This is going to be a short and sweet post.
As many Malaysians are more than aware with, we will be
going to the polls on 9th May 2018, on a Wednesday. While my first
reaction was frustration, my next reaction was acceptance and understanding.
Since the past three years, the incumbent government has done everything in its
capacity—all legal, yes, but still questionable—to ensure they would have a high
possibility of winning the next election. Starting with Anwar Ibrahim’s
imprisonment in 2015, to the gerrymandering in the recent redelineation
exercise, to the dissolution of PPBM by the Registrar of Society, and finally
holding the general election in the middle of the week.
The academic in me has a simple and straightforward
prediction: BN will win the next general election. The numbers, the trend, the
tricks, all allow BN to win, even if without a landslide. Add in all the
goodies that have been announced just in the last few weeks, and you got a
winning formula.
But there is an activist in me (although I have never
participated in activism) that believe there is a chance that this final move
of theirs would backfire. Sure, the logic of having the general election in the
middle of the week is to suppress voter turnout. But let’s think this through. The
BN supporters, while most of them live where they are going to cast their votes,
are the complacent voters. The supporters of the federal opposition, on the
other hand, are the partisans and ideologues who are mighty serious in their
conviction for a need to have a better government. They are the ones who would
make the trek home, rain or shine, weekend or weekday, to cast their votes.
Furthermore, the supporters of the federal opposition mostly belong to the
middle and upper-middle classes; it means that they are not short of resources
to make the arrangement to go back to their kampongs. So, while there is no
doubt that voter turnout would be low than the expected 85%, I believe there is
a chance that a majority of that 85% would be made up of the opposition
supporters. Therefore, I wonder if the incumbent government thought this last
strategy through.
A month from now, let’s see if the academic in me or the
activist in me has the final laugh.
You can put on your gloves, so shall we.