The Malaysian Insight

THE number of Malaysians supporting Dr Mahathir Mohamad and friends has spiked sharply since that day of liberation on May 9 – with one survey showing that the approval rating of the Pakatan Harapan government among Malays is about 70%.

The survey by Oppotus Research Group showed that 56% of the respondents were satisfied and 14% very satisfied with the performance of the PH administration.

This finding is impressive given that only 30% of Malays voted for PH on May 9. The face-to-face survey was conducted between June 22 and 26.

It is plausible that the jump in support among Malays is the result of early moves by the Mahathir government in promising to clean up the system, weed out corruption, conduct a thorough investigation into the 1MDB scandal and remove the GST.

Other surveys by outfits, such as Merdeka Centre, show that non-Malay support for the Mahathir administration is higher than 70%.

So, the message to PH is crystal clear: many Malaysians are in your corner. They want this government to succeed. They are willing to give the administration time to make substantive reforms.

More importantly, they understand that this project called New Malaysia is work in progress – a nation-building project where at times, baby steps in reforms have to go hand-in-hand with confidence-building measures.

But this is a new Malaysia, surely we don’t need to consider issues of race, religion and language in policy-making and how we speak and behave?

We do. 

Millions of Malaysians voted for change on May 9 but supporters of PH are not a homogenous group. They were united in their disdain for Najib Razak and gang and united in love of country but in many ways, have different expectations of what a new Malaysia should look like.

No thanks to the divide-and-rule years of Barisan Nasional, racial and religious polarisation has become entrenched here. We have become strangers in our own land.

The PH government has the mandate to break these shackles of race and religion that have held us back for decades.

It will not be easy. Communities will need to feel confident and comfortable with the pace of change. 

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng is one of the hardest working ministers in the new administration. He is also a man in a hurry.

He wants to clean up the financial mess left by Najib as soon as possible. He wants a new Malaysia where the fault lines that divide us will be blurred or better still, wiped out, immediately.

But as the firestorm of his use of Mandarin in an official government statement showed, a level of comfort must be built between different communities before the new Malaysia becomes a reality. 

The good news for Dr Mahathir and friends is that an overwhelming number of Malaysians approve of the early moves they have made since May 9.

Better still, Malaysians also understand that May 9 was only the start of building a new Malaysia. 

Use this reservoir of goodwill and support wisely. ‎Build bridges. And if necessary, choose baby steps instead of shock and awe. – June 30, 2018.