition appears to be running far behind all the others. There have been reportedly low turnouts at some ceramah. Over the next week, the three incumbent Pejuang MPs in Kedah must campaign hard within their own seats to hold on.

Will this be the last hurrah?

2.      PKR’s disclosure of candidate assets

PKR candidates all disclosed their assets by making Statutory Declarations. This included Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman of MUDA. However, these statements did not disclose incomes, or assets of their spouses and children.

The DAP has not followed suit, claiming it is not their party policy. This has disappointed many who were very keen to see what assets party leader Lim Guan Eng would disclose.

The Centre for Combating Corruption and Cronyism (C4) earlier in the week issued a press statement indicating their concern DAP Puchong candidate Yeo Bee Yin’s potential conflict of interests due to family ties. Yeo very quickly refuted these claims by pointing out the real estate developments related to her husband’s company IOI were not within the Puchong electorate.

Yeo Bee Yin

Yeo reflected, rather than refuted the C4 concern, as it really isn’t the point where in the country IOI assets are physically located, as Yeo was once a federal minister, and might possibly be one, if PH won office again. Yeo, the Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister under the PH government actually signed off on the renewal of the Lynas Corporation license to operate in Malaysia, contrary to PH policy. There were a number of excuses made at the time. However, Yeo always had the option of resigning her ministry on principle, but did not exercise her right.

3.      Release of coalition policy manifestos

All the political groupings have launched their respective policy manifestos. All the manifestos are high spending and could even be considered inflationary. If Malaysia’s 3rd quarter GDP really grew 14.3%, then higher inflation, due to an over heating economy is a real danger.

No one talking about how to influence BNM on interest rates and money supply.

No coalition has addressed this issue.

Food security has been addressed poorly. PH is looking towards more subsidies, while PN will throw money into creating more public sector solutions, which haven’t worked in the past. BN is more comprehensive, looking at easing bureaucracy, giving more training to farmers, and telling GLCs to focus more on food production.

No coalition has costed any of their proposed polices. So, the question remains, how are all these promises going to be paid for? The coalition that actually comes to power on November 19, will within a few months after taking office most likely have to revive the GST debate once again.

No one in the media is asking; How much do these coalition promises cost? Will each coalition guarantee that there won’t be a reintroduction of GST? How is each coalition going to tackle inflation?

One very positive aspect of the BN manifesto, is that all their anti-poverty programs are needs, rather than race based. This is a radical departure from the NEP approach in operation for the last 50 years by BN.

One of the other surprises of this election is that race issues have not been raised much. So far, so good.

Meanwhile, police have gone around the country arresting candidates who hadn’t applied for a recently announced campaigning permit, while there has been a data breach at the Electoral Commission, where 80,000 voter files have been allegedly stolen and sold off.

Subscribe Below: