THE year 2012 will be remembered as the election year that never was.
The bonuses for civil servants will not be fully paid out until January next year.
There are 1.3 million civil servants in Malaysia. When you include family members, roughly nine million Malaysians are directly related to civil servants.
That’s about one-third of the Malaysian population.
With Sarawak and Sabah’s support for Barisan Nasional possibly slipping by a few seats in the next polls, waiting for the feel-good factor to reach its peak among civil servants can be seen as an attempt to secure a reliable “fixed depo-sit”.
Moreover, only after January next year will the second round of the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M), or BR1M 2.0, go out. The RM500 hand-outs to the poor will do much to sway sentiment, especially outside the urban centres. Minimum wage will only kick in after the new year.
Based on these reasons, it is a safe bet that the elections would only be held next year.
But you never know.
About six months ago, I wrote confidently that the elections would be held middle of the year, with high chances of it being called in June. I wrote that the feel-good factor would be high after the Minimum Wage Policy was announced on the eve of Labour Day.
Also, I agreed with various reports quoting senior ministers in Sarawak saying that the lasting impact of the first round of BR1M would not go beyond a few months. At that time, few thought BR1M would be repeated.
Back then, I also saw election campaign materials arriving at both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat parties’ headquarters.
At the PBB headquarters in Petra Jaya, the entire basement was fully stacked with boxes of campaign materials including flags, shirts and umbrellas.
Back then, however, I did note that I could be wrong. In a column near mid-year (when I rea-lised my prediction was fast approaching without signs of an impending general election), I wrote that the election pre-campaigns had become a battle of the two Bs — BR1M and Bersih.
BR1M was going to maintain the rural Barisan vote bank while Bersih was a defiant show of the urban middle class’s growing political clout.
The last Bersih rally in central Kuala Lumpur was timed to delay the elections which could have blunted Barisan’s confidence.
Today, I still believe that the next general election will essentially be a class struggle. For the lower income group, BR1M is significant because RM500 per household is like a month’s bonus or more.
Bersih advocates, on the other hand, are people who have fewer worries about basic necessities. Their voting decision is based on whether their children learn in English or their mother tongue, or in Bahasa Malaysia at schools.
They have more concerns about freedom of speech and the corporate tax rate than the price of sugar.
“Those who have less will not be adventu-rous in their voting patterns,” a veteran politician once told me.
He is right of course, which is why there is BR1M 2.0 next year and a Bersih 2.0 concert being organised for this Sunday.
Election fatigue anyone? The cure, ironically, is the general election. The year 2012 is probably not going to be remembered as an election year.
This time I’m sure.
But don’t take my word for it.
The only certain thing is that the elections should be on by the middle of next year.
Unless, of course, it is called this year.
*Taken from The Star Online : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/10/10/sarawak/12147469&sec=sarawak
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