Following the big Chinese vote swing in the Sarawak state election which has helped the DAP gain huge momentum leading to the 13th General Election (GE13), Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman Najib Razak warned Chinese voters that they are risking their right to have Chinese representatives in the government in the next term. Najib’s message was  aggrandized by MCA president Chua Soi Lek who had announced that MCA will not accept any position in the government should the party underperform in the upcoming GE13.

It is obvious that the statements by Najib and Chua were meant to restore the confidence of Chinese voters towards BN. However, both proved to be counterproductive as by making such remarks, the two BN leaders have only made their Pakatan Rakyat rivals look better. The remarks only confirmed that BN is getting more and more jittery over the fact that a growing number of Chinese Malaysians are turning against BN as we could see in the recent Sarawak election and past by-elections hence something drastic needs to be done.

Chua’s daring announcement was supposed to be a signal to Chinese voters that MCA will be rolling up their sleeves to ensure that Chinese reps have a place in the Cabinet. However, most see it more of a threat now that the Chinese are left with a predicament: vote for MCA or you’ll be left with no voice in the Cabinet. The same goes for Najib’s statement. Now the Chinese are forced to be more obliged to vote for MCA or else there will no longer be Chinese ministers in the Cabinet. This also has given rise to the question of whether we need to have Chinese representatives in the government for their voice to be heard.

In a country that is currently working hard to push for a racial unity, the cohesive pronouncements from BN ‘s two main honchos somehow emphasized BN’s obsession with race politics. BN must come to terms with the present reality and that the acclamation they had received for championing a particular race in the yesteryears is over. The rakyat now are partial to be called Malaysians rather than Malay, Chinese, Indian, Orang Asal etc. The rakyat is also more aware on the importance of maintaining unity among races and BN has lost touch with this collective standpoint even with Najib’s introduction of 1Malaysia. While the rakyat is crying out for unity, BN leaders have failed to make significant progress to strengthen the camaraderie among the diverse cultures of this country.

The calls, or rather camouflaged threats, by Najib and Chua falls short of bringing the needed morale up among BN supporters considering they were suggesting that Chinese voters have to vote for MCA no matter what. The move was also a backward step to realizing the 1Malaysia concept and this has given the opposition an upper hand in so many ways. DAP have been exploiting this issue by portraying BN as a party that’s obsolete for it is desperately clinging to the outdated race-based politics platform. Always thinking of the future and being a few steps ahead of BN, DAP has been reaching to young voters to vote for them by employing an obverse approach. Presently, the party has been downplaying their ‘Middle Malaysia’ stance and instead selling their ‘DAP for All’ image – just as like PAS did when it went through its ‘moderate Muslim’ rebranding exercise which did help the party to garner non-Muslim/Malay votes.

With GE13 looming, DAP has been aggressive in making the public to see is as a multiracial party that’s not restricted not Chinese members, or voters for that matter. The contrast between DAP’s modernized ‘open’ game plan and BN’s ‘threatening’ approach one can be confused over which party would be the one which genuinely support the 1Malaysia concept.

*The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer.