SEPT 24 — It is still too early to tell whether Barisan Nasional has been plunged into a crisis. That said, the commendations offered by PM Najib to the Rakyat Bersatu rally on September 16 have indeed brought more troubles to the ruling coalition.

Despite the fact that the Red Shirts rally was teeming with seditious messages, Umno seems to have thrown its strong support behind the gathering. This has further embarrassed predominantly Chinese components within the ruling coalition, in particular MCA, giving rise to the incident whereby the Pasir Gudang MCA Youth division has declared to sever its ties with the PM.

How is MCA going to respond to such developments? While Umno wants to redeem the “dignity of the Malays,” MCA should have its own dignity to reclaim, too.

The Pasir Gudang move has drawn the ire of Umno. An exchange of words ensued and in the end, nothing has been done by MCA.

To be honest, the BN coalition, established in 1974, no longer meets the aspirations of modern Malaysians, and needs to be revamped in order to consolidate its grip of the federal administration.

BN was the successor to the Alliance formed in 1955 out of Umno, MCA and MIC. After the May 13 incident in 1969, there were talks to put together an even stronger political alliance.

The racial riots exposed the deep fears and anxieties of Malays and non-Malays alike. BN was erected upon the basis of power sharing to preserve national harmony. The coalition clinched a landslide victory in the 1974 general elections.

Interracial conflicts were capped and put well under control at a time when BN could easily secure two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat. But after the ruling coalition lost this advantage for the first time in 2008, conflicts began to surface, further protruding the supremacy of Umno within the coalition.

There were specific reasons why BN lost some of its support from the Malays, Chinese and Indian voters. Malay voters supporting the opposition parties no longer trusted the ruling model of BN while the Chinese and Indian Malaysians were increasingly frustrated with BN’s racist politics and policies.

Owing to a more marked depletion of support from non-Malay voters, other component parties within BN have been disadvantaged. Even though Umno is unable to rule the country on its own, it somehow still manages about 66% of parliamentary seats.

Without the slightest doubt, BN today is dominated by Umno which has since opted to consolidate its fundamental Malay support base before taking care of the other components in East Malaysia and MIC which still manages to rally quite a substantial percentage of Indian voters behind the ruling coalition.

Unfortunately the exposé of RM2.6 billion political donation and the 1MDB scandal has shattered the BN framework, and along with this the faith of Malaysians towards the BN administration.

Today, even the voice of an Umno divisional chief easily overwhelms that of all other BN components put together. The open criticism of Sungai Besar Umno divisional chairman Jamal Md Yunus by the MCA boss further illustrates the fact that indeed the BN mechanism is crippled.

As a matter of fact, even in the absence of a fair and transparent power sharing model, BN components have all this while learned to respect and consult one another. But after Umno have begun to lean towards conservatism, the status of BN component parties has taken a dive. For example, even though 12 component parties voiced their disapproval of the hudud law in March, BN’s official stand on the same has yet to be made public to this day.

Similarly, even as majority of BN component parties voiced out against the September 16 rally, that failed to stop Umno from condoning the racially charged assembly.

If MCA and Gerakan Rakyat still believe in BN’s ruling model, they should at least make an attempt to stop Umno from taking BN off the centrist course, or risk sinking with it.

MCA and Gerakan alone may not move Umno into action, and as such they need to join forces with other BN component parties, especially PBB from Sarawak in order check Umno and bring things back to the right track.

In the meantime, MIC’s new president S Subramaniam still needs the support of Umno, thanks to the earlier split within the party. It is therefore questionable whether the party will have any gut to voice up against the big brother.

Whether BN can eventually resolve the existing political crisis and take the country out of the current economic doldrums will very much depend on the wisdom of its leaders. 

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.