Like many others, I am still reeling from the shock of Donald Trump’s unlikely victory in the US presidential election.
Most polls showed Hillary Clinton having narrow to comfortable leads in the swing states. Most prediction models were predicting a Clinton victory. While much will be said in the next few days by academics, analysts and pundits to explain Trump’s unlikely victory, my greater fear is what his victory may spell for us in Malaysia.
Donald Trump eked out his stunning victory despite running a divisive campaign that played on the fears of the majority vis-à-vis the minorities, that made appeals to a narrow base of voters, that compelled Americans to look inwards rather than outwards and that was populist and short of policy substance. Not to mention the allegations of sexual assault that plagued his campaign just a month and a half ago.
My fear for Malaysia is that Umno may follow a similar playbook in the run up to the 14th general election.
There may be some who hope that Trump’s victory over an establishment figure like Hillary Clinton may be a precursor to a BN-Umno defeat brought about by Malaysians sick and tired of the ruling regime.
But what is more likely is that Umno will use the same politics of fear and divisiveness to pit the majority against the minorities and to win by appealing to a narrow base.
We can already see some elements on this playbook in action. The tactics of the Red Shirts led by Jamal Yunos may be a precursor to more threats of violence.
The recently proposed delimitation exercise was designed to dilute the effect of ethnically heterogenous or ‘mixed’ seats to enable Umno to win by appealing to a narrower base.
The attempts by Umno to cosy up to PAS by allowing the amendment to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act to be tabled in Parliament is also part of this playbook.
My fear is that even more divisive strategies will be thought of and carried out in the run up to GE14.
These steps were already in Umno’s playbook before Trump’s victory. My greatest fear for Malaysia is that Trump’s victory will only embolden those in Umno seeking to maintain power by emulating and expanding the Trumpean ‘winning’ strategy.
Ong Kian Ming is MP for Serdang and election strategist of the DAP.
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